Research studies have found that very-low-birth-weight (VLBW) preterm children exhibit a greater incidence of behavioral problems, with hyperactivity and attention deficits most consistently discriminating between VLBW and normal birth weight children. The accumulating research evidence has led researchers to suggest that children's specific deficits in attention skills largely contribute to their behavioral problems. To date, the nature of the relation between attention skill deficits and behavioral disorders has not be explicated. Given that VLBW children show deficits in attention and attention control strategies are necessary for successful emotion regulation, it is likely that VLBW children also have deficits in emotion regulation. This project will test a model that demonstrates that individual differences in VLBW children's behavioral outcomes and social competence are a function of attention and cognitive/language deficits, negative emotional reactivity, and parenting style, as mediated by children's emotion regulation. Eighty 4-year old VLBW (less than 1500 gm) children (40 high-risk and 40 low-risk) and 40 full-term normal birth weight (greater than 2500 gm) children, and their mothers, will participate in this project. A home visit will be conducted to obtain informed consent and screen children's motor skills. During a second home visit, children's coping skills will be assessed, and mothers' and children's behaviors will be observed for 60-minutes in a naturalistic observation period. Mothers will be given measures of child temperament, behavior problems, and parenting style to complete. Within one week of the home visit, mothers and their children will be asked to come to the laboratory. During the laboratory visit, cognitive, attention, and language assessments will be completed. Children's adaptive behavior will be assessed via mother interview. Children and their mothers will also participate in a set of structured procedures that are designed to assess children's negative emotional reactivity, emotion regulation skills, compliance behavior, and parenting behaviors. The procedures include: a) a 6-minute delay task, b) a 15-minute semi-structured play period (with mother), c) a 5-minute compliance task, and d) a 5-minute barrier task.
