Developmental Psychology Commons^™

Motivated Attention To Social And Nonsocial Reward Images: Examining Relations With Externalizing Risk In Children, Adaeze C. Egwuatu

Doctoral Dissertations

Children that exhibit issues with externalizing behaviors often experience maladaptive outcomes in later life. Externalizing problems during middle childhood (e.g., 6-10 years old) are linked to issues with emotion regulation, which are, in turn, caused by disrupted attention and emotion reactivity to reward. Externalizing problems during this period have also been linked diminished processing of social reward stimuli, suggesting externalizing risk in children may be reflected in contrasting patterns in processing of non-social and social rewards. However, research comparing how differences in affective processing of specific reward content (i.e. social versus non-social) patterns relate to externalizing behavior within normative development …

Children's Self-Regulation During Reward Delay, Abigail Fontaine

Masters Theses

Individuals who display high levels of reward sensitivity are motivated by and respond to reward related cues, thus exhibiting more approach-motivated behaviors. A majority of the research on physiological indices of reward sensitivity in relation to self-regulatory abilities has focused on adults or adolescents, with relatively little work examining these associations in children. Thus, the current study sought to examine whether a common neural measure of reward sensitivity, left frontal electroencephalogram (EEG) asymmetry, assessed in early childhood was predictive of children’s later self-regulation abilities in the context of reward delay. Emerging inhibitory control skills were also examined as a potential …

The Impact Of Television Program Diet On Children's Achievement, Heather J. Lavigne

Doctoral Dissertations

In this study, three waves of data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics’s Child Development Supplement were used to examine patterns of children’s early TV exposure and its influence on middle childhood and adolescence. Analyses examined the pathways of influence depending on whether a dosage (hours of exposure) or diet (proportion of content to total TV time) variable was used. Results revealed that, in a dosage model, violent hours of early TV exposure were associated with decreases in independent reading and increases in externalizing behavior problems, but these did not predict later achievement. Early educational TV amount of exposure …

Through A Critical Sociocultural Lens: Parents’ Perspectives Of An Early Childhood Program In Guatemala, Yaëlle Stempfelet

Master's Capstone Projects

The present case study is on an Early Childhood program in Guatemala based on participant parents’ feedback. The Early Childhood program is non-formal, focuses on emergent literacy and nutrition, and takes place in a community-run library in a poor, semi-rural town in the mountainous regions of Quiche, Guatemala. The library was set up by a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) that works in Guatemala as well as another neighboring country.

Using a critical sociocultural lens, this study assumes that the parents’ perceptions reflect the state of the program and that involving their feedback through this research will ultimately help to bolster the …

The Influence Of Television Exposure On Infants' Toy Play, Katherine G. Hanson

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

The association between television exposure and infants’ toy play was examined. Specifically, differences in the amount of program content and coviewing in the home were expected to predict different patterns of play when children were away from television. This thesis also sought to extend Pempek’s (2007) findings indicating that the more parents coviewed certain baby videos (i.e., Sesame Beginnings) in the home with their children, the more likely these parents actively engaged with their children in the laboratory. Consequently, the current thesis examined whether or not this active engagement resulted in something meaningful for children’s play behaviors. Parents of infants …