Abstract：
Social-emotional problems can emerge as early as the first years of life and are associated with a broad range of negative outcomes throughout the lifespan. There is convincing evidence that poorer executive functions (EF) are associated with more social-emotional problems during childhood and adolescence. However, the nature, persistence, and direction of the associations between different components of EF and social-emotional problems in toddlerhood remain unclear. Using two complementary statistical approaches, the present study aimed to (a) identify the role of EF components (inhibitory control, cognitive flexibility, and working memory) in the emergence and maintenance of social-emotional problems during toddlerhood, and (b) explore potential bidirectional associations between toddlers\' EF and social-emotional problems. EF and social-emotional problems were assessed around 13, 19, and 28 months of age in a sample of 133 typically developing toddlers (51% boys) from mostly White middle-class families. At each time point, EF were measured with three behavioral tasks and social-emotional problems with a well-validated questionnaire completed by mothers. Multilevel growth models revealed a significant increase in social-emotional problems across toddlerhood and a negative association between inhibitory control and social-emotional problems that persisted across time. Controlling for stability across time, cross-lagged panel models indicated that child inhibitory control at 19 months negatively predicted child social-emotional problems at 28 months, but not the reverse. This study highlights that toddlerhood is a period of significant increase in social-emotional problems and provides evidence for the protective role of early inhibitory control skills against the development of social-emotional problems during toddlerhood.
摘要：
社会情绪问题早在生命的头几年就会出现，并在整个生命周期中与广泛的负面结果有关。有令人信服的证据表明，较差的执行功能（EF）与儿童和青少年时期更多的社会情绪问题有关。然而,大自然,持久性,EF的不同组成部分与幼儿时期的社会情绪问题之间的关联方向尚不清楚。使用两种互补的统计方法，本研究旨在(A)确定EF成分的作用(抑制控制，认知灵活性，和工作记忆）在幼儿时期社会情绪问题的出现和维持中，(b)探索幼儿EF与社会情绪问题之间潜在的双向关联。在主要来自白人中产阶级家庭的133名通常发育中的幼儿（51％的男孩）的样本中，评估了年龄在13、19和28个月左右的EF和社会情绪问题。在每个时间点,通过母亲填写的经过充分验证的问卷，通过三项行为任务和社会情绪问题来测量EF。多层次增长模型显示，整个幼儿时期的社会情绪问题显着增加，并且抑制控制与社会情绪问题之间存在负相关，这种负相关持续了一段时间。控制跨时间的稳定性，交叉滞后面板模型表明，19个月时的儿童抑制控制对28个月时的儿童社会情绪问题有负面影响，但不是相反。这项研究强调，幼儿时期是社会情绪问题显着增加的时期，并为幼儿时期早期抑制控制技能对社会情绪问题发展的保护作用提供了证据。
