Child Representation & Regulation Project (ChiRRP)

This project aims to understand the specific relations between how children think and feel about themselves, others, and relationships (i.e., representation) and various indices of regulation (e.g., emotional, behavioral, physiological, and interpersonal). We are interested in understanding how early experience affects these representational and regulatory systems to influence child adaptation. We are especially interested in how features of the parent-child relationship may strengthen or undermine these systems individually, and/or the relationship between them.

This study is in the data collection and pilot analysis stage. 4-year-old children are drawn from various agencies, particularly those serving low-income and/or families at risk for child maltreatment. Joined by their caregivers, children are evaluated in the Adversity and Adaptation Lab using behavioral observations of the child in a series of game-like tasks and of caregiver-child interactions. In addition, questionnaire and interview data are gathered from the child, caregivers, and teachers.

This study addresses key questions about the relation between representation and regulation, if and how these relations may vary as a function of early childhood experience, and how they affect children's early socioemotional and academic functioning. Future expansions of this work will include longitudinal follow-up at age 6 and the incorporation of biological measures of stress reactivity and regulation (e.g., vagal tone, cortisol).

Adapting to Aging Out:

Risk & Resilience Among Former Foster Youth

This study will launch this fall with a diverse sample of high-risk adolescents (ages 17-21) to explore the experiences of youth transitioning out of the foster care system and into adult independence, a process commonly referred to as “aging out.” This is a mixed methods longitudinal study that will focus on trajectories of education, employment, health and relationships among transition-age youth. Interviews are collected on an annual basis, in addition to objective reports from youths' friends, school records, and child protection records.

This study focuses on a new notion of “cascading representations” in an effort to understand how early relational experiences, and the expectations they engender, spill over to shape development and adaptation in age-salient domains of functioning. This research advances beyond identification and quantification of material barriers to care and success, to explore the internal, psychological, and representational processes that may serve as equally strong barriers to success among adversity-exposed young people.

The Young Adult Adaptation Survey

(YAAS)

Amidst dramatic increases in distress and risk-taking among adolescents and young adults, the Young Adult Adaptation Survey examines the etiology and developmental pathways underlying trajectories toward and away from specific (mal)adaptive outcomes. In keeping with the AD Lab's interest in both positive and negative development, we are interested in processes leading to psychopathology (e.g., substance use, dating violence, risk-taking), as well as those contributing to competence (e.g., self-esteem, emotion regulation, positive attachment to friends and family). We are especially interested in mechanisms that explain if and how adverse and traumatic experiences in childhood influence these developmental pathways.

This survey study will be completed in the winter of 2008 with a sample of ~2700 college students. The survey focuses on adverse life events in childhood, various symptoms related to traumatic experience, and adaptation with respect to age-salient developmental issues in young adulthood, including relationships with peers, partners, and family, and adjustment to school and work. Data are gathered via the individual administration of questionnaires to students drawn from the UCR participant pool. This study aims to understand if and how childhood experiences influence pathways toward and away from specific (mal)adaptive outcomes (e.g., substance use, self-injury, eating disorders, relationship quality, school achievement).