Childrens temperament: How it affects relationships and readiness for learning

1
Childrens temperament How it affects
relationships and readiness for learning

• Professor Ann Sanson
• Department of Paediatrics, University of
  Melbourne
• Coordinator, Australian Research Alliance for
  Children and Youth (ARACY)
• ARC/NHMRC Research Network
• Principal Scientific Advisor, Growing Up in
  Australia (LSAC)
• Hume Early Years Conference
• How do you grow a community for children?
• 25th-26th June 2008, Hume Global Learning Centre,
  Broadmeadows

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Overview

• What is temperament? (a little bit of history,
• philosophy, psychology and cultural studies)
• How does it affect childrens social, emotional
  and
• cognitive development?
• What role do parents, carers, teachers
• and program developers have in this?
• (and, for something completely different)
• How were children positioned at the 2020 Summit

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What is temperament?

• History from ancient Greeks to 20th century
• Philosophy paradigm shift
• Psychology nature and components of
• temperament
• Culture and context goodness of fit

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What is temperament?

• the basic nature of a person, visible from
  infancy and relatively stable
• Major dimensions
• Reactivity
• Self-regulation
• Approach/withdrawal (shyness/sociability)
• has a biological basis and partially heritable
• contributes to all aspects of development
• affects others responses to the child
• is related to personality
• refers to the style not content of behaviour
• relatively stable

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What is temperament?

• History from ancient Greeks to 20th century
• Philosophy paradigm shift
• Psychology nature and components of
• temperament
• Culture and context goodness of fit

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(How) does temperament matter?

• In our research, for almost all later outcomes
• some of the origins are in early childhood, and
• some of this is temperament
• How?
• Direct effects
• Indirect effects
• Interactive effects

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The Australian Temperament Project

• http//www.aifs.gov.au/atp

• A longitudinal study of childrens development
  and wellbeing from infancy to adulthood
• Representative sample of over 2400 children from
  across Victoria
• 15 waves of data since 1983, at 1-2 yearly
  intervals
• Data from parents, teachers, nurses and the
  participants themselves
• Data on
• Temperament
• Child and adolescent health, behavioural and
  emotional problems
• School adjustment, social competence and civic
  mindedness
• Family functioning, parenting style and
  relationships
• Peer relationships
• Sociodemographic characteristics (etc)

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ATP Early childhood findings

• 3-4 years aggressive behaviour, hyperactivity and
  anxiety/fear
• Infant temperament was weak predictor on its own
• When combined with 2-4 other risk factors
• (e.g. prematurity, mother-child relationship, low
  SES,
• male gender), strong predictor cumulative risk
• Children with persistent behaviour problems from
  3 to 8 years
• More likely to have difficult temperament from
  early childhood
• And more stressed mothers with less social
  support
• Gender differences few in infancy, increase
  over time
• Boys more active, less persistent
• Reactivity and non-persistence strong predictors
  for boys
• Other factors (parent-child relationships,
  parenting) also important
• for girls

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ATP Middle childhood

• Reading problems poor attention regulation only
  for
• those also with behaviour problems (Margot
  Prior)
• Problem peer relationships at 11-12 years
• More irritable, reactive at 1-3 years early
  behav probs
• Shy children who lose their shyness (Warren Cann,
  PRC)
• Warm parents, less control thru guilt and
  anxiety,
• fewer expectations of autonomy
• Social competence persistence and negative
  reactivity
• Resilient children in high-stressed families
• easy-going, positive temperament (Jan Smith)
• Emotional control, persistence

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Temperament and school

• Temperament is related to
• Transition to school
• School achievement
• Response to instructional methods
• Teacher-child relationships
• Peer relationships
• Classroom behaviour

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ATP Adolescent findings

• Poly-substance users at 15-16 years (2 of
  alcohol, tobacco,
• marijuana, sniffing, hard drugs)
• Infancy - less rhythmic
• Toddler - les persistent less cooperative more
  active
• School age - more aggressive more inflexible
• Early adolescence as above and poorer school
  and parent
• relationships delinquent behaviour deviant
  peers
• Temperament leads to difficulties in family,
  school, and community life
• early steps on path to later substance abuse
• risks operate cumulatively
• prevention starts in childhood
• but pathways stay open to change

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Monitoring as a moderator of association between
negative reactivity and conduct disorder
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Parental warmth moderates the relationship
between negative reactivity and depression
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Other evidence of parenting temperament
interactions

• Conscience development in preschoolers
  (Eisenberg)
• For fearful toddlers gentle maternal discipline
• For fearless toddlers firmer discipline,
  attachment security
• and responsiveness
• Acting-out at 4 years (Sanson Hemphill)
• For high reactive toddlers - low parental warmth,
  high
• punishment or low inductive reasoning
• For uninhibited toddlers more punishment
• Depression at 15 years (Finnish study)
• Low maternal role satisfaction and difficult
  child (high
• active, low sociable, high neg. emotionality) at
  6 yrs -gt hostile
• parenting (emotional rejection, strict) at 9 yrs
  -gt depression

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Temperament-based interventions

• Irritable infants (van den Boom)
• low SES mothers with irritable infants received
  brief, individualized
• intervention to promote maternal responsiveness
  and decrease intrusiveness
• and uninvolvement
• improved maternal responsiveness and stimulation
  child sociability,
• exploratory behaviour quality of attachment at
  1 and 3.5 years
• Highly withdrawn children (Ron Rapee)
• Parent training led to less anxiety at 1 year
  follow-up
• (but no change in temperament)
• Acting out in primary school children (McClowry)
• INSIGHTS school based program for parents and
  teachers
• temperament-based strategies to reduce behaviour
  problems
• Fewer behaviour problems at home (esp if
  initially high on ADHD, ODD, CD)
• less aggressive behaviour and inattention for
  boys at school

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What should we do as parents, carers, teachers
and service-providers?

• Attend to child individuality - not as easy or
  difficult but
• as different
• Aim for a good fit
• Take whole person perspective temperament,
  social behaviour
• and cognitive development are closely linked
  comorbidity is high
• Be aware of how children push our buttons -
  avoid coercive
• or negative cycles of interaction,
  overprotectiveness, etc.
• Promote early intervention target attention- and
  emotion-
• regulation

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Australian Temperament ProjectSome learnings

• Differences in childrens temperament matter for
  their development
• The early years of life matter, but so do later
  periods
• Pathways can start early but remain open to
  change - prevention and
• early intervention, but not only early
• The reality of resilience - change is possible
  and common dont despair!
• Interdependence between aspects of a childs life
• need for a holistic perspective
• Most do well - expect well . But around 25 have
  adjustment difficulties
• Many problems co-occur and multiplicity of
  influences
• SO multi-modal interventions - roles for
  parents, schools, communities
• Multiplicity of pathways - many roads to Rome
• Close ties with policy and practice are needed to
  ensure uptake of findings
• And longitudinal studies are worth the effort

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Growing Up in AustraliaThe Longitudinal Study
of Australian Children A valuable new resource

• National coverage
• 10,000 children
• 2 age cohorts (infants and 4-5 year olds)
• Close link between researchers, policy-makers and
  service- providers
• Multi-disciplinary
• Ecological model
• Holistic view of children
• Extensive multi-source data
• Data accessible to researchers

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Australian Research Alliance for Children and
Youth

• ARACY is a broker of collaborations, a
  disseminator of ideas and an advocate for
  Australias future generation

• Context worrying trends on many dimensions of
  child youth health and development
• Aim to improve the wellbeing of children and
  young people through the promotion of
  collaboration (across disciplines and across
  sectors) and evidence-based action to address the
  big issues in childrens health and development
• Over 800 organisational and individual members
  and Network participants across Australia

http//www.aracy.org.au
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ARACY ARC/NHMRC Research Network Future
Generation - Some Initiatives

• Seed-funding of innovative collaborations
  bringing together researchers,
• policy makers and practitioners
• New Investigators Network building capacity of
  talented early career
• researchers in interdisciplinary research and
  knowledge translation
• Knowledge-brokering - evidence into action
• Prevention science evidence-based approach
• Longitudinal studies - making better use of
  existing data sources
• Access grid seminars
• http//www.aracy.org.au/AM/Template.cfm?SectionNe
  twork

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2020 Ambitions and Goals of Strengthening
Communities, Stronger Families and Social
Inclusion stream

• By 2020, Australia is known throughout the world
  for its diverse, compassionate,
• fair and respectful society.
• By 2020, every Australian
• is valued by, and participating in, society
• has meaningful access to education, work, health,
  housing, justice, care
• and life opportunities
• has a safe, healthy and supported childhood that
  allows them to fulfil
• their potential
• By 2020, Australian society
• embraces and celebrates indigenous people
• focuses on long-term prevention and is
  experiencing the benefits of a
• return on social investment
• regards social inclusion as equal and integral to
  a buoyant economy
• and a healthy environment