Abstract

This study aimed to investigate the impact an intervention targeting emotional self-regulation skills had on young children and their attention and self-control. Seventeen preschool children participated in a ten-week intervention that provided explicit instruction in emotional self-regulation, presented in a developmentally appropriate manner. Results indicated that the intervention had measurable effects on both attention and demonstrable self-control skills.

1. Introduction

There are numerous theories of child development, and what prepares children for kindergarten. There are many factors to consider for each individual child who walks into a preschool classroom, like socioeconomic status, temperament, learning ability, literacy, access to education, mental health, and the list goes on and on. When selecting curriculum and/or instructional strategies, it takes time to learn what strategies best fit a class, and the individual children in a classroom.

As an early childhood educator, it is a daunting task to make sure all the students in the classroom are being prepared to enter kindergarten, and the biggest question that arises, given the limited time in each instructional day is, what is the most important skill set to teach children that will help them adjust to the expectations of and academic rigor now present in kindergarten? Many early childhood educators would purport that emergent literacy is the most important skill set to teach, and that helping children recognize letters and numbers best prepares them for kindergarten curriculum. Other early childhood educators would state that teaching children behavioral expectations is most important because children need to be able to follow directions and meet expectations of their teachers. While these competencies are important and needed in preschool, there is a more important competency to consider. A child’s ability to control their own emotional responses and behaviors in the classroom is highly predictive of future academic success and mental health ^{1, 2}.

If children are unable to control their emotions and reactions in a classroom, they will likely struggle to fully participate in emergent literacy and other foundation content area activities ³. They will also likely struggle with following behavioral expectations. There is a real need for support of the development of self-regulation skills in preschool classrooms and for early childhood educators to view emotional self-regulation as a primary goal within their classrooms.

Cognitive-behavioral theory aims at addressing the interactions between how children think, feel and behave. Cognitive-behavioral theory is a structured approach to assist children in resolving their problem behaviors and maladaptive emotions by supporting their thinking forms or cognition. The intervention programs based on cognitive-behavioral theory are likely to involve the cognitive, emotional, or behavioral processes.

Research studies ⁴ with a variety of teachers and students with a wide range of behavioral needs have shown over and over again that when teachers use cognitive-behavioral strategies in their classroom, the effects on student behavior have been effective and positive in managing behavior. Cognitive-behavioral therapeutic interventions are increasingly recognized as a viable, research-based approach appropriate for use in school settings.

2. Emotional Self-Regulation: Extant Research

Extant research on emotional self-regulation illustrates its importance in early childhood education ⁵. This literature examines what emotional self-regulation is, why it is important to teach in preschool, what programs exist to teach self-regulation skills in young children, and potential interventions that promote emotional self-regulation.

The existing literature on self-regulation has an overarching theme of self-regulation being critical for the social emotional adjustment of children throughout their lifespan, and how maladaptive strategies for emotional self-regulation can have negative repercussions for individuals who do not develop appropriate coping strategies ³. Berk ⁶ describes emotional self-regulation as the ability of individuals to control their expression of emotions, through a variety of strategies for adjusting emotional arousal to a more comfortable level. She maintains that by three or four years of age, children should be able to verbalize a variety of strategies to help themselves self-regulate their emotions. Berk ⁶ also maintains that the ability to self- regulate helps children to limit their emotional outbursts, so that these moments of emotional deregulation will decline overtime.

Preschool children who can distract themselves when they feel frustration become more cooperative school-aged children, who have fewer problem behaviors ⁶. Supplee, Skuban, Trentacosta, Shaw & Stoltz ⁷ assert that children who do not have effective self- regulatory skills may choose less appropriate responses to their emotions, like aggression or emotional outbursts, whereas children who are able to shift their focus in an emotional situation have been shown to show less externalized behaviors and are more likely to be cooperative in school. Graziano, Slavec, Hart, Garcia & Pelham ⁸ assert that externalized behavior problems actually hinder children’s school readiness and their transitions into the early school years, because these children lack the ability to focus attention on learning. They believe there needs to be more focus on the emergence of self-regulation skills as they can assist children in controlling their behaviors, attention, and emotions, to then focus on learning outcomes. Social emotional learning and self-regulatory skills are indicators of psychosocial adaptation, and they are important in the prevention of academic difficulties, mental health disorders, and future psychosocial conflicts ⁹.

Early childhood is seemingly critical to the development of these emotional self-regulation strategies, and without the appropriate tools to develop these skills children could end up having more behavioral difficulties in school and later in life. Self-control, defined by Duckworth and Steinberg ¹⁰ includes “actions aligned with valued, longer-term goals in the face of conflicting impulses to seek immediate gratification” (p. 1). Emotional self-regulation (a form of self-control) is associated with executive functioning and not only predicts school engagement, but also school outcomes ¹¹. Self-regulation has been associated with academic achievement and social competence, and children who have higher levels of self-regulatory skills have been shown to have higher SAT scores and are perceived as more interpersonally competent by peers and adults ¹².

While self-regulation skills have been shown to impact the lives of children positively, the effects of not mastering self-regulatory skills have been shown to have negative repercussions on children. Young children who lack control of impulsivity, and display inattention, tend to display problems with emotional self-regulation which can significantly limit the opportunities for some children to learn from teachers and peers ¹³. A lack of self-regulatory skills can also lead to children in preschool or primary school being labelled as behavioral problems, because their lack of emotional control can lead to outbursts that are frequent, intense, and sustained for long periods of time ⁵. These repercussions can follow children throughout their schooling and affect their lives negatively. Veijalainen, Reunamo, Sajaniemi & Suhonen ¹⁴ assert that early difficulties in self-regulation skills, and the ability to tolerate frustration, can lead children to form maladaptive behaviors that later affect their health and success in work. So, with early childhood being a critical period for the development on self-regulation skills, what kind of programs already exist?

Emerging research provides a base for examination of curriculum and/or programs that target self-regulation; however, most of these focus on older children. For example, Wilson, Polite, & Wilson ¹⁵ describe an empirically supported, targeted, school-based, culturally congruent mentoring program provided through Prime Fit Youth Foundation with elementary students that has had statistically significant effects on mentees’ use of self-regulation strategies and sense of self-efficacy. There are only a handful of empirically supported programs with curriculum that focus on self-regulation skills at the preschool level. Gershon & Pellitteri ¹¹ reviewed four programs that are evidence based and center around emotional self-regulation strategies based in social learning theory, coercion theory, pretend play, and cognitive regulations. The programs reviewed were Preschool PATHS, Preschool RULER, Incredible Years, and Al’s Pals. They found that these programs used a variety of strategies to address and improve children’s problem-solving skills, emotional skills, and social behaviors. Preschool PATHS consists of 33 weekly lessons that address friendship skills, awareness and communication of emotions, self-control strategies and skills for interpreting and coping with difficult situations. Lessons include emotional modeling, emotional coaching, puppets, role-play games and discussions. Gershon & Pelliterri ¹¹ found through their review that children who participated in the Preschool PATHS program had higher emotional knowledge and were more socially competent than their peers who did not participate, when rates by teachers and parents. They were also less socially withdrawn from peers. This shows that emotional self-regulation is important to building relationships between students, teachers, and peers.

Gershon & Pelliterri ¹¹ found similar results in the other programs as well. Incredible Years curriculum focuses on enhancing classroom management and climate through children’s ability to self-regulate and teaches emotional awareness, empathy, perspective taking, friendship skills, anger management and social problem-solving. Children who participated in the program showed greater social competence and emotional self-regulation skills, while also displaying fewer behavioral problems. Preschool RULER emphasizes trusting relationships between children and caregivers and through this program teachers specifically teach social and emotional skills to children, with opportunities for real-life practice. There is a feelings vocabulary built into the program, which helps children identify feelings and build coping strategies. Gershon & Pelliteri ¹¹ found that children who participated in Preschool RULER exhibited higher scores when recognizing and labeling emotions than children who did not participate in the program.

Al’s Pals is resiliency research that fosters social-emotional skills like self-control, problem solving and conflict resolution, as well as healthy decision making. Gershon and Pelliterri ¹¹ found that children who participated in the program had strengthened social-emotional competence, positive coping skills, and less anti-social behaviors. Their review of these four existing programs shows that teaching children self-regulation skills in early childhood can lead to better social-emotional outcomes overall.

Raver, Li-Grining, Bub, Jones, Zhai & Pressler ¹³ reviewed and tested the Chicago School Readiness Project (CSRP) to test the effects of the program on low-income preschoolers’ preacademic skills of self-regulation. They described CSRP as a program that was designed to support low-income children’s self-regulation and opportunities to learn by providing teachers with training on how to effectively manage classrooms and children’s dysregulated behaviors by implementing clearer rules, having consistent daily routines, rewarding positive behavior, and redirecting negative behaviors. Raver, Li-Grining, Bub, Jones, Zhai & Pressler ¹³ tested the effectiveness of CSRP by using two cohorts of preschool aged children, between nine different preschool sites, with two classrooms at each site for the test group, and nine different sites with 17 classrooms participating in the control group. They collected baseline data for both groups, and post-intervention data. What Raver, Li-Grining, Bub, Jones, Zhai & Pressler ¹³ found was that children who participated in the CSRP program had increased learning opportunities, which were evidenced by significant improvements in vocabulary, letter-naming, and math skills when compared with the students who were in the control group. These results again show that children who are given opportunities to learn and develop self-regulation skills in a classroom environment have better learning outcomes than their peers who do not participate in social- emotional interventions. What is important to note, is that the programs that were reviewed in this section were evidence-based programs that have been reviewed and replicated in multiple settings. However, there are other interventions that show some promise that have also been reviewed in the literature surrounding emotional self-regulation.

While most researchers prefer to use evidence-based practices and curriculum to form interventions, all research must begin somewhere. The literature on emotional self-regulation is still developing, as past curriculum focused mostly on emergent literacy skills in preschool, and building skills for academic success, consideration of the role that social-emotional well-being plays in the ability of a child to participate in an educational environment is in its infancy in terms of research effort. The literature on emotional self-regulation includes a few interventions that are based in mindfulness techniques to help guide children into emotional self-regulation. Flook, Goldberg, Pinger & Davidson ¹² investigated the effectiveness of a 12-week, mindfulness-based program called Kindness Curriculum (KC) in preschool, in a public-school setting. The KC program cultivates attention through mindfulness practices, as well as emotional regulation skills, with an emphasis on kindness. The training consisted of 20-30 minutes lessons each week, over a 12-week period. Flook, Goldberg, Pinger & Davidson ¹² measured tasks like sharing, delay of gratification, and grades of the intervention group versus the control group. They found that the students who participated in KC had higher grades, were more likely to share, and were more patient during delay of gratification tasks. These results suggest that mindfulness trainings can assist students in building emotional self-regulation skills.

Wolff & Stapp ¹⁶ also studied emotional self-regulation through an alternative form of curriculum. They studied the effects of yoga on preschool children’s behaviors, and the teachers’ perspectives of the yoga. Wolff & Stapp ¹⁶ assert that yoga is beneficial for both physical and mental health, being that it focuses on breathing and positioning the body in mindful stances. They also asserted that yoga would have a positive effect on self-regulation and attention skills, because yoga increases the awareness of surroundings and causes the mind to focus. This study was conducted over six months, in a preschool setting, in four classrooms. Two classrooms of three-year-old students, and two classrooms of 4-year-old students participated in the program. Teachers of the students were interviewed using semi-structured interview techniques. What the researchers found was that the teachers had little buy-in at the beginning of the study, because they thought the children were too immature for yoga. However, as the study continued, the teachers developed more buy-in because they started to notice their students were calmer in the classroom. Teachers also noted that their students were able to talk about what they learned in the yoga class when they would discuss how to calm themselves down. The researchers found that some teachers even started incorporating the yoga techniques into their own classroom curriculum.

Razza, Bergen-Cisco & Raymond ¹⁷ also evaluated the effectiveness of a mindfulness-based yoga program in promoting self-regulation with preschool children. Their study included 29 children, 13 control group children and 16 intervention group children. Their program took place over a whole school year, and the yoga was implemented daily by a teacher who was certified in yoga. What they found through pre-test post-test results was that children in the intervention groups had higher focused attention scores and had higher levels of executive functioning and effortful control. Khalsa & Butzer ¹⁸ completed a systematic review of the efficacy of school-based yoga interventions that had been published in peer-reviewed journals. They found that yoga-based interventions were still emerging, so there was a high degree of variability in the yoga-based interventions when it came to how long they were used, whether they were built into the curriculum or as a formal yoga program, who taught the yoga, and how long the sessions lasted. Khalsa & Butler ¹⁸ did find that the publications did suggest that yoga in the school setting is a viable option for improving the health of children, but they believe that more research needs to be done. What these studies suggest is that yoga is another potential intervention technique to assist children in building their emotional self-regulation skills through deep breathing, and mindfulness.

The preschool years are especially important in preparing children for kindergarten ¹⁹. Children learn so many new skills in preschool, and some of those skills should be self- regulation skills. Dennis & Kelemen ²⁰ argue that preschool is particularly important to the development of emotional self-regulation skills because this period is characterized by changes in children’s insight into the nature of emotions and the link between feelings and behavior. Roben, Cole & Armstrong ⁵ seemingly agree with this notion, as they argue that the transition from toddlerhood to the preschool age is crucial to emotional development, as most children in preschool are learning to decrease the intensity, frequency, and longevity of their angry reactions. They argue that preschool children who are unable to control their angry reactions start to be viewed as emotionally dysregulated, or behavioral issues. Russell, Lee, Spieker & Oxford ²¹ assert that self-regulation skills are a part of important social competencies for school readiness, and the developmental impact on social interactions from infancy through preschool prepare children for primary school, its heightened expectations, and rigorous intellectual demands. If children are taught emotional self-regulation skills in preschool, they can utilize those same skills when they reach kindergarten to help themselves adjust and not become overwhelmed. Preschool is also a great time to teach children emotional self-regulation skills because they are developing a broader vocabulary during this time, and feelings identification can be used to help preschoolers explain in words how they are feeling on the inside. This could assist in children using words more, and externalized behaviors less.

In summary, research provides a clear indication that emotional self-regulation skills are essential for children to experience academic and other factors of success. Extant research has focused primarily on older students (e.g., elementary, and older) and interventions or programs have been primarily implemented by specialists or resea4rchers. What is lacking in the literature is exploration of self-regulation interventions with young children, in an authentic early childhood classroom, implemented by an early childhood educator.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of an intervention targeting teaching young children emotional self-regulation skills had on the children’s attention and self-control. The research question addressed was: How does explicit instruction and application of emotional self-regulation skills impact preschoolers’ attention and self-control skills?

3. Methodology

This was a mixed methods study (quantitative and qualitative), conducted in a Prekindergarten classroom in a large, urban public school district. The teacher is a licensed early childhood educator with five years of experience. The classroom consisted of 17 children aged 4-5 years old. Convenience sampling was used. The study was ten weeks in duration, consisting of two weeks for pre-intervention observations, six weeks of intervention, and two additional week of post- intervention observation.

As aforementioned, participants were seventeen children attending a public PreK program housed within a Title 1 elementary school. Table 1 provides an overview of demographic data.

Prior to the intervention, the classroom teacher and para-educator were given a researcher-generated assessment for each child, with a series of ten questions that rated each individual child’s self-regulation skills, delay of gratification skills, communication skills, attention span, and emotional competence. These skills were rated on a Likert scale of 1-10, 1 being no shown ability and 10 being mastered ability. The survey yields a total score of 50 points, and two subscale scores representing Attention and Self Control (each with 25 points possible). There is a total of 50 points possible. The same instrument was completed by the teacher and para-educator upon conclusion of the intervention.

Additionally, the primary researcher completed four structured observation sessions in the two weeks prior to launching the intervention and four following the intervention. This observation used a structured observation protocol and time sampling. Interval Recording (or Time Sampling) involves observing whether a behavior occurs or does not occur during specified time periods. Once the length of an observation session is identified, the time is broken down into smaller intervals that are all equal in length. Data were collected for attention to task and overt signs of self-control.

The intervention phase lasted for six weeks. The intervention consisted of two lessons per week, for 15-20 minutes each. One lesson a week was emotional exploration, where the researcher and the children discussed and identified different feelings, and strategies to use to regulated emotions if they were sad, angry, too excited, jealous, etc. In the first session each week, students also practiced breathing skills through an activity called “Stop. Sit. Breath” and they also participated in yoga/meditation stretches and breathing techniques. The other lesson each week was in the form of play and/or meditation and consisted of fictious but probable scenarios that identified positive and negative coping skills. This included make-believe games where the researcher acted out emotional situations and the students had to use clues to figure out what emotion the researcher was feeling. Students then had to identify possible solutions to help the researcher feel better.

4. Results

To examine the effects of an intervention targeting self-regulation skills in young children, several analyses were completed. First, descriptive statistics are reported for student total scores and subscale scores on the survey A mean score was used for each child (average of the teacher’s and the para-educator’s ratings). Table 2 provides these data.

To synthesize observation, qualitative data, a constant comparative method was used. This is a method, rooted in ground theory, that facilitates examining qualitative data and sort and organize it into themes or categories. The observation data coding system from the structured observations are reported in Table 3. Data were coded as binary (e.g., listening to teacher or not listening to teacher) using partial interval recording (with 1-minute intervals, for a total of 30 minutes each observation). The observer calculated the % of intervals in which the behavior occurred. Table 4 provides data from pre-intervention observations and post intervention observations. Data are reported as percentages of occurrence of positive behaviors (e.g., listening to teacher). There is a noted increase in positive overt behaviors post intervention than pre-intervention.

5. Discussion

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of an intervention targeting teaching young children emotional self-regulation skills had on the children’s attention and self-control. The research question addressed was: How does explicit instruction and application of emotional self-regulation skills impact preschoolers’ attention and self-control skills? Results from this study provide support to the notion that emotional self-regulation skills can be taught and implemented by young children and these skills can improve attention to task and self-control (which helps children with the ability to follow behavioral expectations). Explicit instruction in emotions (identifying them, naming them, scenarios associated with each) and using mindful breathing facilitated attention to task and self-control in our participants. In alignment with cognitive behavior theory, children with higher emotional intelligence are better able to pay attention, are more engaged in school, have more positive relationships, and are more empathic ²².

Findings from the current study lend support to those of Wilson, Polite, and Wilson ¹⁵ as well as Flook et al ¹². Furthermore, as Berk ⁶ stated, children as young as three and four- years old, were able to verbalize a variety of strategies to help themselves self-regulate emotions. It is possible to embed explicit instruction, in an authentic, developmentally appropriate way, within early childhood classrooms. The intervention lasted approximately 15 to 20 minutes twice a week, making it highly feasible to be embedded within multiple early childhood classroom settings and schedules.

This study, given its participants, adds to the literature base. Over 70% of the children in this study were being served under special education services for a variety of exceptionalities (e.g., speech/language delay, developmental delay). Results of this study indicate that young children, even those with exceptionalities, can be taught some developmentally appropriate self-regulation strategies.

This study has a few limitations that must be noted. First, this study was completed with a very small sample size of students, in a preschool setting, with a convenience sample. Secondly, this study was short in total duration (i.e., ten weeks), so results may have limited generalizability. Additional research with a larger sample and with a control group would yield more generalizable results.

This study, along with extant literature indicate that when children are provided with guidance on emotions, and given the skills to regulate their own behavior, they experience better outcomes behaviorally, socially, and academically. If early childhood educators can use instruction and strategies in the use of emotional self-regulation strategies to improve student outcomes, it benefits the entire classroom, the teachers in the school, and the children themselves.

References