Browsing by Author "Smith, Cynthia Lea"

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    Antecedents and Consequences of Parent Technology Use in Parents of Young Children
    Devine, Diana Michelle (Virginia Tech, 2024-01-10)
    The availability of and access to technology has been steadily increasing in recent years. Especially in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, technology use in some form is almost a daily occurrence in the United States (Vargo et al., 2021). A growing body of work has been examining familial technoference, which include interruptions to family interactions due to technology use, and a sub-focus of this research has specifically focused on parent-child relationships and technological interruptions. Using a comprehensive theoretical approach including an update to the process model of parenting (Belsky, 1984; Taraban and Shaw, 2018) and support from both attachment theory (Ainsworth et al., 1978; Bowlby, 1969) and ecological theory (Bronfenbrenner, 1977; Bronfenbrenner and Ceci, 1994), the current research examined the role of technology in parent-child interactions with parents of two-year-old children. In Study 1, constructs of parental technoference were explored in parents of children between 24-26 months of age to evaluate latent factors of parent technology use from 60 indicators and to identify parent and family characteristics that might predict the factors of technology use. A nationally recruited online sample of 323 parents of two-year-old children completed a set of questionnaires online to examine constructs of parental technology use and predictors of those constructs for Study 1. A CFA was conducted to evaluate the model fit of multiple indicators of parent technology use loading onto four predicted latent factors: Problematic Technology Use, Technoference with Child and Family, Social Support through Technology, and Technology Use as Regulation. The hypothesized model had poor fit, and an Exploratory Factor Analysis was conducted. In the final model, only 35 indicators emerged as significant factors to be included in the final model to map onto five latent constructs: Missing Out due to Technology, Problematic Technology Behaviors, Preoccupation with Technology, Positive Parenting through Technology, and Social Support through Technology. The final latent constructs parsed apart the predicted Problematic Technology Use into distinct constructs of thought (Preoccupation with Technology), behavior (Problematic Technology Behaviors), and consequence (Missing Out due to Technology), while items from the predicted Technoference with Child and Family mapped onto the more general Missing Out due to Technology (in various contexts, not just that within the family). Items from the predicted Technology Use as Regulation and Social Support through Technology mapped closely onto the Positive Parenting through Technology and Social Support through Technology constructs, respectively, albeit with fewer significant factor loadings than predicted. Next, predictors of the latent constructs (perceived stress, social support, parenting satisfaction, parenting self-efficacy, and both parent and child effortful control) were examined. SEM was conducted to determine predictors of these constructs of technology use. Perceived stress was a significant predictor of all five latent constructs. Parenting self-efficacy was a significant predictor of Problematic Technology Behaviors, Positive Parenting through Technology, and Social Support through Technology. Parenting satisfaction was a significant predictor of Problematic Technology Behaviors, Preoccupation with Technology, Positive Parenting through Technology, and Social Support through Technology. Social support was not a significant predictor of any latent constructs. Parent self-regulation was a significant predictor of Missing Out due to Technology and Positive Parenting through Technology. Child self-regulation was a significant predictor of Preoccupation with Technology, Positive Parenting through Technology, and Social Support through Technology. These findings demonstrate that there are distinct patterns of parental technology use that are differentially related to parent and family characteristics. This insight into characteristics that are associated with distinct types of technology use can be helpful in the development of targeted intervention for parents seeking to change their technology use behaviors. In Study 2, the impacts of parent technology use on parent behavior during parent-child interactions were examined through a repeated measures analysis of variance (RMANOVA) and Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM). In a randomized experimental design, 57 primary caregivers of 30–36-month-old children participated in three 5-minute free play sessions with their child in these conditions: control (no technology), television, and smartphone. Parent engagement with technology was scored in each condition, as well as parental sensitivity and involvement. First, RMANOVAs were conducted to explore differences in proportions of parent involvement with child play by condition and mean differences in parental sensitivity. There were significant differences in proportions of levels of parent involvement by condition; however, there were no differences in mean levels of parent sensitivity by condition. Due to a significant interaction between proportions of levels of involvement and order of condition, an HLM was conducted to control for change over time and isolate influences of condition on parent behavior. When time was controlled, there was significant negative effect of TV and a significant negative effect of smartphones on parental involvement. Overall, the findings from Study 2 demonstrated that caregivers are less involved with child play when technology is present, and especially so when smartphones are involved. Though there was not an overall effect of technology on caregiver sensitivity, further analysis did reveal that caregivers who attended to technology did have lower sensitivity scores than caregivers who did not attend to technology. The findings from this study replicate prior experimental work examining the role of background TV on caregiver-child interactions and extend findings to include the negative effect of smartphones on caregiver-child interactions. Together, the two studies provide further insight into parental technology use, understanding both antecedents and consequences of parent technology use in contribution to the overall knowledge of the mechanisms through which parent technology use relates to parenting and parent-child interactions. The findings from these studies combined can be used to develop targeted interventions for caregivers who are interested in making decisions about technology use within their families that are aligned with healthy developmental outcomes.
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    Fearful Temperament in Middle Childhood and Anxiety Symptoms in Adolescence: The Roles of Attention Biases, Effortful Control, and Frontal EEG Asymmetry
    Liu, Ran (Virginia Tech, 2020-12-01)
    Fearful temperament represents one of the robust predictors of the development of child and adolescent anxiety. Not all children with fearful temperament unvaryingly develop anxiety, however. Diverse processes resulting from the interplay among attention, cognitive control, and motivational system drive the trajectories toward more adaptive or maladaptive directions. In this study, I examined various factors that underlie the association between fearful temperament at age 9 and adolescent anxiety symptoms including attention biases, different components of effortful control, and frontal EEG asymmetry. 78 children participated in this study. Results indicate that fearful temperament at age 9 significantly predicted adolescent anxiety symptoms. This association, however, was moderated by children's effortful control and frontal EEG asymmetry at age 9. Specifically, fear at 9 years predicted adolescent anxiety only when children had low attentional control, low inhibitory control, low activation control, and exhibited greater right activation from baseline to task. The associations between AB and fearful temperament as well as anxiety were not significant. The association between fear at 9 years and sustained AB during adolescence, however, was moderated by children's attentional control, inhibitory control, and frontal EEG asymmetry at age 9. Specifically, fear predicted attention biases away from threat when children had high attentional control, high inhibitory control, and showed greater left activation. The findings will be discussed in terms of the roles of attention biases in the development of anxiety and how different components of effortful control and frontal EEG asymmetry contribute to the resilience process.
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    Intensive Mothering Attitudes and Children's Executive Function: The Role of Parenting Stress
    McGregor, Casey Marie (Virginia Tech, 2022-03-03)
    Intensive mothering (IM) is increasingly being recognized as a dominant parenting discourse. IM, conceptualized as hyper-parenting ideals that place pressure on mothers to cultivate children's cognitive development, has also been demonstrated to have consequences for mothers' mental wellbeing. On the other hand, IM attitudes also appear to contribute to parenting strategies that can be considered beneficial for young children's developmental growth. Considering these complexities, the present research was grounded in a theoretical framework guided by ecological and risk and resilience theories to test a holistic model which positioned IM as having indirect associations with children's executive functioning (EF) through two pathways: positive parenting strategies and parenting stress. Contrary to the theoretical purposes of IM-informed parenting, IM did not contribute to better cognitive outcomes in 3–5-year-old children through positive parenting. Instead, IM indirectly contributed to higher reports of dysfunctions in children's EF through the mechanism of parenting stress. Further, a conditional process model advanced previous understandings of IM by illuminating the processes through which cumulative risk strengthened the associations between these core constructs. Based on the results presented in this research, IM ideology is argued to be a context of risk for families with an accumulation of contextual risk factors.
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    Late Childhood Predictors of Adolescent Cognitive Reappraisal:  Impacts on Adolescent Depressive Symptoms
    Meza-Cervera, Tatiana (Virginia Tech, 2021-06-28)
    In adolescence, the use of cognitive reappraisal (CR) is adaptive for general emotion regulation and for decreasing symptoms of depression. Still, with all of the literature indicating the usefulness of CR, minimal research attempts to understand the childhood processes contributing to CR in adolescence. My dissertation study examined individual factors of executive function and frontal EEG asymmetry during late childhood, and environmental factors of parenting in adolescence, as predictors of adolescent CR and depressive symptoms. Data were from 123 participants in late childhood (age 10) and adolescence (age 14.5). During the late childhood visit, executive function and frontal EEG asymmetry were assessed. The adolescent visit included questionnaires for maternal CR, maternal supportive and unsupportive responses to adolescent's negative emotions, adolescent CR and depressive symptoms. Results indicated that maternal unsupportive reactions moderated the association between maternal CR and adolescent CR, such that higher unsupportive reactions were associated with higher adolescent CR when mothers reported higher CR. Higher CR in turn was associated with lower depressive symptoms. Regarding individual factors, frontal EEG asymmetry moderated the association between inhibitory control during late childhood and adolescent CR, such that better inhibitory control during late childhood was associated with higher CR when children had right frontal asymmetry. Higher CR was associated with lower depressive symptoms in adolescence. The results suggest the potential for targeting inhibitory control and parenting as two mechanisms for improving CR among adolescents to diminish depressive symptoms.
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    The Maternal Force Awakens Emerging Fear Reactivity and Regulation: Preliminary Results from the Baby JEDI Study
    Phillips, Jennifer Julia (Virginia Tech, 2024-05-17)
    Fear is an adaptive emotion that typically increases across infancy to help keep infant exploration in check. Too much fear, however, can become maladaptive and lead to psychopathology later in childhood. Thus, it is important to understand how both fear reactivity and regulation develop early in life in order to identify at-risk children early on. Maternal factors, such as parenting behaviors and personality, are associated with both fear reactivity and regulation, but results have been mixed, possibly due to a trait-based approach to assessing maternal personality. The goal of my dissertation was to examine the growth trajectories of fear reactivity and regulation across infancy and toddlerhood both unconditionally and within the contexts of maternal parenting and personality functioning. Infants and mothers were assessed when infants were 10-months (n = 48), 14-months (n = 42), and 18-months (n = 34) old. At each age, infant fear reactivity was assessed using behavioral coding during the Laboratory Temperament Assessment Battery fear tasks and infant fear regulation was examined via respiratory sinus arrhythmia reactivity during the fear tasks. At 10- and 14-months, maternal parenting behaviors were coded during an interaction task and maternal personality functioning was assessed via maternal self-report. Hierarchical linear modeling demonstrated that maternal personality functioning moderated the association between maternal affect and infant fear reactivity growth and maternal personality functioning moderated the association between maternal directiveness and infant fear regulation growth. These results aid in the understanding of how maternal factors relate to infant fear development.
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    Parental emotion socialization in Chinese and US families: Roles of parents' beliefs about emotions and self-construals
    Zhu, Danhua (Virginia Tech, 2021-09-16)
    Recent studies have addressed the importance of identifying determinants of parental emotion socialization (ES) to clarify how and why parents engage in ES practices. Furthermore, emotions occur within cultural contexts. Recent work has drawn attention to the importance of cross-cultural research for developmental science. Consistent with these calls for research, I examined parents' beliefs about emotions and self-construals as two sets of distinct factors guiding parental ES responses in China and the United States (US). Three emotion-related beliefs (manipulation [children can use emotions to manipulate parents]; parental knowledge [parents have to know all about their child's emotions]; autonomy [children can work through emotions on their own]) and two self-construals (independence [view self as unique entity]; interdependence [view self as connected with others]) were highlighted. One hundred seven parents with 7- to 11-year-old children (75 Chinese, 32 US; 90 mothers, 17 fathers) completed online questionnaires in their native language. MANCOVA analyses indicated cultural differences. Compared with Chinese parents, US parents less strongly endorsed beliefs about manipulation, parental knowledge, and autonomy. US parents endorsed more supportive and less nonsupportive responses towards children's emotions than Chinese parents. There was a trend for Chinese parents to endorse more interdependence than independence in self-construals, whereas no within-person difference was found for US parents' endorsement of these two self-construals. For both Chinese and US parents, beliefs about emotions and self-construals were significantly associated with ES responses. Linear regressions showed that parents' stronger manipulation belief was associated with higher nonsupportive responses to positive and negative emotions. Parents with stronger parental knowledge or autonomy beliefs reported more supportive responses to negative emotions and explanations of positive emotions. Stronger belief in parental knowledge was also related to more endorsed encouragement of positive emotions and lower nonsupportive responses to negative emotions. After controlling for the effects of beliefs, parents with higher interdependent self-construal reported more supportive responses to negative emotions and more explanatory responses to positive emotions. Parents who endorsed higher independent self-construal reported more encouraging responses to positive emotions and less nonsupportive responses to negative emotions. Results are discussed in relation to meaning and significance within socio-cultural contexts.
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    Preschoolers' Mathematical Language Learning during Book Reading with an AI Voice Agent
    Kim, Jisun (Virginia Tech, 2024-08-06)
    Digital media technologies have been extensively utilized in children's daily lives and many researchers, educators, caregivers, and developers have been interested in finding ways to utilize these technologies in educational settings to facilitate early cognitive development. Among a wide range of media technologies, the accessibility of voice assistants and smart speakers powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI) has notably increased. However, there is a paucity of knowledge about how this advanced technology can be used to teach young children important mathematical concepts during shared book reading. The current study aimed to examine whether and under what circumstances shared book reading with an AI voice agent would enhance preschool-aged children's learning of mathematical language, a critical domain-specific language highly associated with early numeracy skills and vocabulary development. Sixty-six participants who were recruited for home-visit and school-visit sessions were randomly assigned to one of three reading conditions to read a storybook with the AI voice agent three times: math storybook reading with dialogic questions, math storybook reading without dialogic questions, and non-math storybook reading with dialogic questions. The findings indicate that shared math storybook reading supports children's target mathematical language learning differently based on their initial understanding of numeracy skills. Children with higher levels of numeracy skills demonstrated greater benefits from simply listening to the story, whereas children with lower levels of numeracy skills showed a tendency to learn better when hearing questions and feedback from the AI voice agent. This study provides implications for the use of advanced technology involving social interaction to support children's learning of key mathematical language that can benefit from repeated reading.
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    Supporting Parent Engagement at Home: Parent Perceptions of Important Knowledge in Educating their Children in Engineering Activities of Varying Structure
    Paradise, Tawni Michon (Virginia Tech, 2022-08-23)
    To diversify the engineering workplace, we need to broaden participation in engineering. One way to broaden participation is through encouraging integration of engineering activities at home where parents, or more broadly caregivers, facilitate or support engineering activities for their children. This idea is reinforced by previous literature that identifies that (1) elementary-aged children can and should do engineering activities, (2) parents have a longstanding and significant impact on their children in many different ways, (3) parent-child relationships are unique and offer great potential for positive outcomes, and (4) parents can be effective in teaching engineering. While at-home engineering activities are already prevalent, the support resources attached to them are currently lacking for parents. This research is motivated by a desire to understand how parents think about and engage in engineering activities with their children to inform the most effective ways to support parents. This research is scoped to specifically look at the knowledge that 12 parents utilize in engineering activities and identify or perceive as being important in these activities. Given that there are many different types of engineering activities that exist, three different engineering activities that varied by level of structure were included in this study. The well-structured, semi-structured, and ill-structured activities all included a Marble Run toy and a storybook about Mars Rovers that was meant to support an authentic context for the activities. A multiple case study approach was used, where each case represented one of the activities with four parent participants in each case. Data collected for each parent participant included a pre-survey, observed activity engagement, reflection, and pre- and post-interviews. All of this data was coded with a priori codes from the Pedagogical Content Knowledge framework and emergent codes. The findings of this research highlight the role of the following on parent-child engagement in an engineering activity: the rhythm and routine of the parent-child dyad, external influences and independent individual experiences of the parent and the child, parents' ideas about engineering, and the structure of the activity. While the Pedagogical Content Knowledge framework was a useful tool for classification of knowledge, the research findings highlight the role of past experiences and external resources in shaping parents' views on the best way to support their children which is not well documented in this framework. These findings suggest that Frames of Practice may be a better theory to use in thinking about and studying parent-child engagement. Parents utilize existing frames of practice for engaging with their children to dictate the general teaching strategies to utilize. Within specific activities, they also refer to similar neighboring experiences and external resources to refine their frames of practice and modify their strategies used. While parents implement engineering knowledge and strategies, they do not recognize that what they are doing is engineering. There is also variation in the quantity and quality of strategies that are needed for engagement in the different activities, with less structure indicating more skills required of the facilitator and more positive outcomes for the child. For stakeholders invested in parent engagement, this research suggests that we need to (1) validate parents' existing and effective ideas about teaching and engineering by giving parents language that will help them refine their frames of practice through reflection, (2) encourage the use of more advanced pedagogical strategies or engineering strategies, (3) explicitly explain the value of them using the word engineering with their child and the value of continuing to use and talk about the engineering strategies they already implement (brainstorming, planning) with their child, and (4) ensure that parents see the potential engineering connections in the activity.