A (spectacular) thunderstorm in Austin provides the perfect opportunity to muse over the 2017 Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD) Biennial Meeting. True to form SRCD 2017 provided an inspiring offering of presentations and exchanges at the very edge of developmental science, all served up quick fire and with a rather awesome intensity. For those who might not have been before imagine an academic festival where all the headline acts are performing at the same time over the course of a 500 page programme, 5,000 teeming delegates, across a convention centre with 54 meeting rooms. To get a sense of scale check out Ailbhe Booth’s photo of the exhibition hall where ~250 posters were refreshed three times a day!
Ok enough about scale on to the meeting itself, suffice to say there’s a lot to cover, so I will focus on some of the highlights. Thursday’s invited address by Clancy Blair on his psychobiological model of self regulation was a definite standout. Many of you will be familiar with this work already but it was fantastic to listen to Blair lay out such a clear framework of one of the most nebulous constructs in developmental science. An impressive feat that also proved to be an immediately instructive one given that self regulation (and executive function) was amongst the most popular (by my count at least) topics of the meeting. I won’t even attempt to condense this (that would be dangerous; even paraphrasing feels a bit risky…) but a few points stood out:
First was Blair’s emphasis on the importance of infancy and toddlerhood as a period for the healthy development of lower order, more automatic, regulation of attention, emotion, and stress physiology in setting the stage for the development of later higher order executive function (aspects of cognition involved in planning, future directed thinking, and monitoring and adapting behaviour - or as described elsewhere the brain’s air traffic control system). The second, and crucial point that resonated is that the developmental course of self regulation is malleable, shaped by the quality of children’s early experience. And lastly that executive function can be compensatory (at least for math skills).
By way of example Blair presented findings from the the Family Life Project which demonstrate that the quality of caregiving that infants receive is reflected in the degree to which their behavioral and physiological responses to stress are attuned (measured by how distressed children were to the presentation of a mask - both in terms of overt emotional distress and cortisol levels). Or as Blair describes - parental sensitivity appears to organise children’s response to stress. And this response to stress in turn predicts later executive function.
Blair also presented his work with Cybele Raver which demonstrates that children’s early educational experiences can be modified to promote executive function and stress physiology – in this case by working with teachers to embed supports for self regulation using the Tools of the Mind programme. So what about parents? A trial underway testing the merit of the Play and Learning Strategies programme in Early Head Start (funded through the Buffering Toxic Stress Consortium) will examine whether the programme is helpful in promoting parental self regulation and by extension children’s outcomes. We can also expect an extension to FLP that will help to elucidate the early childhood roots of major health outcomes (through a National Institute of Health programme grant on Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes). Big things to come, hopefully some in time for the next meeting!
Blair also presented his work with Cybele Raver which demonstrates that children’s early educational experiences can be modified to promote executive function and stress physiology – in this case by working with teachers to embed supports for self regulation using the Tools of the Mind programme. So what about parents? A trial underway testing the merit of the Play and Learning Strategies programme in Early Head Start (funded through the Buffering Toxic Stress Consortium) will examine whether the programme is helpful in promoting parental self regulation and by extension children’s outcomes. We can also expect an extension to FLP that will help to elucidate the early childhood roots of major health outcomes (through a National Institute of Health programme grant on Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes). Big things to come, hopefully some in time for the next meeting!
A new addition to the 2017 meeting was the SRCD Salon providing unscripted interaction between selected panelists. And who wouldn’t want to see academic heavyweights Greg Duncan, Gary Evans and Jeanne Books-Gunn turn over live questions about the developmental effects of early exposure to poverty – one of the key themes of the meeting. I found the format surprisingly refreshing; a chance to come up for air from the deep dives of the parallel symposia. It’s great to see world class researchers bounce thoughts off each other on where the field has come from and where it’s going next. This was developmental science in broad but nonetheless expert strokes. When asked about the forces that have driven growth in the field the panel referenced sociological work on structural and systemic factors (Wilson in particular), access to longitudinal data sets, and my favourite shout out from Gary Evans going to Urie Bronfenbrenner and the importance of unpacking context. A pretty fascinating discussion about ‘zero income’ families followed. Ironically, under US policy these families miss out on a range of tax benefits that target childcare as they have no taxable income. What to do? Well Greg Duncan’s intriguing (and hopefully forthcoming) idea is to experimentally test whether dependable cash transfers to families facing poverty will provide spillover effects for child development. The panel also offered some striking caveats to prevailing ideas in the field. Evans cautioned about the weight that is given to parenting as a panacea for improving outcomes, not, it would seem, due to a lack of effectiveness, but rather that such a focus forgets that parents are also living in deprived contexts. A caveat from Brooks-Gunn concerned our tendency to overlook the heterogeneity of poverty. She quoted research from the Fragile Families study showing differential results depending on poverty level – in this case associations between telomere length (an indicator of premature aging associated with poor health outcomes) and child protection service use. Evans - drawing on Gene Brody’s work - spoke about the high cost of resilience or adaptive behaviour over time. There’s negative fallout it would seem in overcoming adversity – and the devil is in the (physiological) detail. A recommendation followed for universal screening for high or ‘toxic’ stress. Interestingly there was less agreement on the evidence for the provision, or perhaps it was just the timing, of early childhood care and education programmes as a target for intervention - for Duncan at least the jury is still out. There did seem to be some support for specific merits of universal services for example as a means of normalising access to supports and as a potential strategy for tackling increasing income segregation. A feast for thought (oh and some recommended reading no less – Kathryn J. Edin and H. Luke Shaefer’s ‘$2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America’).
And some briefer highlights from the symposia...
The symposium on mechanisms of change in early childhood interventions was another standout – it’s impressive to see researchers coming together to unravel not just whether early intervention progammes work but how they work. I caught just the end of what seems to be an exciting collaboration between Sheri Madigan and colleagues and Susana Tereno and the CAPEDP (a French psychologist-led home visiting intervention to promote infant mental health) investigators examining maternal disrupted communication (atypical and high-risk caregiving) as a mechanism for reducing disorganised attachment. Nicole Giuliani followed with a presentation on parental inhibitory control as a mechanism of change in the Filming Interactions to Nurture Development (FIND; a video-coaching parenting intervention to strengthen positive interactions) intervention. That she found a treatment effect for parental inhibition is intuitive, as the programme emphasises the importance of following the child’s lead (which often means inhibiting our own instinct to direct play), but nonetheless remarkable. The sample is small (as is often the case in imagining studies) but growing. Mary Dozier concluded the session presenting on the Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up intervention she developed to encourage nurturing care and synchronous interactions. Here coaches provide ‘in the moment’ feedback to parents of infants. Remarkably Dozier has found treatment effects at age four for children’s inhibitory control on a ‘don’t touch’ task as well as effects on vocabulary – that the effects of a brief programme delivered in infancy are sustained at age 4 is particularly impressive. Dozier also highlighted the importance of programme fidelity – which in ABC involves monitoring coaches’ use of comments and reference to core programme components.
If there was a prize for top discussant it would have to go to Megan Gunnar rounding off a stellar line up of talks on cortisol, stress and the brain and implications for socioemotional behavior - what an engaging summary delivered with lightening clarity. In summarising Mariann Howland’s work on prenatal stress and internalising outcomes Gunnar stresses that if in real estate the emphasis is “location, location, location” in development it is “timing, timing, timing”. Gunnar advises that the only way to understand timing is to map it as closely as possible with the development of neural systems; identify what specifically is developing and when exactly development is taking place. Her observations of Amanda Tarullo’s work underscored the importance of joint attention (which Tarullo showed was positively influenced by higher SES and infant directed speech and lower cortisol) as the first step in setting up our brains to process language and the need to intervene before language develops. Comments on Arianna Gard’s work (which showed that harsh parenting and neighbourhood deprivation predict greater antisocial behaviour via less amygdala reactivity to fearful facial expressions) focused on the importance of investigating differential susceptibility and elucidating the conditions that might give rise to differential neural development in response to threat. And what might the results suggest for intervention? Promote greater parental sensitivity.
If there was a prize for top discussant it would have to go to Megan Gunnar rounding off a stellar line up of talks on cortisol, stress and the brain and implications for socioemotional behavior - what an engaging summary delivered with lightening clarity. In summarising Mariann Howland’s work on prenatal stress and internalising outcomes Gunnar stresses that if in real estate the emphasis is “location, location, location” in development it is “timing, timing, timing”. Gunnar advises that the only way to understand timing is to map it as closely as possible with the development of neural systems; identify what specifically is developing and when exactly development is taking place. Her observations of Amanda Tarullo’s work underscored the importance of joint attention (which Tarullo showed was positively influenced by higher SES and infant directed speech and lower cortisol) as the first step in setting up our brains to process language and the need to intervene before language develops. Comments on Arianna Gard’s work (which showed that harsh parenting and neighbourhood deprivation predict greater antisocial behaviour via less amygdala reactivity to fearful facial expressions) focused on the importance of investigating differential susceptibility and elucidating the conditions that might give rise to differential neural development in response to threat. And what might the results suggest for intervention? Promote greater parental sensitivity.
Well that’s a taste of some of what was on offer over three exhilarating days in Austin. I’m looking forward to tracking the papers that will follow. And also excited about talk of a bid for a special topic meeting in coparenting research (another exciting symposium chaired by Sarah Schoppe-Sullivan that I haven’t even touched on!). For now the sun is back out in Austin with just enough time to explore this gem of a city before getting back to business.
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