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Parasympathetic Control Moderates Inhibited Children’s Susceptibility to Parental Influences on Play Behaviors Lindsay R. Druskin 1 , Matthew G. Barstead 1 , Danielle R. Novick 1 , Kelly A. Smith 1 , Hailey M. Fleece 1 , Nicholas J. Wagner 2 , Christina M. Danko 1 , Andrea Chronis-Tuscano 1 , Kenneth H. Rubin 1 1 University of Maryland, College Park 2 Boston University ✦ Behavioral inhibition (BI) is a temperament trait characterized by fear and reticence in response to novelty (Kagan, 2018) ✦ It is critical to identify factors that may promote peer interaction in BI children ✦ Research has yet to examine the interaction between physiological characteristics and parenting as predictors of social behavior in school among inhibited children ✦ Working within a biopsychosocial developmental framework, we examined, in a pre- selected group of high BI preschoolers, predictors of adaptive social behaviors known to be associated with positive peer relationships (e.g. Frenkel et al., 2015) ✦ As an index of parasympathetic control (Hane et al., 2008), high baseline respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) and flexibility in response to changes in the environment has been linked to physiological adaptability and socially adaptive child behavior (e.g. Eisenberg et al., 2011) ✦ Hypothesis: Adaptive parenting and adaptive RSA (across laboratory tasks) would independently predict a greater frequency of peer interaction during classroom free play. Parenting would interact with RSA such that inhibited children with high RSA whose parents reported more adaptive parenting would engage in more peer interaction in their classrooms. Participants ✦ 130 BI preschoolers and their parents ✦ Participants in the present analysis were a subsample of participants in a larger intervention study for children with high BI ✦ Child participants were excluded if they had a Behavioral Inhibition Questionnaire (BIQ) score below 132 or signs of Autism Spectrum Disorder or clinical levels of Selective Mutism ✦ All measures in the current analysis were assessed concurrently at baseline, prior to the start of the intervention ✦ Parents (13.1% male; M age = 39.17 years) were 66.1% White, 17.69% Asian, 13% Black or African-American, 3% other ✦ 39% have Masters degree, 25% have a Doctoral degree, 25% have a Bachelors degree, 9% have some college education ✦ 56.3% annual family income over $150,000, 17% between $100,000- $124,000, 8.7% between $125,000-$149,000 ✦ Children (47% male) were 3.5 to 5 years old (M age = 53.88 months) ✦ Children were 51.5% White, 23.8% other, 13% Asian, and 11.5% Black or African-American ✦ Children had an average BIQ score of 5.118 (SD = 0.666) ✦ Children spent an average of 29.2 hours in school per week ✦ Children were enrolled in a school/daycare for an average of 23.1 months at start of treatment Observed Play Behaviors – Play Observation Scale (Rubin, 2001) ✦ Trained school observers used the Play Observation Scale to code children’s social play in 10-second blocks on two separate days (approx. 30 minutes/day) ✦ Group play/peer conversation : Child is playing or talking with other children regarding a shared goal or activity Parenting Measures ✦ Self-reported parent child-rearing values and attitudes were measuring using the nurturance and restrictiveness subscales of the Child-Rearing Practices Report (Rickel & Biassatti, 1982) ✦ Nurturance : Parent-reported perception of providing emotional support and encouragement to children ✦ Restrictiveness : Parent-reported perception of setting limits to promote appropriate child behavior ✦ The Family Accommodation Scale – Anxiety (Lebowitz et al., 2013) was used to measure the way family members act to relieve a child’s distress caused by symptoms of anxiety over the past month Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia (RSA) ✦ Heart rate data were obtained as children watched a video to establish a baseline RSA value (“Video”), learned about unfamiliar peers (“Intro”), and introduced themselves in a video for the unfamiliar peers (“Kids”) ✦ Data were recorded at 2000 Hz using a Biopac Nomadix PPG-ED wireless transmitter/receiver. Raw heart rate files were then processed and manually edited using IBI VizEdit (Barstead, 2018) and RSA values were calculated for each condition in CardioBatch (Brain-Body Center, 2007) Introduction Method Hypotheses were tested using a series of Bayesian binomial regression models conducted using the brms package in R (Bürkner, 2017), a wraparound library for the Bayesian software Stan. Missing data was addressed on a variable-by-variable basis by including completely observed variables associated with missingness in a simultaneously estimated missingness model. In all our models, we controlled for child gender, age, and number of hours attending preschool each week. In preliminary analyses, child age and number of weekly hours attending school were both positively related to observed social play at school. In accordance with hypotheses, greater Baseline RSA, greater RSA withdrawal in response to a stressor, and greater RSA augmentation in the social learning task were associated with more observed social play. Using mclust (Scrucca et al., 2016), an R package for finite mixture modeling, we found evidence for two distinct parenting profiles based on parent reports of nurturance, restrictiveness, and accommodation. The main variable that distinguished the two groups was nurturance. Though both groups rated nurturance at the upper end of the scale, One group was effectively at celling (see plots). There was a significant interaction Between RSA and parenting profile. Higher RSA and RSA change in response to a stressor were related to more social play for the nurturing group but less social play for the high nurturing group. Results ✦ RSA measured in the lab setting is predictive of social play in the classroom setting ✦ Baseline RSA is positively associated with social play at school. ✦ The change in RSA from baseline to the social introduction task shows a negative association with group play in the classroom setting. Children who are able to flexibly respond to their environment are able to engage in more social play. ✦ The augmentation during the Kids task, which indicates that the parasympathetic signaling has increased to support attention and engagement, is positively related to social play. ✦ When classifying parents on dimension of accommodation, restrictiveness, and nurturance, we found two profiles of parenting, one that was high in nurturance and one that was extremely high in nurturance. ✦ Children with adaptive physiological regulation abilities and parents with moderate levels of nurturance were more likely to engage in group play in the classroom setting ✦ Children with adaptive physiological regulation abilities and parents with the highest reported levels of nurturance were less likely to engage in group play ✦ Children with adaptive physiological profiles may need less parental nurturance overall as they are able to emotionally regulate during potentially stressful situations, whereas children with weaker regulatory capacities may benefit from very high parental support ✦ Excessive parental responsiveness (i.e. over-solicitiousness; Rubin et al., 2001) when the child is able to flexibly respond to social demands in the environment may lead the child to engage in non-social play behavior since they lack experience in independently navigating social challenges ✦ Parental accommodation has been shown to be positively associated with symptom severity in youth with anxiety disorders (Lebowitz et al., 2013) ✦ High levels of parental accommodation and very high levels of parental nurturance may reduce the amount of social challenges that children experience, leaving them less likely to engage in social behaviors, even with strong emotion regulation capabilities Conclusion ✦ RSA in various lab tasks is associated with higher levels of social play in the classroom setting ✦ It is important for parents to tailor their parenting to children’s individual characteristics ✦ While extremely high nurturance may be potentially adaptive for children low in RSA who have difficulty self-regulating, it appears to be maladaptive for children with stronger self-regulatory capacities Future Directions ✦ Investigate the role of observed parenting in associations between RSA and classroom behavior ✦ Examine how RSA and parenting interact to predict other classroom behaviors such as social reticence or solitary play ✦ Investigate how RSA, parenting, and classroom behaviors are linked to indices of maladjustment such as anxiety symptoms or teacher-reported peer difficulties ✦ Barstead, M. G. (2018). An initial evaluation of IBI VizEdit: An Rshiny application for obtaining accurate estimates of autonomic regulation of cardiac activity. ✦ Brain-Body Center, (2007). CardioEdit software. University of Chicago. ✦ Bürkner, P. (2017). Brms: An R package for Bayesian multilevel models using Stan. Journal of Statistical Software, 80(1), 1-28. doi:10.18637/jss.v080.i01 ✦ Eisenberg, J. & Richman, R. (2011). Heart rate variability during a continuous performance test in children with problems of attention. Israel Journal of Psychiatry and Related Scicences, 48, 19-24. ✦ Frenkel, T. I., Fox, N. A., Pine, D. S., Walker, O. L., Degnan, K. A., Chronis-Tuscano, A. (2015). Early childhood behavioral inhibition, adult psychopathology and the buffering effects of adolescent social networks: A twenty-year prospective study. The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 56, 1065-1073. ✦ Hane, A. A., Cheah, C., Rubin, K. H., & Fox, N. A. (2008). The role of maternal behavior in the relation between shyness and social reticence in early childhood and social withdrawal in middle childhood. Social Development, 17(4), 795-811. doi:10.1111/j.1467- 9507.2008.00481.x ✦ Kagan, J. (2018). The history and theory of behavioral inhibition. In K. Pérez-Edgar & N. Fox (Eds.), Behavioral Inhibition (pp. 1-15). Springer, Cham. ✦ Lebowitz, E. R., Woolston, J., Bar-Haim, Y., Calvocoressi, L., Dauser, C., Warnick, E., & Leckman, J. F. (2013). Family accommodation in pediatric anxiety disorders. Depression and Anxiety, 30, 47-54. doi:10.1002/da.21998 ✦ Rickel, A. U., & Biasatti, L. L. (1982). Modification of the Block Child Rearing Practices Report. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 38(1), 129- 134. ✦ Rubin, K. H. (2001). The Play Observation Scale. College Park, MD: University of Maryland, Center for Children, Relationships, and Culture. ✦ Rubin, K. H., Cheah, C. S. L., & Fox, N. (2010). Emotion regulation, parenting and display of social reticence in preschoolers. Early Education and Development, 12(1), 97-115. doi:10.1207/s15566935eed1201_6 ✦ Scrucca, L., Fop, M., Murphy, T. B., & Raftery, A. E., (2016). Mclust 5: Clustering, classification and density estimation using Gaussian finite mixture models. The R Journal, 8(1), 205-233. **This research was funded by NIH R01 MH103253-01 awarded to Kenneth H. Rubin & Andrea Chronis-Tuscano Discussion References Estimate Posterior SD HDI 95 [LB, UB] Covariates Child Age 0.89 0.27 [0.36, 1.41] 1.04 Child Sex 0.22 0.21 [-0.22, 0.61] 1.02 Hours in School 0.04 0.01 [0.03, 0.05] 1.02 Parenting Profile -0.45 0.28 [-1.00, 0.08] 1.01 RSA Effects Video 0.80 0.09 [0.63, 0.99] 1.00 Δ Introduction -1.44 0.16 [-1.78, -1.16] 1.00 Δ Kids 1.45 0.18 [1.15, 1.82] 1.00 Parenting x RSA Video -1.75 0.23 [-2.24, -1.31] 1.00 Δ Introduction 2.83 0.34 [2.23, 3.55] 1.00 Δ Kids -0.39 0.40 [-1.22, 0.32] 1.00
