This chapter presents findings on the self-regulation of five-year-olds in England, Estonia and the United States. It describes how children’s scores in inhibition, mental flexibility and working memory related to their individual and family characteristics, as well as their home learning environments. This is based on a direct assessment of children’s skills and reports from the children’s parents and teachers.
Early Learning and Child Well-being
A Study of Five-year-Olds in England, Estonia, and the United States
Chapter 5. Children’s skills in self-regulation
Abstract
Introduction
The International Early Learning and Child Well-being Study (IELS) found variations in children’s self-regulation skills across and within the countries taking part. Key differences in these skills were associated with children’s socio-economic background, their home language, and their experiences of learning and social, emotional or behavioural difficulties.
Children in Estonia demonstrated high levels of skills across the three subdomains of self-regulation examined in IELS – inhibiting responses, mental flexibility and working memory. Children in England demonstrated similar skills to children in Estonia for mental flexibility and working memory, while children in the United States had similar inhibition skills to their Estonian peers.
Girls scored more highly on the three self-regulation subdomains when the results from the three countries were combined, but there were different gender patterns in each country. In Estonia, girls did better than boys across all three subdomains. In the United States girls were stronger than boys in inhibition and working memory, while in England, boys did better on inhibition. Otherwise, girls and boys had similar results.
Aspects of children’s home environment were associated with their development of self-regulation skills, but to a lesser degree than for children’s social-emotional skills, or emergent literacy or emergent numeracy skills. There were no clear relationships between children’s participation in early childhood education and care (ECEC) and their self-regulation skills.
This chapter sets out:
the critical importance of children’s early skills in self-regulation for their well-being and later development
the findings of the study in relation to the three aspects of self-regulation included in the study: inhibition, mental flexibility and working memory.
These findings are based on analysis of a representative sample of just under 7 000 five-year-olds in England, Estonia and the United States.
Self-regulation skills are critical for well-being and educational success
The ability to regulate and manage thoughts, reactions and impulses is essential for ongoing learning, educational success, getting along well with others and maintaining good health (Diamond, 2013[1]; Eisenberg, Spinrad and Eggum, 2010[2]; McClelland et al., 2015[3]) . Self-regulation describes the capacity to use inhibition, mental flexibility and working memory – among other skills – to manage thoughts and actions (Zelazo, Blair and Willoughby, 2016[4]). These skills include the ability to direct and sustain short-term attention, inhibit impulse responses, revise initial plans, and retrieve information from memory (Shuey and Kankaraš, 2018[5]).
Early self-regulation skills are strong predictors of later health, education and socio-economic outcomes
The development of self-regulation skills in early childhood is associated with a wide range of positive outcomes. These include successful transition into school (Blair and Raver, 2015[5]; McClelland et al., 2007[6]; Morrison, Cameron and McClelland, 2010[7]), higher academic achievement in adolescence, better labour-market outcomes as adults, including employment levels and earnings, and better health outcomes (Duckworth, Quinn and Tsukayama, 2012[8]; Tangney, Baumeister and Boone, 2004[9]).
Self-regulation skills are important for children’s transition to and participation in school (Blair and Peters Razza, 2007[10]; Neuenschwander et al., 2012[11]). The start of school can be a time of major change in the physical surroundings and people – including both other children and teachers – that children are accustomed to. It also presents a new set of learning expectations and routines to follow (Dockett and Perry, 2001[12]). Children must manage competing stimuli to navigate classroom activities. Self-regulation skills help children to learn new concepts and to engage successfully in classroom activities. These skills also enable children to interact productively with their teachers and peers while managing their own responses (Shonkoff and Phillips, 2000[13]). Such skills play an important role in academic achievement through late childhood and adolescence (Best, Miller and Naglieri, 2011[14]; Duncan et al., 2007[15]).
A child’s ability to self-regulate is associated with the development of social-emotional, literacy and numeracy skills (Blair and Peters Razza, 2007[10]). For example, working memory (Raghubar, Barnes and Hecht, 2010[16]), inhibition and mental flexibility (Clark, Pritchard and Woodward, 2010[17]) are associated with the development of pre-arithmetic, simple and more complex mathematical skills.
Children with better-developed self-regulation skills in childhood also demonstrate better long-term health outcomes (Caspi et al., 1998[18]; Daly et al., 2015[19]; Moffitt et al., 2011[20]). These include lower rates of obesity in adolescence (Evans, Fuller-Rowell and Doan, 2012[21]) and lower levels of anxiety and depression (Blair and Peters Razza, 2007[10]; Buckner, Mezzacappa and Beardslee, 2009[22]). Children and adolescents with more developed self-regulation skills are also less likely to use drugs or receive a criminal conviction (Ayduk et al., 2000[23]; Caspi et al., 1998[18]; Duckworth, Tsukayama and May, 2010[24]; Moffitt et al., 2011[20]).
Children’s environments influence the development of self-regulation skills
A combination of genetic and environmental factors shape the development of self-regulation skills (Bridgett et al., 2015[25]; McClelland et al., 2015[3]). Children exposed to poverty, low economic status, abuse or neglect in their home environment are more likely to display deficits in their self-regulation skills when compared to children living in more enabling environments (Noble, Norman and Farah, 2005[26]; Raver, Blair and Willoughby, 2013[27]).
Adverse childhood experiences and toxic stress can significantly impair the early self-regulation development of children. Exposure to adverse home environments can limit their opportunities to develop their self-regulation skills. Negative early experiences, including multiple and chronic environmental stressors, can cause structural changes in the neural connections of the areas of the brain that control self-regulation (Nelson et al., 2007[28]; McEwen, Nasca and Gray, 2016[29]). Children exposed to cumulative risks are also more likely to have parents who do not provide opportunities for a child to practise their self-regulation skills (Wachs, Gurkas and Kontos, 2004[30]; Fuller et al., 2010[31]).
Disparities in socio-economic background are associated with differences in the physical structure and functioning of the parts of the brain that control self-regulation (Hackman and Farah, 2009[32]). The functioning of the prefrontal cortex in children from low socio-economic backgrounds who are exposed to chronic environmental stressors, for example, is similar to that of individuals with damage to the prefrontal cortex (Kishiyama et al., 2009[33]).
A positive home environment and high-quality early childhood education and care experiences support the development of self-regulation skills
Self-regulation skills are malleable (Raver and Blair, 2016[37]). Emotionally positive parent-child relationships contribute to self-regulation skills across the early years. Parenting styles that include clear and consistent rules and expectations encourage the positive development of self-regulation skills (Blair and Raver, 2012[36]). For example, parenting styles that focus on children’s autonomy within set limits predict stronger self-regulation development in children than parenting styles focused on compliance (Bernier, Carlson and Whipple, 2010[37]).
Organised and predictable home environments provide children with a context where they can develop their self-regulation skills (McClelland et al., 2018[38]). Interactions between children and their parents and caregivers help children to understand their emotions and to regulate their behaviour. This, in turn, allows children to regulate their responses to distracting stimuli in their environment (Heatherton and Wagner, 2011[39]).
As with the home environment, structured and predictable environments in ECEC are important for children’s self-regulation, engagement and academic outcomes (Ponitz et al., 2009[40]). High-quality ECEC environments support the development of children’s early self-regulation skills.
This study focuses on the key self-regulation skills of inhibition, mental flexibility and working memory
Self-regulation skills are highly inter-related (Anderson and Reidy, 2012[41]). Completing everyday tasks requires adequate development in all of the inter-dependent parts.
A large body of literature has emphasised a number of key self-regulation skills (Diamond and Lee, 2011[42]; Garon, Bryson and Smith, 2008[43]). These have mostly centred on the influence of inhibition, mental flexibility and working memory skills on later outcomes. These three skills together are often referred to as executive function. Executive function skills make up the cognitive component of self-regulation. IELS operationalised self-regulation in the direct assessment as: 1) inhibition - the ability to control impulses and reactions; 2) mental flexibility - the ability to shift between rules according to changing circumstances; and 3) working memory - the ability to retain and process information (Figure 5.1).
Figure 5.1. The three components of self-regulation in IELS
Each of the skills that makes up self-regulation in IELS were directly measured using a set of specific tasks delivered on a tablet and involved children engaging with game-like activities. Audio and engaging illustrations guided the children through the activities (see Figure 5.2 for example).
Figure 5.2. Children were asked to remember and recall where the zebra was sitting on the bus
Information on children’s self-regulation development was also collected through questionnaires administered to children’s parents and teachers. Parents and teachers were asked to assess each child’s overall self-regulation development, defined as whether children were attentive, organised or in control of their actions.
Overall Findings
Estonian children have high overall levels of self-regulation skills
The study found significant differences across England, Estonia and the United States in children’s self-regulation skills. Children in Estonia scored highly across all three subdomains in the direct assessment of self-regulation. Children in England demonstrated similar levels of skills to Estonian children in mental flexibility and working memory, while children from the United States had similar inhibition scores to Estonian children. The mean scores for each country are set out in Table 5.1.
Table 5.1. Mean self-regulation scores of countries that participated in IELS
Figure 5.3 shows the distribution of scores for inhibition, mental flexibility and working memory by each country. Children in Estonia and the United States demonstrated similar levels of skill in inhibiting responses, whereas a greater proportion of children in England scored below the overall mean. The findings on mental flexibility in England and Estonia were very similar, with almost identical percentages of children at the highest levels of this skill. The United States had a significantly lower overall mean than the other two countries, partly due to having a lower proportion of children at the upper skill levels. The results for working memory are similar to those of mental flexibility. Once again, the findings from England and Estonia were closely matched, with comparable proportions of children at the highest and lowest ends of the skill distribution. The United States had a lower overall mean and a smaller percentage of children with the highest skill level in working memory.
Figure 5.3. Distribution of self-regulation scores, by country
Older children have higher self-regulation scores
As in other areas of the study, the self-regulation scores of older children were higher than younger children between the ages of five and six, as shown in Figure 5.4. The score point difference between children who were five years, one month and children who were six years were 81 points, 50 points and 67 points for inhibition, mental flexibility and working memory respectively. The average difference in the inhibition and mental flexibility outcomes of children between the ages of five years one month and six years were similar across the three countries participating in IELS. The average difference in working memory outcomes between those age groups was similar in both England and the United States, but smaller in Estonia.
Figure 5.4. Inhibition, mental flexibility and working memory scores by age in months, by country
Clear gender differences are only apparent in Estonia
There was no consistent or significant gender pattern in the findings across the three countries. When the results from each country are combined, however, girls scored more highly than boys in inhibition, mental flexibility and working memory. Estonia had the most pronounced gender gap in favour of girls, with a significantly higher mean than for boys in each self-regulation subdomain. In England, boys did slightly better than girls in inhibition, but there were no gender differences in mental flexibility or working memory. In the United States, girls had significantly stronger inhibition and working memory skills than boys, but similar mental flexibility skills. Figure 5.5 shows the aggregate findings by gender across all three countries.
Figure 5.5. Mean self-regulation scores of children, by gender
Note: Differences are statistically significant, except for mental flexibility and working memory scores at the 75th percentile.
Parents and teachers reported that girls had stronger self-regulation skills than boys. The size of these gender differences were similar across England, Estonia and the United States. Similar to other findings in this study, parents had a more positive view of their children’s skill levels than teachers, as illustrated in Figure 5.6.
Figure 5.6. Children’s self-regulation development by gender, as reported by their parents and teachers
Children from more advantaged backgrounds have stronger self-regulation than other children
Many studies have found that the socio-economic status (SES) of children’s families is associated with their learning outcomes. Nonetheless, the extent to which a child’s background is related to their education outcomes varies widely across countries. Some education systems are largely successful in mitigating children’s disadvantaged backgrounds whereas other education systems struggle to do so effectively.
In IELS, a child’s socio-economic status was related to their self-regulation scores across all three countries, particularly for mental flexibility and working memory (Figure 5.7).
Figure 5.7. Self-regulation scores of children by socio-economic status
Note: Differences in mean scores between top and bottom quartiles significant for all self-regulation scores. Differences at the 25th and 75th percentile between top and bottom quartiles significant for mental flexibility and working memory, but not for inhibition.
There were no significant differences in children’s inhibition scores between the top and bottom socio-economic quartiles in either England or Estonia, whereas such differences were evident in the United States. In England and the United States, children from high socio-economic backgrounds demonstrated significantly higher scores in mental flexibility than children from low socio-economic backgrounds. Children from high socio-economic backgrounds had higher working memory scores in all three countries.
Parents and teachers were more likely to report children from higher socio-economic groups as having greater self-regulation skills than children from lower socio-economic groups (Figure 5.8), consistent with the findings from the direct assessment. As noted above, parents were more positive about their children’s level of skills than teachers.
Figure 5.8. Parent and teacher reports on children’s self-regulation development, by socioeconomic status
Having an immigrant background is not related to children’s self-regulation skills
The study found no significant differences in self-regulation scores for children from families with an immigrant background once socio-economic status and home language were taken into account. Children with two parents born in a country other than that in which the child participated in IELS (or the sole parent if there was only information about one) were considered to have an immigrant background. Approximately 12% of children across the three countries came from an immigrant background.
There were no significant differences between the perceptions of immigrant and non-immigrant parents of their children’s self-regulation skills or of teachers’ ratings of children from immigrant and non-immigrant children. There were also no significant differences in the ratings by parents and teachers of girls and boys with immigrant backgrounds, and nor were there significant differences across countries.
Children’s home language is negatively associated with children’s self-regulation
Parents of children in the study were also asked to identify whether one or both parents primarily spoke a different language at home than the language of the ECEC centre or school that the child attended.1 Across the three countries, 13% of the children in this study had a different home language. In the United States, 20% of children had a different home language, compared to 16% in England and 6% in Estonia.
The direct assessments were carried out in English in England and the United States, and in Estonian or Russian in Estonia. The aggregate results for all three countries show that children with a home language different from the language of assessment had lower scores in inhibition, mental flexibility and working memory than other children, after accounting for socio-economic status. These findings are shown in Figure 5.9.
Figure 5.9. Difference in self-regulation scores by home language
In Estonia, children with a home language different from the language of assessment had lower scores in inhibition, mental flexibility and working memory than other children. In the United States, significant effects for home language were found for mental flexibility. In England, there were no differences in the levels of self-regulation skills between children with a non-English home language and other children.
When asked to report on their perceptions of children’s overall self-regulation development, parents and teachers did not report significant differences in the self-regulation skills of children who have a home language that is different from their ECEC centre or school compared to other children, as set out in Figure 5.10.
Figure 5.10. Parent and teacher reports on children’s self-regulation development, by home language
Learning and behavioural difficulties are associated with poorer self-regulation
Parents also provided information on whether their child was premature or had a low birthweight,2 learning difficulties (e.g. speech or language delay, intellectual disability), or social, emotional or behavioural difficulties. Across the three countries, the mean percentage of children with at least one of these challenges was 24%, with a mean of 9% having experienced low birthweight or premature birth, 11% having experienced learning difficulties and 10% having experienced social, emotional or behavioural difficulties. On average across countries, 5% of children had experienced two of these challenges and 1%, on average, experienced all three.
Overall, parents in England and Estonia reported slightly fewer children with these challenges than parents in the United States. Estonian parents reported the smallest proportion of children who experienced low birthweight or premature birth while parents in England reported the smallest proportion of children with social, emotional or behavioural difficulties.
There were no significant gender differences in the proportion of children who had a low birthweight or were premature. Boys were twice as likely as girls to be reported by their parents as having learning difficulties or social, emotional or behavioural difficulties.
Having learning difficulties was associated with lower scores in all three countries for mental flexibility and working memory. In England, there were no differences in the inhibition outcomes of children who had experienced learning difficulties and those who had not after accounting for socio-economic status and the experience of other early difficulties. Having experienced learning difficulties was related to all self-regulation outcomes in Estonia and the United States. Having experienced social, emotional or behavioural difficulties was associated with lower scores in England and Estonia on mental flexibility and working memory, and on working memory in the United States. The aggregate effects are illustrated in Figure 5.11.
Figure 5.11. Differences in self-regulation by experience of early difficulties
Note: Statistically significant differences are shown in a darker tone.
Access to children’s books is linked to better working memory
Children’s home environments are critical for their early learning and development. Parents were asked how often they undertook certain activities with their children, as well as other aspects of the home environment such as the presence of children’s books.
Parents’ activities with their children do not show the same strength of association with children’s self-regulation skills as they do with other areas of children’s development in this study. In addition, some parental activities appear to be more highly correlated with children’s self-regulation skills in one country but not in the others. For example, reading to children from books was positively associated with children’s working memory scores in Estonia but not in England or the United States. Having children’s books in the home was positively associated with children’s working memory skills in all three countries and with children’s mental flexibility in England and Estonia. There was no relationship between the number of children’s books in the home and their inhibition scores at an aggregate level.
Taking children to a special or paid activity such as sports or cultural activities was associated with higher levels of working memory in England and Estonia, but not in the United States. The frequency with which a child is taken to a special or paid activity outside of the home was also related to their inhibition scores in Estonia and their mental flexibility scores in England.
Mothers’ education levels correlate positively with their children’s self-regulation
Parents with higher levels of education are more likely to engage their children in activities that help children to learn, such as reading to them from books and being involved in their children’s ECEC centre or school (Sylva et al., 2003[46]). In addition, studies on children’s early development have found independent positive effects of mothers’ education in particular on children’s learning. As noted in Chapter 3, the mothers of the children sampled in Estonia were much more likely to have a bachelor’s degree (53%) than those in either England (40%) or the United States (39%).
In comparing children whose mothers had at least a bachelor’s degree with other children, higher mental flexibility scores were found in England and the United States and higher scores for working memory in England and Estonia. At the aggregate level, the findings for mental flexibility and working memory were both significant (Figure 5.12). There was no relationship between mothers’ educational qualifications and inhibition.
Figure 5.12. Differences in self-regulation scores by mother’s education
The use of digital devices has no clear relationship with self-regulation skills
On average, 83% of children across the three participating countries used a digital device at least once a week, with 42%, on average, using them every day. Only 7% of the children across countries never or hardly ever used a device, with an average of 10% of children using digital devices at least monthly, but not weekly.
There was no clear relationship between the frequency of device use and children’s self-regulation skills. Children in Estonia and the United States who regularly used a device had higher mental flexibility scores than children who did not use a device regularly, although there were no such differences amongst children in England. There were also some positive associations for working memory in England and for inhibition in Estonia, but these associations were not apparent in the other two countries.
There are few associations between household composition and children’s self-regulation skills
On average across the three participating countries, 86% of children in IELS lived in two-parent households. At an aggregate level, there were no differences in the inhibition and working memory scores of children from one- and two-parent households, after accounting for socio-economic status. Children in England, however, who lived in single-parent households had lower mental flexibility scores than other children. In Estonia, children who lived in single-parent households had higher scores for working memory than other children.
The number of siblings a child had also showed little relationship with their self-regulation skills, although children with one sibling had better scores for working memory than children with no siblings.
The effects of early childhood education and care are equivocal
In England and Estonia, almost all children in the study had attended ECEC, including children from disadvantaged backgrounds. In the United States, however, this was not the case.
In the United States, ECEC participation varied significantly depending on the socio-economic status of the child’s family. Children from advantaged families were more likely (91%) to have attended ECEC than children from disadvantaged families (73%). Rates of ECEC attendance did not vary significantly on the basis of ethnicity or race.
Unlike the relationship between ECEC and children’s literacy and numeracy skills, as outlined in Chapter 6, the study did not find significant or consistent findings in relation to children’s attendance of ECEC and their self-regulation skills. This was regardless of the age children started ECEC or the intensity of ECEC participation, i.e. whether they attended part time or full time.
Self-regulation skills correlate more strongly with cognitive skills than social-emotional skills
Self-regulation skills correlate more closely with children’s emergent literacy and numeracy scores than to their social-emotional learning. These associations are stronger for mental flexibility and working memory than for inhibition, as illustrated in Figure 5.13. Mental flexibility and working memory had stronger relationships with the other early learning dimensions in the study than inhibition.
Figure 5.13. Correlations between children’s self-regulation and other early learning scores
Conclusions
Children in Estonia demonstrated relatively high levels of self-regulation skills across the three elements of self-regulation directly measured in this study: inhibition, mental flexibility and working memory. Children in England had similar levels of skills to Estonian children in mental flexibility and working memory, but less so for inhibition. Children in the United States demonstrated inhibition skills at a similar level to those of Estonian children, but had lower scores for mental flexibility and working memory.
The study did not find clear or consistent gender differences in children’s self-regulation skills in the direct assessment, although there were differences at an individual country level. In Estonia, girls had higher self-regulation skills than boys across inhibition, mental flexibility and working memory. Girls in the United States did somewhat better than boys in inhibition and working memory, whereas in England boys had stronger skills than girls in inhibition. The reports from parents and teachers in all three countries, however, consistently rated girls’ skills in self-regulation as higher than those of boys.
The background factors that were most closely associated with children’s self-regulation levels were their socio-economic background, home language and the prevalence of learning difficulties or social, emotional or behavioural difficulties. The self-regulation sub-domains most highly correlated to these factors were mental flexibility and working memory.
Having children’s books in the home was positively associated with children’s working memory scores in each country, and with children’s mental flexibility in England and Estonia.
Children’s self-regulation skills relate to their ability to concentrate, learn and retain information. For this reason, it is unsurprising that the study found clear associations between children’s self-regulation skills, particularly for mental flexibility and working memory, and their development in emergent literacy and emergent numeracy. The study also found positive relationships between children’s self-regulation skills and their social-emotional skills, although to a lesser extent than with cognitive skills.
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Notes
← 1. Note that in each participating country, the language of assessment was the language of the ECEC centre or school the child attends. In England and the United States, the language of assessment was English and in Estonia, the assessment was carried out in Estonian or Russian.
← 2. Lower than 5lbs 8oz or 2.5 kg