On-Line assessment of self-regulatory skills in children during the Covid-19 pandemic

SEGRETIN, M.S.; LOMAS, D.; ANUNAY, R.; LIPINA, S.J.

virtual

Congreso; Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD) 2021, Biennial Meeting; 2021

Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD)

Background. Self-regulation involves a diverse set of cognitive and emotional processes that contribute to goal-orientedbehaviors in daily activities from early stages of the life cycle. Their developmental trajectories can be modulated by differentindividual and contextual factors (e.g., parental mental health, SES). The lockdowns generated during the COVID-19pandemic constitute scenarios containing risk factors for self-regulatory processes: Increased indicators of anxiety,depression, insomnia and loneliness in children and adults, interruption or modification of routines, closing of schools,reduction of social contacts, interruption of health and social services controls, loss of work and reduction of income (UN,2020; WHO, 2020).Objectives and hypotheses.(a) Describe the performance in different tasks tapping cognitive and emotional processes inchildren from 5 to 14 years of age during the pandemic in different countries; and (b) analyze the associations between theseperformances and children's experiences and home living conditions. It is expected to find varying levels and trajectories ofperformance depending on the age of the participants, and factors related to home living conditions (i.e., better performancein higher SES and home conditions).Methods.Design. In July 2020, we implemented a prospective longitudinal design with 4 assessment rounds every 6 months.Participants. One hundred and seventy-three children from 5 to 14 years old from countries with the official languages English and Spanish were registered to participate in the study. Recruitment is done through a flyer disseminated on academicand social networks that gives access to a page with a description of the study, consent and registration. Subsequently, thecaregivers receive an email and SMS message to access the activities platform. The procedures were approved by the IRB.For this presentation we include information corresponding to the first session of round 1.Cognitive and emotionalassessment.We administered 8 tasks in two weekly sessions that assess aspects of attention, inhibitory control, cognitiveflexibility, working memory, type of cognitive control (i.e., reactive/proactive), fluid processing and identification ofemotions. The tasks are based on similar computerized ones used in previous studies (Giovannetti et al., 2020; Goldin et al.,2014). Variables of interest are total scores and reaction times.Context information.Children's experiences and livingconditions in the homes questionnaire (to be answered by the caregivers) includes dimensions referring to levels ofstimulation at homes, sleep, recreational activities, social experiences, and household financial resources before and duringthe pandemic.Analytical plan.(a) Descriptive statistics of the performance based on age groups in each task (efficiency andRT), and the contextual variables. (b) Paired sample T-Test to identify differences in contextual variables before and duringthe pandemic. (c) Non-parametric analysis (i.e., Wilcoxon and Mann-Whitney tests) to identify differences in contextualvariables before and during the pandemic within each age group; and for comparisons of performance according to thecontextual conditions during the pandemic.Conclusions. These preliminary results of the study suggest: (1) Performance on these tasks tended to show higher scoresand lower RTs in older children. (2) We identified differences before and during the pandemic in contextual information.Specifically, contact with friends, frequency of visiting green places, income, and living standard showed significantdifferences, for specific age groups. 3) In some cases, differences in performance were identified based on experiences duringthe pandemic. Specifically, scores in tasks taping object working memory and fluid processing were higher for children withmore frequency of friends contact during the pandemic. Also, lower RTs for inhibitory control and object working memorywere associated with a higher frequency of friends contact and higher living standard. 4) Given the high rates of attrition, it isnecessary to consider the implementation of new strategies to support the participation of registered families during thedifferent rounds.