Karine Dubois‐Comtois

This longitudinal study investigates whether the quality of family interactions at 3–5 years of age predicts narrative abilities in 7–9‐year‐old children from socioeconomically disadvantaged families. The sample consists of 67 children and their parents receiving social welfare. Family interactions were filmed during mealtime at home and coded using the Mealtime Interaction Coding System . Children's narrative abilities were measured based on their capacity to coherently elaborate and resolve stories from the Attachment Story Completion Task . Results revealed that children exposed to family interactions of higher quality make their narratives more accessible and understandable and include more appropriate expression of affects in their stories 4 years later, even after accounting for maternal education and verbal abilities. The results of this study highlight the importance of considering family interactions in the context of financial insecurity when studying socioemotional competence in childhood.

The purpose of this study was to examine, in a sample of residential care children, the moderating role of cognitive flexibility in the association between maltreatment and emotion regulation competencies. The sample included 69 children aged 8 to 12 and their group home educator as their primary caretaker. Educators completed questionnaires evaluating child emotion regulation competencies and cognitive flexibility. Child history of maltreatment and sociodemographic data were collected on the basis of the children’s child protective services files. Moderation analyses showed that the effect of child maltreatment on emotion regulation was only present for children with high levels of cognitive flexibility, such that the less children experienced severe maltreatment, the more they showed emotion regulation competencies. Children with low cognitive flexibility displayed lower levels of emotion regulation regardless of their maltreatment history. These results suggest that focusing on cognitive flexibility when intervening with children in residential care could help strengthen their emotion regulation competencies, which may prevent further maladaptive behaviors.