The current study examined preschoolers’ attentional and behavioral regulation as unique predictors of adolescent flourishing. Additional interests included the role of social competence and academic competence as mediators and poverty-status as a moderator of these pathways. Data were drawn from the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study and included an analytic sample of 2,266 ethnically and economically diverse families. Children’s attentional regulation and academic competence were directly assessed during in-home visits, behavioral regulation and social competence were parent-reported, and adolescent flourishing was self-reported. Overall, results from multiple linear regression indicated that behavioral self-regulation at age 5 was associated with adolescent flourishing at age 15. In addition, the findings from structural equation models that examined mediation and moderation simultaneously indicated specificity in the pathways; attentional regulation positively predicted social competence for the poor and the near-poor groups, while lack of behavioral regulation was found to be negatively correlated with social competence for all three income groups. Furthermore, both attentional regulation and behavioral regulation were associated with academic competence for the poor and near-poor groups, but not for the non-poor group. Lastly, mediation analyses indicated that higher behavioral regulation at age 5 was positively associated with social competence at age 9, which further were associated with adolescence flourishing at age 15, for the non-poor group only. Implications of these findings for interventions targeting early attentional and behavioral regulation among at-risk children are discussed.

中文翻译：

---

早期注意力和行为调节对青少年蓬勃发展的影响：家庭收入状况路径的变化

目前的研究将学龄前儿童的注意力和行为调节作为青少年蓬勃发展的独特预测因素。其他兴趣包括社会能力和学术能力作为调节因素的作用以及贫困状况作为这些途径的调节因素的作用。数据取自“家庭的未来和儿童福祉研究”，包括 2,266 个种族和经济多样化家庭的分析样本。在家访时直接评估儿童的注意力调节和学业能力，家长报告行为调节和社交能力，自我报告青少年的成长。总体而言，多元线性回归的结果表明，5 岁时的行为自我调节与 15 岁时青少年的蓬勃发展相关。此外，同时检查中介和调节的结构方程模型的结果表明了路径的特异性；注意力调节正向预测穷人和接近贫困群体的社会能力，而缺乏行为调节被发现与所有三个收入群体的社会能力负相关。此外，注意力调节和行为调节都与贫困和接近贫困群体的学业能力相关，但与非贫困群体无关。最后，中介分析表明，5 岁时较高的行为调节与 9 岁时的社交能力呈正相关，这进一步与 15 岁时青春期的蓬勃发展相关，仅对于非贫困群体而言。讨论了这些发现对针对高危儿童早期注意力和行为调节的干预措施的影响。