Jelena Obradović

Stanford University | SU · Graduate School of Education

Background: Cumulative family adversity (cumulative FA), characterized by co-occurring stressors in a family context, may be biologically embedded through DNA methylation (DNAm) and contribute to later health outcomes. Materials & Methods: We compared epigenome-wide DNAm associated with cumulative FA in buccal epithelial cells (BECs; n=218) and per...

We examined how students’ intrinsic and extrinsic academic motivation and parental education uniquely and interactively related to teacher report of their self-regulated classroom behaviors (e.g., completion of tasks, keeping track of instructions). In a socioeconomically and racially/ethnically diverse sample of 317 students in third through fifth...

Despite broad interest in how children and youth cope with stress and how others can support their coping, this is the first Handbook to consolidate the many theories and large bodies of research that contribute to the study of the development of coping. The Handbook's goal is field building - it brings together theory and research from across the...

This longitudinal study investigated how kindergartners’ position in the classroom social hierarchy and cortisol response relate to their change in school engagement across the first year of kindergarten (N = 332, M = 5.3 years, 51% boys, 41% White, 18% Black). We used naturalistic classroom observations of social hierarchy positions, laboratory‐ba...

It has become increasingly apparent that publishing research on child development from certain countries is especially challenging. These countries have been referred to collectively as the Majority World, the Global South, non-WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrial, Rich, and Democratic), or low-and middle-income countries. The aim of this paper is...

We investigated the impact of a subsidized, needs-based preschool program (Study 1; N = 1,894) and California's universal but age-restricted transitional kindergarten (TK) program (Study 2; N = 1,093) on school readiness. We applied Mahalanobis matching—a quasi-experimental data analysis method used to create equivalent groups—to data from 3 recent...

We examined the additive associations of two motivational beliefs (growth mindset and academic self-efficacy) and self-regulation with mathematics and English Language Arts (ELA) scores, as well as the interplay of students' beliefs and self-regulation skills, controlling for previous test scores. We tested whether these pathways differed across th...

The speed–accuracy trade-off (SAT) suggests that time constraints reduce response accuracy. Its relevance in observational settings—where response time (RT) may not be constrained but respondent speed may still vary—is unclear. Using 29 data sets containing data from cognitive tasks, we use a flexible method for identification of the SAT (which we...

Performance-based measures of children's executive functions (EFs) do not capture children's application of these skills during everyday emotionally-laden and socially-mediated interactions. The current study demonstrates the value of using assessor report of self-regulation behaviors (inhibitory control and positive affect/engagement) in addition...

Research on the associations among adversity, executive function (EF), and academic outcomes in low- and middle-income countries, where developmental risk factors are more prevalent and impoverished environments are more widespread than in high income countries, is sparse. This study examines the relations among cumulative risk, EF, and learning ou...

Early childhood education programs invest in assessments of classroom quality to enable accountability and to enact efforts toward quality improvement. The Early Childhood Environment Rating System – Revised (ECERS-R) and Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS) are 2 widely used classroom quality assessments that have inconsistently been linked...

The overall goal of the ISEE Assessment is to pool multi-disciplinary expertise on educational systems and reforms from a range of stakeholders in an open and inclusive manner, and to undertake a scientifically robust and evidence based assessment that can inform education policy-making at all levels and on all scales. Its aim is not to be policy p...

This preregistered, randomized field experiment tested the effectiveness of a brief deep breathing intervention on children's concurrent physiological arousal in naturalistic settings (N = 342; Mage = 7.48 years; 46% female; 53% Asian, 26% White; 21% other race/ethnicity). The treatment consisted of an animated video that introduced deep breathing...

This study investigated whether parents and kindergarten children show concurrent and time‐lagged physiological synchrony during dyadic interaction. Further, we tested whether parent–child behavioral co‐regulation was associated with concurrent and time‐lagged synchrony, and whether synchrony varied by the type of interaction task. Participants wer...

Fine motor skills enable children to make precise and coordinated movements with their hands and support their ability to engage in everyday activities and learning experiences. In a longitudinal study of 1,058 4-year-old children in rural Pakistan (n = 488 girls), we examined how prior and concurrent levels of home stimulation relate to change in...

Responsive parenting and parental scaffolding have been shown to foster executive functions (EFs) and self-regulation skills in young children, but could too much parental directive engagement be counterproductive? To answer this question, we examined parental responses when children were demonstrating active on-task behaviors in a community sample...

Objective: To evaluate the sensitivity of the modified Brief Form of Bruininks Oseretsky Test in identifying motor differences secondary to malnutrition and poverty. Methods: This longitudinal cohort study was conducted at Nowshero Feroze, Sindh from 2013 to 2014 and comprised data drawn from children who participated in a randomised controlled...

Using piecewise growth curve trajectory modeling, we investigated kindergartners’ physiological responses to receiving critical feedback from an adult during a laboratory drawing task. Further, we tested how children’s independent self‐regulated behavior, as well as the quality of parent‐child co‐regulation, related to physiological reactivity to a...

To be ready to learn, children need to be focused, engaged, and able to bounce back from setbacks. However, many children come to school with heightened or diminished physiological arousal due to exposure to poverty-related risks. While stress physiology plays a role in explaining how adversity relates to processes that support students’ cognitive...

The speed-accuracy tradeoff suggests that responses generated under time constraints will be less accurate. While it has undergone extensive experimental verification, it is less clear whether it applies in settings where time pressures are not being experimentally manipulated (but where respondents still vary in their utilization of time). Using a...

Intrinsic motivation and executive functions (EFs) have been independently studied as predictors of academic achievement in elementary school. The goal of this investigation was to understand how students’ challenge preference (CP), an aspect of intrinsic motivation, is related to academic achievement while accounting for EFs as a confounding varia...

Early parenting interventions have shown to be effective for changing parenting behaviours to provide stimulation at home. However, evidence about the effect on decision to timely enrol the child in preschool and the related pathways is scarce. A follow-up study of a rural cohort exposed to early parenting interventions in the first 2 years of life...

Many young children in low‐ and middle‐income countries (LMICs) face heightened risk for experiencing environmental adversity, which is linked with poorer developmental outcomes. Children's stress physiology can shed light on why children are differentially susceptible to adversity. However, no known studies have examined whether links between adve...

As a culturally universal set of cognitive skills that promote goal‐directed behaviors, executive functions (EFs) support milestones of early childhood development, such as learning and forming social relationships. A growing base of evidence shows commonality around the world in EFs’ validity, biological basis, and family predictors. But we need m...

The determination to provide children with the best possible conditions to thrive transcends cultures and borders. Historically, most child development research has taken place in high‐income countries and represented mostly western, educated, industrialized, wealthy, and democratic population. Yet, over the last few decades the field of child deve...

We compared the effects of different immersive technologies on four- to six-year-olds' inhibitory control skills, social compliance (i.e., walking upon request), and sharing (i.e., physical stickers) with a children's media character (Grover from Sesame Street©). Children (N = 52) completed an inhibitory control task, Simon Says, with Grover either...

This study introduces the Teachers' Displays and Scaffolding of Executive Function (T-DASEF) Protocol, an observational measure designed to capture how teachers display EF-related behaviors and scaffold students' EFs in elementary school classrooms. We describe the process for developing the T-DASEF protocol and evaluating the reliability and predi...

Students’ executive functions (EFs) are linked to school success. Although school-age children spend much of their time interacting with peers, few studies have explored how children’s classmates may promote EF development in elementary school. In this study, we test whether mean levels and variability in classmates’ EF skills are associated with g...

Background: The widespread use of accessible peripheral tissues for epigenetic analyses has prompted increasing interest in the study of tissue-specific DNA methylation (DNAm) variation in human populations. To date, characterizations of inter-individual DNAm variability and DNAm concordance across tissues have been largely performed in adult tiss...

This study examined mothers’ and fathers’ developmentally stimulating parenting practices (i.e., engagement in play and communication activities) as mediators through which an early parenting intervention improved later cognitive and socioemotional development of 1302 4-year-old children in rural Pakistan. Maternal and paternal stimulation were bot...

This study extends the methodological and theoretical understanding of executive functions (EFs) in preschoolers from low‐ and middle‐income countries (LMIC). First, the authors describe a rigorous process of adapting and evaluating six EF tasks to produce a culturally and developmentally appropriate measure of emerging EFs in a large sample of at‐...

The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) is widely-used to measure symptoms of common childhood behavioral problems that may lead to mental health difficulties. In a sample of 1,302 highly-disadvantaged mothers and their preschoolers, we evaluated the factor structure and reliability of the parent-report version of the SDQ in rural Pakist...

Adaptation of the strengths and difficulties questionnaire. (DOCX)

Data for all analyses in study. (CSV)

Final item wording and bivariate correlations for all SDQ items. (DOCX)

Final items for measures in English and Sindhi. (DOCX)

Teacher-report is commonly used to assess executive functions (EFs) in schools, but teachers’ perceptions of EF skills may be biased by students’ demographic characteristics. In this short-term longitudinal study, we assessed whether students’ gender, ethnicity, and English language learner (ELL) status predicted teachers’ reports of students’ EFs,...

We developed a novel, vignette-based ranking procedure to simultaneously collect teacher-reported executive function (EF) data for all students in a classroom. This ranking measure is an improvement over existing Likert-type rating scales because it can be completed more quickly and with comparatively little effort by teachers. Data for this valida...

Research Findings: Using data from a short-term longitudinal study of 343 third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade students, we investigated visual-motor integration (VMI) skills as a predictor of direct assessments of executive functions (EFs) and academic achievement. This is the first study to investigate relations among these three constructs in late e...

Assessment of parenting frequently relies on parent self-report despite well-documented discrepancies between this methodology and observational measures. In the current study, we investigated patterns of disagreement between self-reported and observational measures of positive parenting and negative parenting with 102 dyads of parents and 4–6 year...

In discussing the four papers in this special issue, we provide our perspective on the authors’ contributions and suggest directions for future research. First, we highlight the usefulness of the bi-factor model for investigating relations among specific aspects of executive functions (EFs) and externalizing symptoms. Next, we examine the role of E...

Socioeconomic disparities undermine the development of children's executive functions (EF), whereas links between parental emotional challenges and EFs have been understudied. In an ethnically-diverse sample of 102 kindergarteners (M age = 5.61 years), linear and quadratic associations emerged between two types of parental challenges and direct ass...

Many global settings lack indigenous measures of child development, making the adaptation of available instruments necessary. The aim of this study was to reliably adapt the core subtests of the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence-III (WPPSI-III) to assess cognitive abilities in young children in rural Pakistan. A systematic adapta...

Background: Undernutrition contributes to at least half the estimated six million annual childhood deaths worldwide. Furthermore, one in three children fails to meet their developmental potential because of risks including stunting, illness, under-stimulation, poor responsive interactions and maternal depressive symptoms. Our study investigates th...

The current study employed latent difference score modeling to test whether acculturation processes at the level of the individual (i.e., self-construal) and family (i.e., family cultural conflict and family cohesion) explain variability of the cortisol awakening response (CAR) in 181 (58% female) first-generation (1G) and 135 (59.3% female) second...

This study investigates the unique contribution of microsocial and global measures of parent–child positive coregulation (PCR) in predicting children’s behavioral and social adjustment in school. Using a community sample of 102 children, ages 4–6, and their parents, we conducted nested path analytic models to identify the unique effects of 2 measur...

Children in low- and middle-income countries are at high risk of cognitive deficits due to environmental deprivation that compromises brain development. Despite the high prevalence of unrealized cognitive potential, very little is known about neural correlates of cognition in this population. We assessed resting EEG power and cognitive ability in 1...

Research Findings: Drawing from a diverse community sample of 89 children, ages 4–6, their primary caregivers and teachers, this study examined the interplay of child emotional behavior problems, parent emotion socialization practices, and gender in predicting teacher-child closeness. Teachers reported on perceptions of closeness with children. Par...

The current study focuses on maternal cognitive capacities as determinants of parenting in a highly disadvantaged global context, where children’s experiences at home are often the 1st and only opportunity for learning and intellectual growth. In a large sample of 1,291 biological mothers of preschool-aged children in rural Pakistan, we examined th...

Parenting is a cognitive, emotional, and behavioral endeavor, yet limited research investigates parents’ executive functions and emotion regulation as predictors of how parents interact with their children. The current study is a multimethod investigation of parental self-regulation in relation to the quality of parenting behavior and parent–child...

This study employed piecewise growth curve modeling to examine how children's executive function (EF) skills relate to different components of children's physiological response trajectory – initial arousal, reactivity, and recovery. The sample included 102 ethnically diverse kindergarteners, whose EF skills were measured using standard tasks and ob...

This study contributes to the understanding of how early parenting interventions implemented in low- and middle-income countries during the first 2 years of children’s lives are sustained longitudinally to promote cognitive skills in preschoolers. We employed path analytic procedures to examine 2 family processes—the quality of home stimulation and...

Background: A previous study in Pakistan assessed the effectiveness of delivering responsive stimulation and enhanced nutrition interventions to young children. Responsive stimulation significantly improved children's cognitive, language, and motor development at 2 years of age. Both interventions significantly improved parenting skills, with respo...

This cross-sectional study examined, first, whether and how immigrant youth’s personal and family resources account for individual differences in their academic achievement, and second, whether social risks and immigrant status further contribute to academic achievement after controlling for these resources. The sample consisted of 300 middle schoo...

Knowledge of how physiological responsivity and executive functioning relate to adaptation and resilience in early childhood has improved dramatically over the last decade, yet most studies focus on only one of these processes. By highlighting new findings and ongoing research, in this article, I advocate for investigating the dynamic interplay amo...

The study examined how the interplay between children’s cortisol response and family income is related to executive function (EF) skills. The sample included one hundred and two 5- to 6-year-olds (64% minority). EF skills were measured using laboratory tasks and observer ratings. Physiological reactivity was assessed via cortisol response during a...

We describe and validate a novel, scalable, group-based assessment of executive functions (EFs) in a classroom setting using tablet computers. Relative to the conventional method of a more controlled, one-on-one individual assessment (IA), the group assessment (GA) can be administered quickly to many students, requires less training for assessors,...

The study examined how the interplay between children's cortisol response and family income is related to executive function (EF) skills. The sample included one hundred and two 5- to 6-year-olds (64% minority). EF skills were measured using laboratory tasks and observer ratings. Physiological reactivity was assessed via cortisol response during a...

Family homelessness in the United States has increased over the past two decades, raising concerns about associated risks for child development. In this article, we describe a translational research program focused on academic risk and resilience in homeless and highly mobile children. We find that although these children share many risk factors wi...

This study investigates the dynamic interplay between teacher-child relationship quality and children's behaviors across kindergarten and first grade to predict academic competence in first grade. Using a sample of 338 ethnically diverse 5-year-old children, nested path analytic models were conducted to examine bidirectional pathways between childr...

Despite widespread recognition that the physiological systems underlying stress reactivity are well coordinated at a neurobiological level, surprisingly little empirical attention has been given to delineating precisely how the systems actually interact with one another when confronted with stress. We examined cross-system response proclivities in...

Open access: http://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/jmasm/vol12/iss1/29/ A pedagogical tool is presented for applied researchers dealing with incomplete multilevel, longitudinal data. It explains why such data pose special challenges regarding missingness. Syntax created to perform a multiply-imputed growth modeling procedure in Stata Version 11 (StataCo...

This study investigates how the quality of family and friend relationships relates to depressive symptomatology among immigrant Asian and nonimmigrant young adults. The analyses focused on three cultural groups of college students to examine whether these processes vary with immigrants' generation and ethnicity. Results showed that family and frien...

Socioeconomic status (SES) is the single most potent determinant of health within human populations, from infancy through old age. Although the social stratification of health is nearly universal, there is persistent uncertainty regarding the dimensions of SES that effect such inequalities and thus little clarity about the principles of interventio...

Research shows that ethnic minority and immigrant youth hold stronger attitudes about helping their families compared with native-born European American peers. Though often portrayed as burdensome, there has been limited empirical research on how family assistance attitudes affect the mental health among diverse emerging adults. We examined the inf...

Families, communities and societies influence children's learning and development in many ways. This is the first handbook devoted to the understanding of the nature of environments in child development. Utilizing Urie Bronfenbrenner's idea of embedded environments, this volume looks at environments from the immediate environment of the family (inc...

The focus of this article is to present current progress in understanding the interplay among adversity, physiological sensitivity to context, and adaptive functioning, with an emphasis on implications and future directions for resilience researchers. It includes a review of current literature that demonstrates (a) links between various levels of a...

In the past decade, there has been a dramatic growth in research examining the development of emotion from a physiological perspective. However, this widespread use of physiological measures to study emotional development coexists with relatively few guiding principles, thus reducing opportunities to move the field forward in innovative ways. The g...

Using an ethnically diverse longitudinal sample of 338 kindergarten children, this study examined the effects of cumulative contextual stressors on children's developing hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) axis regulation as an early life indicator of allostatic load. Chronic HPA axis regulation was assessed using cumulative, multiday measu...

Current methods of assessing children's physiological "stress reactivity" may be confounded by psychomotor activity, biasing estimates of the relation between reactivity and health. We examined the joint and independent contributions of psychomotor activity and challenge reactivity during a protocol for 5- and 6-year-old children (N = 338). Measure...

To examine associations between autonomic nervous system and adrenocortical reactivity to laboratory stressors and buccal cell telomere length (BTL) in children. The study sample comprised 78 children, aged 5 to 6 years, from a longitudinal cohort study of kindergarten social hierarchies, biologic responses to adversity, and child health. Buccal ce...

Growing evidence supports the biological sensitivity to context theory, which posits that physiologically reactive children, as indexed by autonomic nervous system (ANS) reactivity to laboratory stressors, are more susceptible to both negative and positive environmental influences than their low reactive peers. High biological sensitivity is a risk...

Research Findings: Effects of parenting quality on the academic functioning of young homeless children were examined using data from 58 children, age four to seven, and their parents during their stay at an emergency homeless shelter. Parenting quality, child executive function, child intellectual function, and risk status were assessed in shelter,...

This investigation examined transactional relations across contextual strain, parenting quality, and child adjustment in 209 mothers and children at 24, 42, and 72 months of age. Independent ratings of mothers' stressful life events, social support, and relationship quality provided an objective measure of maternal contextual strain. Observers eval...

This study examined developmental processes linking competence and psychopathology in an urban sample of girls during their transition to adolescence. Longitudinal associations among indices of externalizing symptoms, social competence, and internalizing symptoms were also tested within contexts of family adversity and girls' pubertal status. Child...

Homeless children show significant developmental delays across major domains of adaptation, yet research on protective processes that may contribute to resilient adaptation in this highly disadvantaged group of children is extremely rare. This study examined the role of effortful control for adaption in 58 homeless children, ages 5-6, during their...