
Steven J. HolochwostLehman College | CUNY · Department of Psychology
Steven J. Holochwost
Ph.D.
About
77
Publications
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Introduction
Dr. Holochwost is a developmental psychologist who works with programs designed to improve the lives of vulnerable children and youth. His research in child development examines the effects of environment, and particularly poverty and parenting, on voluntary forms of self-regulation (e.g., executive functions) and the involuntary activity of neurophysiological systems that support self-regulatory abilities. This research is directly relevant to his applied work, which examines the efficacy of educational interventions for children in poverty. The common thread running through both these lines of work is the need to understand how poverty impacts child development, and how programs that expand educational opportunities for children can mitigate those effects.
Additional affiliations
August 2013 - December 2014
August 2013 - present
WolfBrown
Position
- Research Assistant
February 2010 - July 2013
WolfBrown
Position
- Senior Researcher
Education
August 2008 - August 2013
August 2006 - August 2008
September 2001 - May 2005
Publications
Publications (77)
This study examined whether music education was associated with improved performance on measures of academic achievement and executive functions. Participants were 265 school-age children (Grades 1 through 8, 58% female, and 86% African American) who were selected by lottery to participate in an out-of-school program offering individual- and large-...
Background:
Deficits of inhibitory control in early childhood are linked to externalizing behaviors and attention problems. While environmental factors and physiological processes are associated with its etiology, few studies have examined how these factors jointly predict inhibitory control. This study examined whether respiratory sinus arrhythmi...
Early childhood education programs, and particularly those designed to reduce gaps in school readiness between children in poverty and their more affluent peers, have increasingly addressed children’s self-regulatory abilities – their ability to manage behaviors, emotions, and cognitive processes. Although self-regulation is typically defined in vo...
Self-regulation in early childhood encompasses both “top down,” volitional processes, as well as the “bottom up” activity of three neurophysiological systems: the parasym- pathetic nervous system (PNS), the sympathetic nervous system (SNS), and the hy- pothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. In this paper we briefly review the structure, function,...
Perceptions of the healthiness of Black women shape the way that they are treated and may differ by characteristics of the person and the perceiver. We examined perceptions of Black women’s physical healthiness by skin tone and rater race. In a within-subjects design, adults (N = 280; 45.7% Black, 54.3% White) rated the physical healthiness of the...
The parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) is highly responsive to changes in environmental conditions and serves an essential role in mobilising the metabolic resources required for young children to regulate their thoughts, emotions and behaviours. According to polyvagal theory, the PNS evolved to play a leading role in the neurophysiological respo...
Black adults' prior exposure to racial discrimination may be associated with their acute parasympathetic reactivity to and recovery from a new race‐related stressor. Existing analytical approaches to investigating this link obscure nuances in the timing, magnitude, and patterns of these acute parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) responses. In a re‐...
This study examines the impact of visual arts activities on the neurophysiological stress response and observed interest in the early education classroom. The aim of this study was to confirm results from past investigations showing that visual arts classes relate to lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol and greater observed interest in young...
American students continue to perform poorly on national and international assessments of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) competencies, and achievement gaps spanning racial/ethnic and socioeconomic lines emerge early and widen over time. Scholars and practitioners agree that expanding access to high-quality STEM education h...
Overview
Allostatic load represents the cumulative toll of chronic mobilization of the body’s stress response systems, as indexed by biomarkers. Higher levels of stress and disadvantage predict higher levels of allostatic load, which, in turn, predict poorer physical and mental health outcomes. To maximize the efficacy of prevention efforts, screen...
Objectives: The present study assessed the association between daily racial discrimination and depressive symptoms over the course of 14 consecutive days, and the predictive and buffering effects of ethnic identity commitment and exploration. Method: Participants were 96 high school juniors and seniors (Mage = 17.45, SE = 1.12) from a low-income ur...
Self‐regulation is an essential component of school readiness. Although in educational contexts self‐regulation is typically defined in terms of volitional processes, it also encompasses the activity of neurophysiological systems, including the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS). In a prospective longitudinal study, 102 preschoolers ( M age = 4.8...
Research investigating effects of music instruction on executive functioning (EF) has yielded mixed results, relying only on a small and inadequate number of true randomized and controlled experiments (Degé & Frischen, 2022). We report here an experimental study of the effects of 2 years of school-based orchestral music training on young children’s...
Access to high‐quality early music education programs may mitigate the effects of poverty on the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis, but fundamental questions remain about the role of early educators in conveying these benefits. In the current study, we measured the basal or resting cortisol levels of 76 children ( M age = 4.17 years; 42% fe...
Background
Music therapy is a standard palliative care service in many pediatric and adult hospitals; however, most research has focused on the use of music to improve psychosocial dimensions of health, without considering biological dimensions. This study builds on prior work examining psychosocial mechanisms of action underlying an Active Music E...
The promise of applied developmental science is that we can use scientific methods to promote positive human development and improve the lives of children and families. However, the present political environment in the United States makes the creation of research-informed federal policy difficult, even when the evidence base supporting that policy...
The promise of applied developmental science is that we can use scientific methods to promote positive human development and improve the lives of children and families. However, the present political environment in the United States makes the creation of research‐informed federal policy difficult, even when the evidence supporting a given policy is...
The predictive validity of performance on cognitive-behavioral measures of executive function(EF) suggests that these measures index children’s underlying capacity for self-regulation. In this paper, we apply ecological systems theory to critically evaluate this assertion. We argue that as typically administered, standard measures of EF do not inde...
The predictive validity of performance on cognitive-behavioral measures of executive function (EF) suggests that these measures index children’s underlying capacity for self-regulation. In this paper, we apply ecological systems theory to critically evaluate this assertion. We argue that as typically administered, standard measures of EF do not ind...
Building on research showing social-emotional benefits from a single live theater performance, this study tests for significant differences in pre to post social-cognitive outcomes among a racially and economically diverse sample of young audiences who attended the same theater performance with or without additional pre- and post-show educational e...
Social awareness and relationship skills are two essential components of children’s socioemotional development that undergo rapid consolidation in middle childhood. Previous research has found that growing up in poverty can undermine the development of social awareness and relationship skills and has also suggested that theater education might serv...
Research shows that children's early social competence predicts their later academic and interpersonal success. Accordingly, early childhood education programs increasingly aim to evaluate and support children's social skill development. Despite ample theoretical and empirical work demonstrating the role of the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS)...
High-quality early care and education can mitigate the short- and long-term effects of poverty on young children’s development. Therefore, policies that expand access to high-quality early care and education can be an effective anti-poverty strategy. A number of programs demonstrably foster volitional processes of self-regulation—the capacity to co...
High-quality early care and education can mitigate the short- and long-term effects of poverty on young children’s development. Therefore, policies that expand access to high-quality early care and education can be an effective anti- poverty strategy. A number of programs demonstrably foster volitional processes of self-regulation—the capacity to c...
Fostering students' spatial thinking skills holds great promise for improving Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education. Recent efforts have focused on the development of classroom interventions to build students' spatial skills, yet these interventions will be implemented by teachers, and their beliefs and perceptions abou...
Exposure to higher levels of sociodemographic risk is associated with lower levels of academic achievement among young children. However, there is variability in the strength of this association, which may be traced to individual differences in physiological processes underlying self‐regulation. In the current study, we examined whether the respons...
Functioning of the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS), most often indexed by respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), influences the volitional, cognitively-mediated forms of self-regulation across development. However, despite its clear relevance to children’s self-regulation, and its utility as a transdiagnostic biomarker of emotion dysregulation an...
In this paper, we argue that in order for the study of arts education to continue to advance, we must delineate the effects of particular forms of arts education, offered in certain contexts, on specific domains of children’s socioemotional development. We explain why formulating precise hypotheses about the effects of arts education on children’s...
Growth mindset is an important aspect of children’s socioemotional development and is subject to change due to environmental influence. Orchestral music education may function as a fertile context in which to promote growth mindset; however, this education is not widely available to children facing economic hardship. This study examined whether par...
This study deconstructs cumulative risk to probe unique relations to basal cortisol for family income and four distinct aspects of poverty-related instability. Participants were 288 children aged 3-5 years who attended Head Start preschool. Parents reported on poverty risks. Children provided samples of salivary cortisol at four times of day on 6 d...
The current study focuses on the relations between observed measures of children's self-regulation and academic achievement, as well as the extent to which observations of children's peer competence in preschool moderates these links. Data were drawn from 102 students (male = 48; M age = 4.82 years, SD age = 0.46 years) enrolled in pre-kindergarten...
This paper reports the results of a single case design pilot study of a music therapy intervention [the Active Music Engagement (AME)] for young children (age 3.51 to 4.53 years) undergoing hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HCST) and their caregivers. The primary aims of the study were to determine feasibility/acceptability of the AME interv...
Abstract
Many families today use video chat to help their babies develop or maintain relationships with remote family members; however, there is very little existing research that systematically compares infant emotional engagement during face-to-face and video mediated interactions. A laboratory experiment was carried out with 49 infants between t...
Maltreatment adversely impacts the development of children across a host of domains. One way in which maltreatment may exert its deleterious effects is by becoming embedded in the activity of neurophysiological systems that regulate metabolic function. This paper reviews the literature regarding the association between childhood maltreatment and th...
The association between poverty and the activity of the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis in early childhood is well established. Both ecological and transactional theories suggest that one way in which poverty may influence children’s HPA-axis activity is through its effects on parents’ behaviors, and over the past three decades a substant...
Objective:
Primary aims of the proposed protocol are to determine the feasibility/acceptability of the active music engagement intervention protocol during hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) and clinical feasibility/acceptability of the biological sample collection schedule.
Design:
The authors propose a single-case, alternating treatm...
In this chapter a team of artists from The New Victory Theater and their research colleagues share early insights from NEW VICTORY SPARK (Schools with Performing Arts Reach Kids), a theater program that operates in schools where the arts have not been a regular part of learning. Together we discuss what we are discovering in three different ‘theate...
The current study examined the association between early growth in expressive communication from 18 months (1.5 years: M = 1.59 years, SD = 0.08 years) to 36 months (3 years: M = 3.01 years, SD = 0.05) and internalizing and externalizing problems at 84 months (8 years: M = 7.79 years, SD = 0.31) and the differences in this association by ethnicity....
In this chapter, we present the results of an evaluation that assesses whether an education in the arts may contribute to the development of socioemotional skills. To address this question, data were collected from N = 892 students (77.3% of color) participating in one of 11 programs in visual arts, music, theater, or dance. While our analyses reve...
While the role of early maternal parenting practices in the development of executive functions (EFs) has received considerable attention in the literature, little is known about how specific parenting behaviours may be related to EFs within different racial groups. Therefore, the present study examines the joint impact of specific maternal parentin...
The National Institutes of Health and John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts convened a panel of experts to discuss the current state of research on music and the brain. The panel generated research recommendations to accelerate the study of music's effects on the brain and the implications for human health.
Prior research has suggested an association between increased musical training and extra-musical outcomes, but these studies are primarily correlational, focused on instrumental music, and provide limited information about the type of musical intervention. In the current study, we perform the first randomized controlled study investigating whether...
In the 1990s, we were optimistic about turning public education around. At this moment, it is much harder, though no less vital, to muster that same hope: Horace Mann’s vision of public education as “the great flywheel of equality” is battered and threatened. We offer 4 challenges to middle school communities to ensure they are not just following t...
Background
Although shared book reading is seen as an effective way to support children’s early literacy and language development, less is known about the factors associated with toddlers’ engagement with books. Objective
The goal of the current study was to examine younger and older toddlers’ engagement with books during one-on-one reading with a...
Although many relatives use video chat to keep in touch with toddlers, key features of adult-toddler interaction like joint visual attention (JVA) may be compromised in this context. In this study, 25 families with a child between 6 and 24 months were observed using video chat at home with geographically separated grandparents. We define two types...
This study examined individual differences in the function of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis with regard to age and cumulative risk during challenging laboratory tasks administered at 6, 12, 24, and 36 months. Saliva samples were collected from a majority-minority sample of N = 185 children (57% African American, 50% female) prior to...
Evidence has accrued to show that autonomic and adrenocortical systems act in coordination to facilitate responses to environmental opportunities and threats. In the current study, we used cluster analysis to examine whether individual differences in patterns of joint baseline activity among the parasympathetic and sympathetic branches of the auton...
This study investigated whether participation in an ensemble-based music education program was associated with evidence of internal strengths, changes in perceptions of peers, or changes in behavior among incarcerated youth. Participants were 54 adolescents (63% male), held in 2 secure detention facilities, who elected to take part in a 2-week chor...
The American Academy of Pediatrics has historically discouraged media exposure for children under two due to the absence of evidence supporting its benefits and the potential for negative effects (AAP, 2011); however, the AAP has begun to recognize that all screen time may not be equal (Brown, Shifrin, & Hill, 2015). For example, many young childre...
The authors investigated the association between participation in Nations in Neighborhoods (NiN), a program of folk and traditional arts instruction, and achievement in English language arts in a sample of low-income elementary school students, many of whom were recent immigrants and English language learners. The program drew on the core practices...
The primary objective of this article was to critically evaluate the routine use of confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) for representing an individual’s performance across a battery of executive function tasks. A conceptual review and statistical reanalysis of N = 10 studies that used CFA methods of EF tasks was undertaken. Despite evidence of excel...
The authors investigated the relationships among parenting behaviors, infant vagal tone, and subsequent attachment classification. Vagal tone was assessed among 6-month olds (n = 95) during the still-face paradigm (SFP) via respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), while attachment security and disorganization were measured at 12 months during the strang...
Available from National Endowment for the Arts: https://www.arts.gov/sites/default/files/Research-Art-Works-Carnegie.pdf
Available from WolfBrown at 8A Francis Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138.
Available from WolfBrown, 8A Francis Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138.
Sequestered at request of the Endowment.
Available upon request from Wolfbrown, 8A Francis Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138.
What incentives can the administrators of early childhood education facilities offer their staff in order to retain them?
In light of research identifying low staff turnover as a key component of high quality early childhood education, the answer
to this question has ramifications beyond human-resources management. This paper presents the results o...
Juslin & Västfjäll (J&V) propose a theoretical framework of how music may evoke an emotional response. This commentary presents results from a pilot study that employed young children as participants, and measured musically induced emotions through facial expressions. Preliminary findings support certain aspects of the proposed theoretical framewor...
Available upon request either from The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012, or WolfBrown, 8A Francis Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138.
"Graduate Program in Music." Thesis (Ph. D.)--Rutgers University, 2005. Includes abstract. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 134-135).