Age-related changes in children’s speech contents during a frustrating task and their relations to nonverbal anger expressions in early childhood
Open Access
- Author:
- Kim, Yeunjoo
- Graduate Program:
- Psychology
- Degree:
- Master of Science
- Document Type:
- Master Thesis
- Date of Defense:
- March 20, 2023
- Committee Members:
- Pamela Marie Cole, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor
Rina Das Eiden, Committee Member
Kristin Buss (She/Her), Program Head/Chair
Janet Van Hell, Committee Member - Keywords:
- early childhood
anger expression
age-related changes
spontaneous speech
language
emotion regulation - Abstract:
- Before the development of language, very young children express their difficulty waiting for something they desire through nonverbal anger. However, as children transition from toddlerhood to preschool age, the nonverbal anger intensity decreases and they appear better able to cope with frustration; theoretically, these developmental changes are partly due to growth in language ability (Kopp, 1989). Although relations between early language abilities and self-regulation are found in correlational research, how language contributes to emotion regulation remains an open question. This thesis examines age-related changes in children’s spontaneous speech during a frustrating task and tests whether two different types of speech content account for a developmental decrease in nonverbal anger intensity in early childhood. Longitudinal data from 120 mother-child dyads from children (46% girls; 93.3% White) at ages 2, 3, 4, and 5 ½ years is used to test (a) how children’s nonverbal anger intensity and speech content change with age and (b) how these two aspects of behavioral change relate to each other. Dyads participated in an 8-minute wait task at each age, during which mothers told children to wait to open a gift until mothers finished their work (completing questionnaires). Key variables are children’s nonverbal anger intensity and spontaneous speech (either about task demands or unrelated to them) frequency at each age point. Multilevel models show 1) age-related decreases in anger intensity, 2) curvilinear change in the frequency of speech about task demands, which becomes more frequent between ages 2 and 4 years then drops by age 5 ½, and 3) linear increase in speech unrelated to task demands between ages 2 and 5 ½. Both types of speech are related to anger intensity, controlling for children’s language ability, but speech unrelated to task demands better predicts this decline compared to speech about task demands. Results suggest children’s strategic use of spontaneous speech unrelated to task demands may reflect self-regulation strategies that help children cope with frustration. The findings imply one way that language supports young children’s emotion regulation development. Future directions involve more nuanced classification of the two types of spontaneous speech content.