Preschool Emotion Project (PEP)
The Preschool Emotion Project is a longitudinal study funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (R15 MH106885).
Despite advances in developmental psychopathology research, an important question remains: how can we distinguish clinically significant from developmentally typical behavior? Anxiety and mood dysregulation (e.g., separation anxiety, irritability, sadness) are symptoms of disorders, but are also very common and developmentally normative behaviors in young children. The level at which such behaviors may be clinically significant is largely unknown. This work seeks to generate empirically-derived, developmentally sensitive norms to help child practitioners and parents distinguish typical behavior from risk for persistent, impairing conditions.
We developed a novel application of the daily diary approach to assess the frequency, duration, and contexts of 3-5-year-old children’s daily anxiety and mood behaviors (N = 609; Bufferd et al., in press). In addition, we assessed familial (e.g., parent-child interactions, stressors) and physiological (acute [salivary cortisol] and long-term [hair cortisol] stress activity; inflammatory markers) correlates of emotional difficulties in a subsample (n = 205) alongside diary parameters to identify the level of behavior that may be problematic.
The longitudinal follow-up study is currently underway to assess children’s functioning at ages 6-8, which is a vital next step to clarify variation in behavior in preschool age that increases risk for psychopathology in early school age. Although some of our plans were derailed due to the pandemic, we have been able to assess children’s daily behavior using the daily diary as well as parent-reported child functioning using diagnostic interviews.
Methods: Daily diaries, diagnostic interviews, questionnaires, structured laboratory observations, laboratory tasks, physiological assessments
Informants: Parents/primary caregivers, coparents/caregivers (if applicable), children (via observations and laboratory tasks)
You can read more about the first assessment here: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9098280
You can read more about the current follow-up assessment here:
https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9812725