Self regulation in preterms – preliminary data with regard to the assessment of „Effortful Control“

„Effortful control“ is defined as the ability to inhibit a dominant response and to perform a subdominant response. It is part of the broad field of self-regulation and covers both cognitive and social-emotional developmental aspects (Rothbart & Bates, 1998). The concept is strongly related to the concept of executive functioning. Valid assessment tools for infants are rare. The higher risk of preterms for disturbances in self-regulation is broadly described. Thus, early developmental diagnostics in children at risk has to focus on self-regulation as well as on cognitive development.

On the base of the „Effortful Control Battery“ (Kochanska et al, 2000, 2003) we developed a behavioural assessment battery with focus on several major aspects of self-regulation: Slowing down groß and fine motor activity, delaying reaction in motivational contexts, effortful attention, cognitive flexibility, suppressing/initiating activity to a signal.

We report preliminary data of 30 preterms with heterogeneous range of perinatal risks at the corrected age of 24 months. Inter- and intraindividual variance of self-regulation in motivational and neutral contexts is obvious.

The practicability of the assessment battery, rating and interpretation is discussed with regard to perinatal risk factors and confounding variables (e.g. motor dysfunctions and speech/language disorders).