From Birth to Belonging: Psychosocial Development in Early Childhood

The first years of life represent a crucial period in child development. While learning to walk and talk are well-known milestones, children also develop essential social and emotional skills during this time. For example, children learn to regulate their emotions and engage in social interactions. This dissertation examined this development, also known as psychosocial development, in young children (0-6 years) from three perspectives. Firstly, methods to measure psychosocial development were studied. Chapter 2 examined the accuracy of the Ages and Stages Questionnaire Social-Emotional (ASQ-SE) – a parent-report questionnaire to screen for social-emotional problems in young children. The ASQ-SE demonstrated sufficient accuracy in screening for social-emotional problems, but only for children ≥1.5 years old. In Chapter 3, observations of mother and child in two contexts were compared: a structured task context (such as solving a puzzle together) and a free-play context. The results showed that depending on the context of observation, different behaviors were elicited which were differently related to children’s psychosocial outcomes. The structured task context elicited more varied behaviors and was more predictive for (term born) children’s psychosocial development than the free-play context. Secondly, risk factors for psychosocial development were investigated. Results of Chapters 3 and 4 showed that the child’s prematurity, certain aspects of mother-child interaction, and higher levels of maternal negative affectivity can be considered risk factors for children’s psychosocial development. Moderate-to-late preterm born children were reported to have slightly more psychosocial (i.e., internalizing) problems than term born children. Furthermore, the quality of mother-child interaction was predictive for children’s psychosocial development, but this was particularly found for term born children and to a lesser extent for preterm born children. The results showed that dyadic synchronous behaviors and active, engaged, and reciprocal behaviors may foster children’s psychosocial development – especially for term born children when observed during structured tasks. In addition, higher levels of maternal negative affectivity formed a risk factor for children’s psychosocial outcomes, directly for preterm children and indirectly – through quality of mother-child interaction – for term born children. Lastly, young children’s psychosocial development during the COVID-19 pandemic was studied. The results of Chapters 5 and 6 showed that most children experienced few psychosocial problems, but approximately one in five experienced moderate-to-severe psychosocial problems. The results of Chapter 6 showed that the development of psychosocial problems throughout the pandemic differed between children, with some children showing increasing problems, while other children showed stable or decreasing psychosocial problems over time. Parental well-being emerged as an important factor: children tended to show more difficulties when their parents found the pandemic particularly challenging or experienced high levels of stress themselves. The findings of the current dissertation underscore the interplay between biological, familial, and contextual factors in shaping children’s psychosocial development. Collectively, these findings advocate for a holistic, context-sensitive approach to understand and support psychosocial development in early childhood, emphasizing the importance of considering multiple factors – from screening accuracy and observational contexts to several types of risk factors – in both research and clinical practice.