Socioemotional Development in the Preschool Period: Investigating the Predictive Role of Temperament, Language Development, and Emotion Comprehension

Abstract

The present study aimed to investigate the predictive role played by temperament, language and emotion comprehension skills in social competence and behavior problems in the preschool period. The sample consisted of 223 children aged between 39-83 months, their mothers, and 48 preschool teachers who were recruited from 16 municipal preschools located in two central districts of Istanbul through convenient sampling. Children’s social competence was measured through teacher report of Social Competence Behavior Evaluation-Preschool Edition, Short Form (SCBE-30), and children’s behavior problems were evaluated with the related subscales of mother report of Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) and teacher report of the SCBE-30. Temperament, receptive language development and emotion comprehension skills were measured through Children's Behavior Questionnaire Very Short Form (CBQ-VSF), Turkish version of Test of Early Language Development-Third Edition (TELD-3:T), and Test of Emotion Comprehension (TEC), respectively. The predictive role of each child characteristics in social competence and behavior problems was tested with a series of hierarchical linear regression analyses. Findings indicated that emotion comprehension skills significantly and language development and temperamental effortful control marginally predicted children’s social competence. Further, while temperamental negative affect and effortful control were significant predictors of both externalizing and internalizing problems, externalizing problems were also predicted by language development. The ways findings of this study can contribute to intervention programs that aim to prevent behavior problems and enhance social competence in the preschool period were discussed.