Over 60% of 3- to 5-year-olds in the United States attend center-based, non-relative childcare. Early caregiving
experiences are integral to the development of cognitive and behavioral self-regulation capacities that
undergird children’s school readiness, socio-emotional competence, and mental health. Unfortunately, recent
national reports highlight exceptionally high levels of occupational and psychosocial stress in the early
childhood workforce. Surprisingly little is known about the mechanisms that link these stressors to early
childhood teachers’ caregiving behavior or to children’s self-regulation. Our long-term goal is to develop a
biofeedback intervention to ensure that children receive high-quality caregiving, thereby paving the way for
positive self-regulatory outcomes. The objective of the proposed exploratory study is to lay the theoretical
groundwork for this intervention by testing a model that conceptualizes emotion regulation, mindfulness, and
parasympathetic tone in teachers as central resources that foster their wellbeing and capacity for sensitive,
responsive caregiving. Eighty preschool teachers will complete assessments of their occupational and
psychosocial stressors, rewards and supports, emotion regulation and mindfulness. Teachers’ heart rate
variability (HRV), a putative measure of the brain’s capacity to modulate arousal via the parasympathetic
nervous system, will be recorded directly within the classroom over three workdays, concomitant with
intermittent teacher ratings of negative stress and samples of salivary cortisol, a product of the hypothalamic
pituitary adrenal stress response system. Teacher sensitivity and responsiveness toward students will be
observed directly. The self-regulation of selected students (n~320) will be assessed via direct observation,
developmentally sensitive tasks, and parent report. This study will achieve three specific aims: 1) characterize
the overlap among emotion regulation, mindfulness, and parasympathetic tone in preschool teachers; 2)
establish the strength of hypothesized links from occupational and psychosocial stress to teacher
responsiveness and sensitivity via teachers’ classroom-based parasympathetic tone; and 3) determine whether
teachers’ emotion regulation, mindfulness, and parasympathetic tone correlate with students' self-regulation
independent of students’ socio-familial experiences. The use of multi-modal assessment strategies in a sample
with varying financial backgrounds as well as stringent control for student sociofamilial factors will address key
limitations in the rigor of prior research. The study will fulfill an important need to understand the implications of
early childhood teachers’ stress and psychophysiological characteristics for children’s development. Critically,
by clarifying these links, the study will establish whether a classroom-based HRV biofeedback intervention may
help to alleviate stress and enhance responsiveness and sensitivity in preschool teachers. This research will
advance the mission of NICHD to ensure that all children lead healthy, productive lives by delineating targets
for the promotion of self-regulation capacities that are foundational to children’s wellbeing.
