Elita Virmani - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Elita Virmani

Journal of American college health : J of ACH, 2021

OBJECTIVE To examine associations between risks and resources in predicting college students'... more OBJECTIVE To examine associations between risks and resources in predicting college students' depressive symptoms at the beginning of one semester and change over the semester. Participants: Participants were undergraduate students taking human development courses at one of 11 universities in the U.S. (N = 854). Methods: Survey data were collected at the beginning and end of the semester. Results: Experiencing more direct abusive or neglectful adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), and attachment preoccupation were associated with higher depressive symptoms at the beginning of the semester. Conversely, greater mindful awareness and attachment security were associated with lower initial depressive symptoms. Experiences of ACEs were associated with increases in depressive symptoms, as were higher levels of attachment dismissiveness. Greater mindful acceptance was associated with decreases in depressive symptoms. In most analyses, resources did not moderate the associations between ...

Attachment & Human Development, 2013

The transition from preschool to early school years is critical for the growth of social skills. ... more The transition from preschool to early school years is critical for the growth of social skills. Using data from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (for this study N = 942), the purpose of this study was to evaluate the longitudinal influence of attachment security and social information processing skills (social problem-solving and hostile attribution biases) on normative changes in peer conflict over the transition from preschool to first grade. Using latent growth curve modeling (LGM), this study found that children exhibited progressive declines in peer conflict over this period. Security of attachment (assessed via the Attachment Q-Set at 24 months) was related to lower rates of peer conflict in first grade, and steeper declines in peer conflict from 54 to 84 months. Differences in children&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#39;s social information processing (assessed at 54 months) were marginally related to steeper declines in peer conflict. These findings suggest that the social skills and social expectations associated with early attachment security, together with subsequent advances in social information processing, are related to changes in peer conflict during the transition to school.

Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 2010

This study examined the association between the security of attachment and processes influencing ... more This study examined the association between the security of attachment and processes influencing the development of emotion regulation in young children. A sample of 73 4 1/2-year-olds and their mothers were observed in an emotion regulation probe involving mild frustration for children, and mothers and children were later independently interviewed about how the child had felt. Fewer than half the mothers agreed with children's selfreports in the emotion they attributed to children (a lower rate than the concordance of observer ratings with children's selfreports), and higher mother-child concordance was associated with secure attachment and mother's beliefs about the importance of attending to and accepting their own emotions. Mother-child conversations about recent events evoking children's negative emotion were also analyzed. Children were less likely to avoid conversing about negative feelings when they were in secure attachments and when mothers were more validating of the child's perspective. Children's greater understanding of negative emotions was also significantly associated with higher motherchild concordance and less child conversational avoidance. Taken together, these findings underscore the multiple influences of attachment on emotion regulation and the importance of children's emotion understanding to these processes.

International Journal of Behavioral Development, 2014

There is considerable knowledge of parental socialization processes that directly and indirectly ... more There is considerable knowledge of parental socialization processes that directly and indirectly influence the development of children's emotion self-regulation, but little understanding of the specific beliefs and values that underlie parents' socialization approaches. This study examined multiple aspects of parents' self-reported emotion representations and their associations with parents' strategies for managing children's negative emotions and children's emotion self-regulatory behaviors. The sample consisted of 73 mothers of 4-5-year-old children; the sample was ethnically diverse. Two aspects of parents' beliefs about emotion -the importance of attention to/acceptance of emotional reactions, and the value of emotion self-regulation -were associated with both socialization strategies and children's selfregulation. Furthermore, in mediational models, the association of parental representations with children's emotion regulation was mediated by constructive socialization strategies. These findings are among the first to highlight the specific kinds of emotion representations that are associated with parents' emotion socialization, and their importance to family processes shaping children's emotional development.

Infant Mental Health Journal, 2010

The goal of this study was to explore the effects of reflective and traditional supervision and t... more The goal of this study was to explore the effects of reflective and traditional supervision and training on caregiver insightfulness. Caregiver insightfulness, or caregiver ability to understand "motives underlying the child's behavior in a complete, open, and accepting way" (D. Oppenheim, D. Goldsmith, & N. Koren-Karie, 2004, p. 352) was assessed at two time points with 21 new caregivers at two universitybased childcare sites. Trends suggest that caregiver insightfulness was relatively stable while increased levels of components of caregiver insightfulness over a period of approximately 2.5 months were positively associated with reflective supervision and training. These findings suggest that encouraging caregivers to reflect on their interactions with the children in their care fosters caregivers' ability to see from the child's perspective in an open and accepting way.

Infant Mental Health Journal, 2013

ABSTRACT The goal of this study was to examine the relationship between characteristics of early ... more ABSTRACT The goal of this study was to examine the relationship between characteristics of early childhood mental health consultation (ECMHC) and changes in the quality of teacherchild interactions. One hundred forty-one early childhood teachers, serving 3- to 5-year-olds in publically funded early education programs in the state of Arkansas, participated in this study. All childcare sites and preschool programs participating in the study received ECMHC through the Arkansas Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation Project over a period of 3 years. Findings from this study suggest that teachers exposed to ECMHC through their employment at one of the project sites made significant gains toward high-quality teacherchild interactions relative to their initial levels of quality. In particular, delivery aspects of ECMHC and teachers' experiences of ECMHC predicted change in quality of teacherchild interactions. Findings suggest that ECMHC may be a promising professional development intervention for teachers in early childhood settings and that specific characteristics of consultation may be particularly influential in impacting change in those settings.

Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 2010

... on the content of mothers' discourse, such as frequency of emotion and mental ... and th... more ... on the content of mothers' discourse, such as frequency of emotion and mental ... and then coded for elaborative elements used in previous research with preschool-aged children ([Ontai and ... α = .89), negative affectivity (Cronbach's α = .89), and (orienting/regulation (Cronbach's α ...

Infant Mental Health Journal, 2012

The aim of the current study was to examine the effects of early childhood mental health consulta... more The aim of the current study was to examine the effects of early childhood mental health consultation (ECMHC) on teacher-level and child-level outcomes in the context of a partnership between community mental health centers in three regions of Arkansas and publically funded early education programs (14 intervention sites and 4 comparison sites). From 2005 to 2008, 193 teachers participated in the study, along with 1,448 children. Data-collection activities included structured classroom observations, teacher ratings of children's strengths and behavior, and teacher surveys to assess satisfaction with ECMHC services. Results suggest that teachers were highly satisfied with the consultation services and that teachers receiving the intervention had lower levels of permissiveness and detachment, with a trend toward higher levels of sensitivity in interactions with children in their classroom. In terms of child outcomes, we found that by the third year of the project, children at intervention sites were rated by their teachers as having fewer behavior problems and more protective factors.