Inaugural Lecture: Unravelling Early Self-Regulation – Professor Steven Howard

Self-regulation enables important kinds of freedom for children: freedom from needing constant direction from others, from maladaptive impulses, and from unproductive distraction. A child adept at self-regulation can resist distractions, sustain their attention, persist with challenging activities, endure temptations, delay gratification, wait their turn, and consider the consequences of their actions. They can initiate (e.g., brushing their teeth) and cease behaviors (e.g., stop playing for lunch) that conflict with their immediate preferences or impulses.

Of concern, however, an estimated one-fifth of children do not show expected growth in self-regulation prior to entering school, and a significant proportion of children at age 7 remain at levels of self-regulation expected of 4-year-olds. Indeed, our (and others’) research and comprehensive meta-analyses show at least a doubling of risk of poor academic, health, wellbeing, and economic outcomes conferred by low early childhood self-regulation.

Importantly, self-regulation is malleable and any-cause improvements in childhood self-regulation are associated with better outcomes decades later. This has instigated a raft of diverse early intervention and education efforts aiming to stimulate the development of early self-regulation, yet most show small effects and few indicate that improvements transmitted to real-world outcomes. In short, we now understand enough about self-regulation to establish it as a priority target for education and intervention efforts from early childhood, yet not enough to meaningfully and reliably alter current trajectories.

This lecture will discuss some of the likely reasons for this situation and overview a broad program of research that aims to better understand the nature, development, and mechanisms of self-regulation, and the diverse contexts and ways in which we can support its continued growth.