Self-Regulation Variability in Kindergarten Children: Links to Current and Long-Term Outcomes

Young children’s self-regulation skills can vary intra-individually from one real-life situation to the next. However, we know very little about how intra-individual variability contributes to individual differences in development. The present study addresses this gap by applying a person-centered approach to identify distinct variability profiles based on repeated classroom observations. We hypothesized that a) children can be meaningfully grouped based on their intra-individual variability in self-regulation and that b) profile membership relates to current and long-term developing self-regulation skills and behavioral difficulties. The sample consisted of N=201 Swiss kindergarteners (47.8% female, M=5.4y., SD =0.6). We used an observational measure to assess self-regulation in the real-life classroom context. To identify potential subgroups of self-regulation variability, we used latent profile analysis. We identified two profiles: one labeled as variable regulators (54.9 %) and the other as consistently high regulators (45.1 %). Surprisingly, profile membership appears to be only marginally associated with current emotion regulation and unrelated to long-term self-regulation and behavioral differences after controlling for age, gender, and home chaos. However, results revealed significant profile differences in terms of gender and home chaos. Overall, the present findings highlight that young children differ in their intra-individual variability in self-regulation skills across various classroom situations. Moreover, they suggest that this variability might be characteristic of this early developmental period.