Emotion knowledge in economically disadvantaged children: Self-regulatory antecedents and relations to social difficulties and withdrawal

We examined the relations of verbal ability and self-regulation in preschoo l to emotion knowledge in first grade. and concurrent relations between emo tion knowledge and indexes of social functioning in 143 children from low-i ncome families. After controlling for children's verbal ability in preschoo l, teacher reports of attentional control and caregiver reports of behavior al control in preschool predicted children's emotion expression knowledge a nd emotion situation knowledge 2 years later. After controlling for verbal ability and attentional and behavioral control. children's emotion knowledg e predicted concurrent teacher-reported social problems and social withdraw al. Results suggest that low levels of emotion knowledge co-occur with many important aspects of children's early social adaptation.