Featured Research
How Do Activities at Home Relate to Children's Thinking Skills?
Development of the Home Executive Function Environment (HEFE) Scale (2019)
What did we learn?
Everyday activities, like playing memory games and practicing following directions, may provide opportunities for children to develop important thinking and self-control skills.
The home environment is an important place to study how children practice skills that help them succeed in school and everyday life.
Understanding what families do at home can help researchers identify experiences that may support children's development.
What Happens to Sibling Relationships When Children Grow Up?
“Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder”: A Qualitative Examination of Sibling Relationships During Emerging Adulthood (2019)
What did we learn?
Siblings remained important to one another even when they lived apart or communicated less frequently.
Although conversations sometimes became less frequent, participants described them as more meaningful.
As siblings entered adulthood, many described feeling closer, more equal, and more understanding of one another.
Does Treating Siblings Differently Affect Their Behavior?
Individual and Sibling Characteristics: Parental Differential Treatment and Adolescent Externalizing Behaviors (2018)
What did we learn?
When parents treat siblings differently, the relationship with adolescent behavior problems depends on factors such as self-esteem and the age difference between siblings.
Older siblings appeared more sensitive to differences in parental treatment than younger siblings.
Surprisingly, different treatment wasn't always associated with worse outcomes. Under certain circumstances, it predicted fewer behavior problems, highlighting how complicated family relationships can be.
Does Having a Sibling Relate to Preschoolers' Executive Functioning?
Sibling Presence, Executive Function, and the Role of Parenting (2018)
What did we learn?
Preschoolers with siblings tended to have lower parent-reported executive functioning skills, such as controlling impulses, remembering instructions, and managing their behavior.
Parenting practices appeared to play a role initially, but the findings became less clear when specific parenting behaviors were examined separately.
Having siblings isn't necessarily good or bad for children's development. We need to understand what happens during everyday sibling interactions to explain these relationships.
Additional Publications
Korucu, I., Rolan, E. P., Napoli, A. R., Purpura, D. J., & Schmitt, S. A. (2019). Development of the home executive function environment (HEFE) scale: Assessing its relation to preschoolers' executive function. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 47, 9–19.
Rolan, E. P., Schmitt, S. A., Purpura, D. J., & Nichols, D. L. (2018). Sibling presence, executive function, and the role of parenting. Infant and Child Development, 27(4), e2091. https://doi.org/10.1002/icd.2091
Rolan, E. P., & Marceau, K. (2018). Individual and sibling characteristics: Parental differential treatment and adolescent externalizing behaviors. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 47(12), 2535–2553. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-018-0892-8
Hamwey, M. K., Rolan, E. P., Jensen, A. C., & Whiteman, S. D. (2019). “Absence makes the heart grow fonder”: A qualitative examination of sibling relationships during emerging adulthood. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 36(8), 2487–2506.
Jensen, A. C., Apsley, H. B., Rolan, E. P., Cassinat, J. R., & Whiteman, S. D. (2020). Parental differential treatment of siblings and adolescents’ health-related behaviors: The moderating role of personality. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 49(1), 150–161.
Purpura, D. J., Schmitt, S. A., Napoli, A. R., Dobbs-Oates, L., King, Y. A., Hornburg, C. B., & Rolan, E. P. (2021). Engaging caregivers and children in picture books: A family-implemented mathematical language intervention. Journal of Educational Psychology, 113(7), 1338.
Purpura, D. J., King, Y. A., Rolan, E. P., Hornburg, C. B., Schmitt, S. A., Hart, S. A., & Ganley, C. M. (2020). Examining the factor structure of the home mathematics environment to delineate its role in predicting preschool numeracy, mathematical language, and spatial skills. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 1925.
Duncan, R. J., Rolan, E. P., Marceau, K., Lewis, K. M., Bavarian, N., DuBois, D. L., & Flay, B. (2019). Childhood protective factors and a prevention program reduce later problem behaviors. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 65, 101063.
Marceau, K., Rolan, E. P., Leve, L. D., Ganiban, J. M., Reiss, D., Shaw, D. S., & Neiderhiser, J. M. (2019). Parenting and prenatal risk as moderators of genetic influences on conduct problems during middle childhood. Developmental Psychology, 55(6), 1164.
Knopik, V. S., Marceau, K., Bidwell, L. C., & Rolan, E. P. (2019). Prenatal substance exposure and offspring development: Does DNA methylation play a role? Neurotoxicology and Teratology, 71, 50–63.
Ekblad, M. O., Marceau, K., Rolan, E. P., Palmer, R. H., Todorov, A., Heath, A. C., & Knopik, V. S. (2020). The effect of smoking during pregnancy on severity and directionality of externalizing and internalizing symptoms: A genetically informed approach. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(21), 7921.
Ekblad, M. O., Rolan, E. P., Marceau, K., Palmer, R., Todorov, A., Heath, A. C., & Knopik, V. S. (2020). Disruptive behavior in siblings discordant for exposure to maternal smoking during pregnancy: A multi-rater approach. Nicotine & Tobacco Research, 22(8), 1330–1338.
Knopik, V. S., Micalizzi, L., Marceau, K., Loviska, A. M., Yu, L., Bien, A., Rolan, E. P., & Heath, A. C. (2022). The roles of familial transmission and smoking during pregnancy on executive function skills: A sibling-comparison study. Development and Psychopathology.
Rolan, E. P., Robertson, O. C., Nonkovic, N., & Marceau, K. (2022). Reliability of prospective and retrospective maternal reports of prenatal experiences. BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12884-022-05286-7
Marceau, K., Rolan, E. P., Robertson, O. C., Wang, W., & Shirtcliff, E. A. (2021). Within-person changes of cortisol, dehydroepiandrosterone, testosterone, estradiol, and progesterone in hair across pregnancy, with comparison to a non-pregnant reference group. Comprehensive Psychoneuroendocrinology, 5, 100024.
Vo, P. T., Fowler, N., Rolan, E. P., Culbert, K. M., Racine, S. E., Burt, S. A., & Klump, K. L. (2021). The effects of puberty on associations between mood/personality factors and disordered eating symptoms in girls. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 54(9), 1619–1631.
Rolan, E. P., Mikhail, M. E., Culbert, K. M., Burt, A., & Klump, K. L. (2023). Estrogen moderation of genetic influences on eating disorder symptoms during gonadarche in girls: Specific effects on binge eating. Psychoneuroendocrinology. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psyneuen.2023.106384
Robertson, O. C., Rolan, E. P., Wang, W., Shirtcliff, E. A., & Marceau, K. (2023). Within-person associations of hair cortisol concentration and maternal prenatal stress in the context of the hormonal milieu. Comprehensive Psychoneuroendocrinology. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpnec.2023.100214