Children's emotional competence and attentional competence in early elementary school

The current study examined the relations between two aspects of emotional competence-emotion knowledge and emotion expression, and children's attentional competence during one school year. Participants were 263 first- and second-grade students at two rural elementary schools. A multiple regression analysis showed that emotion knowledge predicted attentional competence while controlling for age, gender, verbal ability, and initial levels of attentional competence. Multiple regression analyses examining predictors of peer nominations of emotion expression showed that attentional competence predicted peer nominations of happiness, sadness, and anger expression, and emotion knowledge predicted peer nominations of anger expression. Potential improvements for prevention programs and the importance of the findings for school personnel are discussed.