Abstract
Objective
Child pedestrian injuries represent a global public health burden. To date, most research on psychosocial factors affecting children’s risk of pedestrian injury focused on ...cognitive aspects of children’s functioning in traffic. Recent evidence suggests, however, that emotional aspects such as temperament-based fear and anger/frustration, as well as executive function-based emotional decision making, may also affect children’s safety in traffic. This study examined the role of emotions on children’s pedestrian behavior. Three hypotheses were considered: (a) emotion-based temperament factors of fear and anger/frustration will predict children’s risky decisions and behaviors; (b) emotional decision making will predict risky pedestrian decisions and behaviors; and (c) children’s pedestrian decision making will mediate relations between emotion and risky pedestrian behavior. The role of gender was also considered.
Methods
In total, 140 6- to 7-year-old children (M = 6.7 years, SD = 0.39; 51% girls) participated. Parent-report subscales of Child Behavior Questionnaire measured temperamental fear and anger/frustration. The Hungry Donkey Task, a modified version of Iowa Gambling Task for children, measured children’s emotional decision making, and a mobile virtual reality pedestrian environment measured child pedestrian behavior.
Results
Greater anger/frustration, lesser fear, and more emotional decision making all predicted poorer pedestrian decision making. The mediational model demonstrated that pedestrian decision making, as assessed by delays entering safe traffic gaps, mediated the relation between emotion and risky pedestrian behavior. Analyses stratified by gender showed stronger mediation results for girls than for boys.
Conclusions
These results support the influence of emotions on child pedestrian behavior and reinforce the need to incorporate emotion regulation training into child pedestrian education programs.
Objective: Children diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) may have particularly high pedestrian injury risk given their deficits in attention, inhibition, and concentration. ...The aims of this study were a) to assess differences in pedestrian skill between children with ADHD and typically-developing children and b) to examine relations between pedestrian skill and attention, inhibition, and executive function among children with ADHD as well as among typically-developing children.
Methods: A sample of 50 children with mean age of 9 years participated, 56% of them diagnosed with ADHD. Children completed IVA + Plus, an auditory-visual test evaluating impulse response control and attention and then engaged in a Mobile Virtual Reality (MVR) pedestrian task to assess pedestrian skills. Parents completed the Barkley's Deficits in Executive Functions Scale-Child & Adolescents (BDEFS-CA) to rate children's executive function. Children with ADHD engaged in the experiment off any ADHD medications.
Results: Independent samples t-tests indicated significant differences between the two groups in all IVA + Plus and BDEFS_CA scores, supporting the clinical diagnoses of ADHD and the distinction between the two groups. Independent samples t-tests also indicated differences in pedestrian behavior: Children in the ADHD group had significantly higher numbers of unsafe crossings in the MVR environment. Partial correlations within samples stratified by ADHD status indicated that for both groups of children, there were positive correlations between unsafe pedestrian crossings and executive dysfunction. There were no relations between IVA + Plus attentional measures and unsafe pedestrian crossings in either group. A linear regression model predicting unsafe crossings was significant, with children with ADHD more likely to cross in a risky manner after controlling for executive dysfunction and child age.
Conclusions: ADHD children exhibited riskier street-crossing behavior in the MVR, confirming an increased risk of pedestrian injury among children with ADHD compared to typically-developing children. Risky crossing among the typically-developing children and ADHD was related to deficits in executive function. Implications are discussed in relation to parenting and professional practice.
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