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  • Parental warmth buffers the negative impact of weaker fronto‐striatal connectivity on early adolescents' academic achievement
Title: Parental warmth buffers the negative impact of weaker fronto‐striatal connectivity on early adolescents' academic achievement
Abstract In past decades, the positive role of self‐control in students' academic success has attracted plenty of scholarly attention. However, fewer studies have examined the link between adolescents' neural development of the inhibitory control system and their academic achievement, especially using a longitudinal approach. Moreover, less is known about the role of parents in this link. Using large‐scale longitudinal data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study (N = 9574; mean age = 9.94 years at baseline, SD = .63; 50% girls), the current study took an integrative biopsychosocial approach to explore the longitudinal link between early adolescents' fronto‐striatal connectivity and their academic achievement, with attention to the moderating role of parental warmth. Results showed that weaker intrinsic connectivity between the frontoparietal network and the striatum was associated with early adolescents' worse academic achievement over 2 years during early adolescence. Notably, parental warmth moderated the association between fronto‐striatal connectivity and academic achievement, such that weaker fronto‐striatal connectivity was only predictive of worse academic achievement among early adolescents who experienced low levels of parental warmth. Taken together, the findings demonstrate weaker fronto‐striatal connectivity as a risk factor for early adolescents' academic development and highlight parental warmth as a protective factor for academic development among those with weaker connectivity within the inhibitory control system.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1944644
PAR ID:
10505795
Author(s) / Creator(s):
 ;  ;  ;  ;  ;  ;  
Publisher / Repository:
Wiley-Blackwell
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Journal of Research on Adolescence
Volume:
35
Issue:
1
ISSN:
1050-8392
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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