Objective: Inhibitory control (IC) is one important predictor of academic achievement and social-emotional development. IC develops rapidly in early childhood and is considered moderately stable from preschool-age onwards. The role of IC for child’s interaction skills, and its neural correlates in toddlerhood have not been widely studied. We explored the associations between child IC at 24 and 30 months and child interaction quality (responsiveness and involvement) with the mother at 30 months and conducted a preliminary exploration of structural neural correlates of IC and child interaction quality in a subsample of children.Method: We measured IC using the Snack Delay task and child interaction quality with the mother using the Emotional Availability Scales (EAS) at 30 months in a sample of N = 350 toddlers from the FinnBrain Birth Cohort Study. In a subsample, IC was measured also at 24 months (N = 27) and structural MRI scans were acquired at 18–24 months (N = 9). Voxel-based morphometry analysis at the threshold of p < .05 and FDR-corrected at alpha < .05 was performed to detect grey matter clusters associated with IC.Results: Better IC was positively related to better child interaction quality with the mother cross-sectionally at 30 months (B = .13, p = .007) and longitudinally between 24 and 30 months (B = .14, p = .044). For IC at 24 months, the analysis revealed a cluster with less grey matter in the right calcarine sulcus (p < .001). For IC at 30 months, clusters with more grey matter in the left cerebellum (p = .007), right middle frontal gyrus (p = .018) and right superior occipital gyrus (p = .037) were identified. Implications: These findings suggest that higher IC in toddlerhood is associated with better child interaction quality with the mother. They also give preliminary support for associations between IC and more grey matter in areas involved in frontoparietal network and visual processing. Replication studies are warranted.
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