The fact that change in EC, especially attentional control, seemed to predict change in internalizing status is interesting given the lack of an association between the two constructs 2 years earlier at T2 (although relations were found at T1). One would expect internalizing problems to be associated with problems in attentional control because the latter is believed to be important in regulating anxiety and the rumination that is linked with depression (Chambers et al., 2008; Nolen-Hoeksama et al., 2007; Whitmer & Banich, 2007). When children are early-elementary-school age or younger, individual differences in the regulation of attention may be easy for adults to identify because the mean level of attentional control is relatively lower (e.g., Murphy et al., 1999), and those with relative deficits are, thus, fairly obvious. Change in EC is not very apparent on many tasks after age 7–10 years (Rueda, Posner, & Rothbart, 2004). Nonetheless, perhaps as children move from childhood into early adolescence, an increase in problems in attentional control signals a susceptibility to the depressive symptoms (e.g., Hankin et al., 1998) and heightened negative emotionality
