Early childhood development is well researched and literature exploring the minds of teenagers is growing, but one area that's studied less often is middle childhood, how decisions and experiences between the age of six and 12 impact adolesence and beyond. NY1's Erin Billups filed the following report.

There's a growing body of research looking into how bad - or toxic stress - affects a child's development.

"The amount of crime in the neighborhood, whether a homicide has occurred in the neighborhood. Stressors on parents in terms of money, in terms of work," says Clancy Blair, an applied psychology professor at New York University.

Working with researchers at UNC at Chapel Hill, and Penn State, Blair and his team have been studying a group of nearly 1,300 kids since their births in 2004. They collected information on children's temperament, emotional reactions, blood and saliva samples to measure their response to stress and how it all impacts their ability to handle stress and make decisions.

"So my studies and a few others have shown that poverty to stress to problems with emotion regulation and problems with executive function lead into problems at school entry and school readiness," says Blair.

Now, a newly awarded federal grant will fund the next leg of the study - looking at how early childhood stress impacts middle childhood before adolescence.

"The more that we can sort of understand the early roots of the types of behavior that sort of lead kids down a bad road and into the kinds of problems that can be lifelong at that point, the better we might be able to design sort of programs for children and for families," notes Blair.

At the same time, Blair is working on another study with families enrolled in city Head Start programs, to try and figure out just that: How parents or the community can better buffer stress for kids.

Watching her three-year old Maleah go through simulated situations has been eye opening for mom Hanifah Cooper.

"I know now that she understands more than what she actually tries to act like she does. You have to watch what you say around them," says Cooper.

Or how you say it, says Blair, who is finding that the way parents react to and talk about stress, is what teaches kids how to cope.

"Model perseverance. Model, you know, I don't like that, but you know, I'm not gonna throw a fit, and I'm not gonna turn off and shut off," adds Blair.