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Het belang van de ouderlijke partnerrelatie voor de ontwikkeling van het kind is al langer bekend. Het doel van deze meta-analyse was het samenvoegen van cross-sectioneel en longitudinaal empirisch onderzoek naar het verband tussen de ouderlijke partnerrelatie en het maladaptief functioneren van kinderen (d.w.z. externaliserende en internaliserende problemen) en de reacties van kinderen op ouderlijk conflict (d.w.z. emotioneel, gedragsmatig, cognitief en fysiologisch). Op basis van verschillende theoretische modellen maakten we daarbij een onderscheid tussen zes dimensies van de ouderlijke partnerrelatie: kwaliteit van de relatie, frequentie van conflicten, agressief conflictgedrag, teruggetrokken conflictgedrag, constructief conflictgedrag en kind-gerelateerd conflict. Uiteindelijk is in de meta-analyse een selectie van 169 studies opgenomen naar het maladaptief functioneren van kinderen en een selectie van 61 studies naar de reacties van kinderen op conflict. De bevindingen die uit deze meta-analyse naar voren kwamen, ondersteunden de theoretische hypotheses over de relatieve voorspellende waarde van de dimensies van de ouderlijke partnerrelatie voor het functioneren van kinderen, maar betwisten deze tegelijkertijd ook. Hoewel agressief conflictgedrag specifiek sterker samenhing met externaliserend gedrag en emotionele reacties op conflict van kinderen, bleken teruggetrokken- en niet-constructief conflictgedrag een even groot risico te vormen voor de andere functioneringsdomeinen van kinderen. Daarnaast zou er in de theoretische modellen meer aandacht moeten zijn voor de kwaliteit van de ouderlijke parnerrelatie, de frequentie van de conflicten en kind-gerelateerd conflict; omdat deze dimensies dezelfde risico’s vormen voor het functioneren van kinderen als de drie soorten conflictgedraging. Bovendien bleven de meeste verbanden tussen de ouderlijke partnerrelatie en het functioneren van kinderen gelijk over langere tijd. Daarnaast bleken leeftijds- en genderverschillen af te hangen van de specifieke vormen van ouderlijk conflict en het functioneringsdomein van kinderen. Samenvattend ondersteunen de resultaten de groeiende consensus dat preventie- en interventieprogramma’s voor de geestelijke gezondheid van kinderen kunnen profiteren van meer of andersoortige aandacht voor de ouderlijke partnerrelatie.

IMPORTANCE: Children with severe hearing loss are known to have more behavioral problems and may perform worse at school than children without. Few large-scale studies of slight to mild hearing loss are available. OBJECTIVE: To examine the relevance of slight to mild hearing loss by studying its association with behavioral problems and school performance. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: This cross-sectional study was performed within an ongoing prospective birth cohort study in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Participants were part of a population-based sample of children. Between ages 9 and 11 years, 5355 children underwent audiometric and behavioral evaluations. Children were excluded if they had missing data for either audiometry or both outcomes. Data were collected from April 2012 through October 2015. Data were analyzed from March to June 2018. EXPOSURES: Audiometric evaluation included pure-tone audiometry tests and speech-in-noise testing. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES: Child behavior was rated by the primary caregiver using the Child Behavior Checklist at ages 9 to 11 years (n = 4471). School performance was measured with a standardized test at age 12 years (n = 2399). RESULTS: The final sample included 4779 participants who were a mean (SD) age of 9.8 (0.3) years. The sample had nearly equal distribution between boys (n = 2200; 49.2%) and girls (n = 2271; 50.8%). Associations of hearing thresholds with behavioral problems differed between boys and girls. Among boys, higher pure-tone hearing thresholds at low frequencies were associated with higher total problem, social problem, and attention problem scores (total problems for the better-hearing ear: β = 0.01; 95% CI, 0-0.02). Higher speech reception thresholds were associated with higher attention problem scores among girls (β = 0.04; 95% CI, 0-0.08). Higher speech reception thresholds were associated with poorer school performance scores for both boys and girls (β = −0.06; 95% CI, −0.10 to −0.02). CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: Higher hearing thresholds during pure-tone audiometric and speech-in-noise testing were associated with higher behavioral problem scores and poorer school performance. This supports the relevance of slight to mild hearing loss with these outcomes in school-aged children.

BackgroundBrain development underlies maturation of sleep patterns throughout childhood. Intrauterine head growth—marker of early neurodevelopment—has not been associated with childhood sleep characteristics. We explored associations between ultrasonographic measures of prenatal and early postnatal neurodevelopment and childhood sleep.MethodsA total of 6,808 children from a population-based birth cohort (Generation R) were included. Head circumference (HC) and lateral ventricles size were assessed with mid- and late-pregnancy fetal ultrasounds, and with cranial ultrasound 3–20 weeks postnatally. Mothers reported children’s sleep duration at 2 and 3 years, and sleep problems at 1.5, 3, and 6 years.ResultsLarger ventricular size, but not HC, was related to longer sleep duration at 3 years (β=0.06 h, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.02; 0.10 in late-pregnancy and β=0.11 h, 95% CI: 0.02; 0.20 in early infancy, mid-pregnancy parameters were unrelated to sleep duration). Larger HC in mid-pregnancy was associated with a reduced risk for being a “problematic sleeper” up to the age of 6 years (odds ratio (OR): 0.94, 95% CI: 0.89; 0.99). Consistently, children with larger HC in early infancy were less likely to be “problematic sleepers” at 3 and 6 years.ConclusionsThis study shows that variations in fetal and neonatal brain size may underlie behavioral expression of sleep in childhood. Albeit small effect estimates, these associations provide evidence for neurodevelopmental origins of sleep.

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Little is known about the impact of sleep disturbances on the structural properties of the developing brain. This study explored associations between childhood sleep disturbances and brain morphology at 7 years.