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Background: Children with autism have difficulties in understanding relationships, yet little is known about the levels of autistic traits with regard to peer relationships. This study examined the association between autistic traits and peer relationships. Additionally, we examined whether the expected negative association is more pronounced in children with a lower non-verbal IQ and in those who exhibit more externalizing problems. Method: Data were collected in a large prospective birth cohort of the Generation R Study (Rotterdam, the Netherlands) for which nearly 10,000 pregnant mothers were recruited between 2002 and 2006. Follow up data collection is still currently ongoing. Information on peer relationships was collected with PEERS application, an interactive computerized task (M = 7.8 years). Autistic traits were assessed among general primary school children by using the Social Responsiveness Scale (M = 6.1 years). Information was available for 1580 children. Result: Higher levels of autistic traits predicted lower peer acceptance and higher peer rejection. The interaction of autistic traits with externalizing problems (but not with non-verbal IQ or sex) was significant: only among children with low externalizing problems, a higher level of autistic traits predicted less peer acceptance and more peer rejection. Among children exhibiting high externalizing problems, a poor peer acceptance and high level of rejection is seen independently of the level of autistic traits. Conclusion: We conclude that autistic traits—including traits that do not classify as severe enough for a clinical diagnosis—as well as externalizing problems negatively impact young children's peer relationships. This suggests that children with these traits may benefit from careful monitoring and interventions focused at improving peer relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Lack of trust in parental support is a transdiagnostic risk factor for the development of psychological problems throughout the lifespan. Research suggests that children's cognitive attachment representations and related information processing biases could be an important target for interventions aiming to build trust in the parent-child relationship. A paradigm that can alter these biases and increase trust is that of Cognitive Bias Modification (CBM), during which a target processing bias is systematically trained. Trust-related CBM training effects could possibly be enhanced by oxytocin, a neuropeptide that has been proposed to play an important role in social information processing and social relationships. The present article describes the study protocol for a double-blind randomized controlled trial (RCT) aimed at testing the individual and combined effects of CBM training and oxytocin administration on trust in maternal support.Methods/design: One hundred children (aged 8-12 years) are randomly assigned to one of four intervention conditions. Participants inhale a nasal spray that either contains oxytocin (OT) or a placebo. Additionally, they receive either a CBM training aimed at positively modifying trust-related information processing bias or a neutral placebo training aimed to have no trust-related effects. Main and interaction effects of the interventions are assessed on three levels of trust-related outcome measures: trust-related interpretation bias; self-reported trust; and mother-child interactional behavior. Importantly, side-effects of a single administration of OT in middle childhood are monitored closely to provide further information on the safety of OT administration in this age group.Discussion: The present RCT is the first study to combine CBM training with oxytocin to test for individual and combined effects on trust in mother. If effective, CBM training and oxytocin could be easily applicable and nonintrusive additions to interventions that target trust in the context of the parent-child relationship.Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov, ID: NCT02737254 . Registered on 23 March 2016. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: There is a paucity of research on correlates of child maltreatment in limited-resource countries with a relatively high tolerance of harsh discipline. This Vietnamese study aimed to investigate associations between different types of child maltreatment and child emotional, cognitive, and physical health functioning as well as moderation effects of gender and ethnicity.Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted with 1851 randomly selected students aged 12-17 years. Both self-report and more objective measures (weight, height, study ranking, and a memory test) were used.Results: All types of child maltreatment were associated with emotional dysfunctioning. Life time and past year experiences of physical abuse and life time experiences of sexual abuse and neglect were related to poorer perceived physical health. The study did not find associations between any type of child maltreatment and overweight or underweight status. Regarding cognitive functioning, life time experience of sexual abuse and neglect were related to poorer working memory performance. Noticeably, emotional abuse was related to better academic performance, which might be an indication of "tiger parenting" practice in Vietnam, implying academic performance stimulation at the expense of emotional security. No significant moderation effects by gender and ethnicity were found.Conclusion: Even in a culture in which harsh discipline is normative, child maltreatment was related to negative aspects of child wellbeing including emotional, cognitive, and physical health functioning. Efficient and low-cost interventions on child maltreatment should be developed and conducted in Vietnam as well as other countries with similar contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Consistent findings about the effectiveness of parent programs to prevent or reduce child maltreatment are lacking.Methods: In the present meta-analysis we synthesized findings from 27 independent samples from randomized controlled trials (RCTs) on the effectiveness of 20 different intervention programs aimed at (i) preventing the occurrence of child maltreatment in the general population or with at-risk but non-maltreating families, or (ii) reducing the incidence of child maltreatment in maltreating families.Results: A significant combined effect on maltreatment (d = 0.13; N = 4883) disappeared after the trim-and-fill approach that takes into account publication bias against smaller studies without significant outcomes. However, moderator analyses showed that larger effect sizes were found for more recent studies, studies with smaller samples, programs that provide parent training instead of only support, programs that target maltreating instead of at-risk families, and programs with a moderate length (6-12 months) or a moderate number of sessions (16-30).Conclusions: More RCTs are needed to further unravel which factors are associated with program effectiveness. Because currently existing programs appeared to only reduce and not prevent child maltreatment, efforts in the field of preventive intervention should also focus on the development and testing of preventive programs for families at risk for child maltreatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Parental use of love withdrawal is thought to affect children's later psychological functioning because it creates a link between children's performance and relational consequences. In addition, recent studies have begun to show that experiences of love withdrawal also relate to the neural processing of socio-emotional information relevant to a performance-relational consequence link, and can moderate effects of oxytocin on social information processing and behavior. The current study follows-up on our previous results by attempting to confirm and extend previous findings indicating that experiences of maternal love withdrawal are related to electrocortical responses to emotional faces presented with performance feedback. Results More maternal love withdrawal was related to enhanced early processing of facial feedback stimuli (reflected in more positive VPP amplitudes, and confirming previous findings). However, attentional engagement with and processing of the stimuli at a later stage were diminished in those reporting higher maternal love withdrawal (reflected in less positive LPP amplitudes, and diverging from previous findings). Conclusions Maternal love withdrawal affects the processing of emotional faces presented with performance feedback differently in different stages of neural processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Studies have shown that, compared to native counterparts, preschoolers from ethnic minorities are at an increased risk of problem behaviour. Socio-economic factors only partly explain this increased risk. This study aimed to further unravel the differences in problem behaviour among ethnic minority and native preschoolers by examining the mediating role of family functioning and parenting factors. Methods: We included 4,282 preschoolers participating in the Generation R Study, an ethnically-diverse cohort study with inclusion in early pregnancy. At child age 3 years, parents completed the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL/1,5-5); information on demographics, socio-economic status and measures of family functioning (maternal psychopathology; general family functioning) and parenting (parenting stress; harsh parenting) were retrieved from questionnaires. CBCL Total Problems scores in each ethnic subgroup were compared with scores in the Dutch reference population. Mediation was evaluated using multivariate regression models. Results: After adjustment for confounders, preschoolers from ethnic minorities were more likely to present problem behaviour than the Dutch subgroup (e.g. CBCL Total Problems Turkish subgroup (OR 7.0 (95% CI 4.9; 10.1)). When considering generational status, children of first generation immigrants were worse off than the second generation (P<0.01). Adjustment for socio-economic factors mediated the association between the ethnic minority status and child problem behaviour (e.g. attenuation in OR by 54.4% (P<0.05) from OR 5.1 (95% CI 2.8; 9.4) to OR 2.9 (95% CI 1.5; 5.6) in Cape Verdean subgroup). However, associations remained significant in most ethnic subgroups. A final adjustment for family functioning and parenting factors further attenuated the association (e.g. attenuation in OR by 55.5% (P<0.05) from OR 2.2 (95% CI 1.3; 4.4) to OR 1.5 (95% CI 1.0; 2.4) in European other subgroup). Conclusions: This study showed that preschoolers from ethnic minorities and particularly children of first generation immigrants are at an increased risk of problem behaviour compared to children born to a Dutch mother. Although socio-economic factors were found to partly explain the association between the ethnic minority status and child problem behaviour, a similar part was explained by family functioning and parenting factors. Considering these findings, it is important for health care workers to also be attentive to symptoms of parental psychopathology (e.g. depression), poor family functioning, high levels of parenting stress or harsh parenting in first and second generation immigrants with young children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Behavioural problems are common in early childhood, and can result in enduring costs to the individual and society, including an increased risk of mental and physical illness, criminality, educational failure and drug and alcohol misuse. Most previous research has examined the impact of interventions targeting older children when difficulties are more established and harder to change, and have rarely included fathers. We are conducting a trial of a psychological intervention delivered to families with very young children, engaging both parents where possible., Methods: This study is a two-arm, parallel group, researcher-blind, randomized controlled trial, to test the clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of a parenting intervention, Video Feedback Intervention to Promote Positive Parenting and Sensitive Discipline (VIPP-SD) for parents of young children (12-36 months) at risk of behavioural difficulties. VIPP-SD is an evidence-based parenting intervention developed at Leiden University in the Netherlands which uses a video-feedback approach to support parents, particularly by enhancing parental sensitivity and sensitive discipline in caring for children. The trial will involve 300 families, who will be randomly allocated into either an intervention group, who will receive the video-feedback intervention (n = 150), or a control group, who will receive treatment as usual (n = 150). The trial will evaluate whether VIPP-SD, compared to treatment as usual, leads to lower levels of behavioural problems in young children who are at high risk of developing these difficulties. Assessments will be conducted at baseline, and 5 and 24 months post-randomization. The primary outcome measure is a modified version of the Preschool Parental Account of Child Symptoms (Pre-PACS), a structured clinical interview of behavioural symptoms. Secondary outcomes include caregiver-reported behavioural difficulties, parenting behaviours, parental sensitivity, parental mood and anxiety and parental relationship adjustment. An economic evaluation will also be carried out to assess the cost-effectiveness of the intervention compared to treatment as usual., Discussion: If shown to be effective, the intervention could be delivered widely to parents and caregivers of young children at risk of behavioural problems as part of community based services., Trial Registration: ISRCTN Registry: ISRCTN58327365 . Registered 19 March 2015.

Background: Tympanic membrane temperature (TMT) has been proposed as an indicator of cerebral activation and TMT asymmetry may indicate lateralization, which has been associated with specific (problem) behaviors in children and adults. The current study explored the relations between pre-adoption living arrangements, TMT, and behavior and sleep problems in a sample of adopted toddlers., Methods: Ninety-two families who had adopted a Chinese girl who had previously been placed in an institution or foster care reported on behavior problems using the Child Behavior Checklist and TMT two months (Time 1) and six months (Time 2) after adoption., Results: Structural equation modeling revealed that institutionalized children had significantly higher left than right TMTs compared with foster care children at Time 2. A higher left than right TMT was associated with increased sleep problems and total behavior problems at Time 1, but not at Time 2., Conclusions: Our findings with regard to pre-adoption living arrangements, TMT asymmetry, and sleep problems suggest that TMT is sensitive to early environmental influences and may be a biological marker of vulnerability to the development of sleep problems in children from adverse backgrounds.