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While many studies have identified risk and protective factors of substance use (SU), few have assessed the reciprocal associations of child conduct problems (CP) and parenting practices and behaviors in the prediction of SU across development. A greater understanding of how these factors relate over time is needed to improve the timing of targeted prevention efforts. This study examined how child CP, parenting behaviors, and parents' own antisocial behavior relate from preschool to adolescence and eventuate in SU. Participants included 706 youth (70.6% male; 89.7% white) enrolled in the Michigan Longitudinal Study. Data from waves 1 (ages 3–5), 2 (ages 6–8), 3 (ages 9–11), 4 (ages 12–14), and 5 (ages 15–17) were included. A random intercept cross-lagged panel model (RI-CLPM) examined reciprocal associations between parenting practices, parents' antisocial behavior, and child CP over time (waves 1–4) and how these factors contribute to adolescent alcohol, cigarette, and marijuana use (wave 5). At the within-person level, negative parenting and parents' own antisocial behavior had a strong influence in late childhood/early adolescence. Only child CP emerged as a significant predictor of SU. Results highlight the importance of early intervention and the potential influence of parenting and child factors throughout development in the prevention of SU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several studies link adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) to delinquency. Yet, developmental sequalae accounting for this association remain unclear, with previous research limited by cross-sectional research designs and investigations of singular mediating processes. To redress these shortcomings, this study examines the longitudinal association between ACEs and delinquency as mediated by both sleep problems and low self-control, two factors which past research implicates as potentially important for understanding how ACEs contribute to antisocial behavior. Data collected from 480 adolescents (71.3% boys; 86.3% White) and their parents participating in the Michigan Longitudinal Study was used to conduct a serial mediation analysis. The association between ACEs (prior to age 11) and delinquency in late adolescence was found to operate indirectly via sleep problems in early adolescence and low self-control in middle adolescence. Nonetheless, a direct association between ACEs and later delinquency remained. Pathways through which ACEs contribute to later delinquency are complex and multiply determined. Findings indicate that early behavioral interventions, including improving sleep and self-control, could reduce later delinquency. Still, more research is needed to identify additional avenues through which the ACEs–delinquency association unfolds across development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined how youth aggressive and delinquent externalizing problem behaviors across childhood and adolescence are connected to consequential psychosocial life outcomes in adulthood. Using data from a longitudinal, high-risk sample (N = 1069) that assessed children and their parents regularly from early childhood (ages 3–5) through adulthood, multilevel growth factors of externalizing behaviors were used to predict adult outcomes (age 24–31), providing a sense of how externalizing problems across development were related to these outcomes via maternal, paternal, teacher, and child report. Findings indicated strong support for the lasting connections between youth externalizing problems with later educational attainment and legal difficulties, spanning informants and enduring beyond other meaningful contributors (i.e., child sex, cognitive ability, parental income and education, parental mental health and relationship quality). Some support was also found, although less consistently, linking externalizing problems and later alcohol use as well as romantic relationship quality. Delinquent/rule-breaking behaviors were often stronger predictors of later outcomes than aggressive behaviors. Taken together, these results indicate the importance of the role youth externalizing behaviors have in adult psychosocial functioning one to two decades later. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Childhood adversity can negatively impact development across various domains, including physical and mental health. Adverse childhood experiences have been linked to aggression and substance use; however, developmental pathways to explain these associations are not well characterized. Understanding early precursors to later problem behavior and substance use can inform preventive interventions. The aim of the current study was to examine neurobiological pathways through which childhood adversity may lead to early adolescent problem behavior and substance use in late adolescence by testing two prospective models. Our first model found that early adolescent externalizing behavior mediates the association between childhood adversity and alcohol, cigarette, and marijuana use in late adolescence. Our second model found that activation in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) during an inhibitory control task mediates the association between childhood adversity and early adolescent externalizing behavior, with lower ACC activation associated with higher levels of adversity and more externalizing behavior. Together these findings indicate that the path to substance use in late adolescence from childhood adversity may operate through lower functioning in the ACC related to inhibitory control and externalizing behavior. Early life stressors should be considered an integral component in the etiology and prevention of early and problematic substance use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children of alcoholics (COAs) are at risk for elevated internalizing and externalizing symptoms. Yet, little is known about the familial and behavioral adjustments of COAs following parental separation. Using an ecological–transactional framework, we examined how multiple risk factors contributed to the formation of different alcoholic family structures and how living in heterogeneous family structures affected COAs' behavioral problems. The Michigan Longitudinal Study, a multiwave study on initially intact alcoholic and control families with preschool-age children (n = 503), was used to evaluate outcomes of offspring, when families either remained intact or were separated when the child was aged 12–14. Alcoholic families who later transitioned into stepfamilies were characterized with higher paternal antisociality, marital aggression, and serious family crises than alcoholic families that remained intact. COAs in stepfamilies (but not in single-parent families) exhibited higher levels of internalizing and externalizing symptoms in preadolescence compared with those in alcoholic intact families, in part because of elevated behavioral risk at age 3. Structural equation modeling indicated that the aggregated risk of stepfamily residence directly related to COAs' internalizing and indirectly related to COAs' externalizing problems, partially mediated by family stressors. Findings suggest targeting COAs in separated families for early intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on Gene × Environment interactions typically focuses on maladaptive contexts and outcomes. However, the same genetic factors may also impact susceptibility to positive social contexts, leading to adaptive behavior. This paper examines whether the GABA receptor subunit alpha-2 (GABRA2) single nucleotide polymorphism rs279858 moderates the influence of positive peer affiliation on externalizing behavior and various forms of competence. Regions of significance were calculated to determine whether the form of the interaction supported differential susceptibility (increased sensitivity to both low and high positive peer affiliation) or vantage sensitivity (increased sensitivity to high positive peer affiliation). It was hypothesized that those carrying the homozygous minor allele (GG) would be more susceptible to peer effects. A sample (n= 300) of primarily male (69.7%) and White (93.0%) adolescents from the Michigan Longitudinal Study was assessed from ages 12 to 17. There was evidence for prospective Gene × Environment interactions in three of the four models. At low levels of positive peer involvement, those with the GG genotype were rated as having fewer adaptive outcomes, while at high levels they were rated as having greater adaptive outcomes. This supports differential susceptibility. Conceptualizing GABRA2 variants as purely risk factors may be inaccurate. Genetic differences in susceptibility to adaptive environmental exposures warrants further investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alcoholism is a heterogeneous disorder; however, characterization of life-course variations in symptomatology is almost nonexistent, and developmentally early predictors of variations are very poorly characterized. In this study, the course of alcoholic symptomatology over 32 years is differentiated, and predictors and covariates of trajectory class membership are identified. A community sample of alcoholic and neighborhood matched control families, 332 men and 336 women, was recruited based on alcoholism in the men. Symptoms were assessed retrospectively at baseline (mean age = 32) back to age 15 and prospectively from baseline every 3 years for 15 years. Trajectory classes were established using growth mixture modeling. Men and women had very similarly shaped trajectory classes: developmentally limited (men: 29%, women: 42%), developmentally cumulative (men: 26%, women: 38%), young adult onset (men: 31%, women: 21%), and early onset severe (men: 13%). Three factors at age 15 predicted class membership: family history of alcoholism, age 15 symptoms, and level of childhood antisocial behavior. Numerous measures of drinking and other psychopathology were also associated with class membership. The findings suggest that clinical assessments can be crafted where the profile of current and historical information can predict not only severity of prognosis but also future moderation of symptoms and/or remission over intervals as long as decades. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Understanding factors increasing susceptibility to social contexts and predicting psychopathology can help identify targets for prevention. Persistently high externalizing behavior in adolescence is predictive of psychopathology in adulthood. Parental monitoring predicts low externalizing behavior, yet youth likely vary in the degree to which they are affected by parents. Genetic variants of GABA receptor subunit alpha-2 (GABRA2) may increase susceptibility to parental monitoring, thus impacting externalizing trajectories. We had several objectives: (a) to determine whether GABRA2 (rs279827, rs279826, rs279858) moderates the relationship between a component of parental monitoring, parental knowledge, and externalizing trajectories; (b) to test the form of this interaction to assess whether GABRA2 variants reflect risk (diathesis–stress) or susceptibility (differential susceptibility) factors; and (c) to clarify GABRA2 associations on the development of problem behavior. This prospective study (N = 504) identified three externalizing trajectory classes (i.e., low, decreasing, and high) across adolescence. A GABRA2 × Parental Monitoring effect on class membership was observed, such that A-carriers were largely unaffected by parental monitoring, whereas class membership for those with the GG genotype was affected by parental monitoring. Findings support differential susceptibility in GABRA2. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In a sample of 273 adult women and their families, we examined the effects of women's psychopathology history, their social support, their husbands' and children's symptomatology, family stress, and neighborhood environment on their alcohol problems, antisocial behavior, and depression over a 12-year period during their 30s and early 40s. Women's alcohol problems and antisocial behavior decreased but their depression symptoms increased over time. Women's disorder history and their partners' parallel symptomatology were associated with their symptoms. For women's antisocial behavior, their own history of alcoholism and their partners' alcohol problems were also significant risk factors. Higher levels of social support were associated with lower levels of depression in women. Children's externalizing behavior was positively correlated with their mothers' alcohol problems and antisocial behavior, whereas children's internalizing behavior was positively correlated with their mothers' depression. Neighborhood residential instability was associated with higher levels of alcoholic and depressive symptomatology in women. Intervention efforts might target women with young children by improving social support, educational or professional training opportunity, access to family counseling, and neighborhood environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adopting a developmental epidemiology perspective, the current study examines sources of risk heterogeneity for internalizing symptomatology among children of alcoholic parents (COAs). Parent-based factors, including comorbid diagnoses and the number of alcoholic parents in the family, as well as child-based factors, namely child gender, formed the indicators of heterogeneity. Following a novel approach to cross-study methods, we present a three-stage analysis involving measurement development using item response theory, examination of study effects on latent trajectories over time using latent curve modeling, and prediction of these latent trajectories testing our theoretically derived hypotheses in two longitudinal investigations across both mother- and self-reported symptomatology. Specifically, we replicated previous findings that parent alcoholism has a unique effect on child internalizing symptoms, above and beyond those of both parent depression and antisocial personality disorder. However, we also found important subgroup differences, explaining heterogeneity within COAs' risk profile in terms of the number of alcoholic parents in the family, comorbid diagnoses for the alcoholic parent and, for self-reported symptoms, child gender. Such factors serve to refine the definition of risk among COAs, suggesting a more severely impaired target group for preventive interventions, identifying the significance of familial alcoholism in individual differences underlying internalizing symptoms over time, and further specifying the distal risk matrix for an internalizing pathway to alcohol involvement. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Alcoholism is a heterogeneous disorder; however, characterization of life-course variations in symptomatology is almost nonexistent, and developmentally early predictors of variations are very poorly characterized. In this study, the course of alcoholic symptomatology over 32 years is differentiated, and predictors and covariates of trajectory class membership are identified. A community sample of alcoholic and neighborhood matched control families, 332 men and 336 women, was recruited based on alcoholism in the men. Symptoms were assessed retrospectively at baseline (mean age = 32) back to age 15 and prospectively from baseline every 3 years for 15 years. Trajectory classes were established using growth mixture modeling. Men and women had very similarly shaped trajectory classes: developmentally limited (men: 29%, women: 42%), developmentally cumulative (men: 26%, women: 38%), young adult onset (men: 31%, women: 21%), and early onset severe (men: 13%). Three factors at age 15 predicted class membership: family history of alcoholism, age 15 symptoms, and level of childhood antisocial behavior. Numerous measures of drinking and other psychopathology were also associated with class membership. The findings suggest that clinical assessments can be crafted where the profile of current and historical information can predict not only severity of prognosis but also future moderation of symptoms and/or remission over intervals as long as decades.

The language of personality traits includes single-word trait descriptors, and longer phrases or sentences. Evidence has accumulated that abstract, semantic relationships among single words have the same underlying structure as the empirical relationships when words are applied to individuals. The present study examines whether these two kinds of structure are also isomorphic for longer trait descriptors. Empirical descriptions and judgements of semantic similarity were collected among the descriptors comprising the California Child Q-set, or CCQ, and analysed with multidimensional scaling. Canonical correlation showed the solutions to be closely related to one another, and to independent sets of ratings available for the CCQ items. Informants' similarity judgements were not affected by the context in which they were made. The dominant dimensions of the solutions reproduce dimensions found previously for the single-word personality lexicon, indicating the two trait-descriptive languages to be closely parallel.

Whereas child personality, IQ, and family factors have been identified as enabling a resilient response to psychosocial adversity, more direct biological resilience factors have been less well delineated. This is particularly so for child attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), which has received less attention from a resilience perspective than have associated externalizing disorders. Children from two independent samples were classified as resilient if they avoided developing ADHD, oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), or conduct disorder (CD) in the face of family adversity. Two protective factors were examined for their potential relevance to prefrontal brain development: neuropsychological response inhibition, as assessed by the Stop task, and a composite catecholamine genotype risk score. Resilient children were characterized in both samples by more effective response inhibition, although the effect in the second sample was very small. Genotype was measured in Sample 1, and a composite high risk genotype index was developed by summing presence of risk across markers on three genes expressed in prefrontal cortex: dopamine transporter, dopamine D4 receptor, and noradrenergic alpha-2 receptor. Genotype was a reliable resilience indicator against development of ADHD and CD, but not ODD, in the face of psychosocial adversity. Results illustrate potential neurobiological protective factors related to development of prefrontal cortex that may enable children to avoid developing ADHD and CD in the presence of psychosocial adversity.

This study first examined the respective relations of resiliency and reactive control with executive functioning. It then examined the relationship of these different domains to the development of academic and social outcomes, and to the emergence of internalizing and externalizing problem behavior in adolescence. Resiliency and reactive control were assessed from preschool to adolescence in a high-risk sample of boys and girls (n = 498) and then linked to component operations of neuropsychological executive functioning (i.e., response inhibition, interference control, fluency, working memory/set-shifting, planning, and alertness), assessed in early and late adolescence. Consistent, linear relations were found between resiliency and executive functions (average r = .17). A curvilinear relationship was observed between reactive control and resiliency, such that resiliency was weaker when reactive control was either very high or very low. In multivariate, multilevel models, executive functions contributed to academic competence, whereas resiliency and interference control jointly predicted social competence. Low resiliency, low reactive control, and poor response inhibition uniquely and additively predicted internalizing problem behavior, whereas low reactive control and poor response inhibition uniquely predicted externalizing problem behavior. Results are discussed in relation to recent trait models of regulation and the scaffolded development of competence and problems in childhood and adolescence.