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Background Oppositional defiant disorder ( ODD) has components of both irritability and defiance. It remains unclear whether children with variation in these domains have different adult outcomes. This study examined the concurrent and predictive validity of classes of oppositional defiant behavior. Methods Latent class analysis was performed on the oppositional defiant problems scale of the Child Behavior Checklist in two samples, one in the US (the Achenbach Normative Sample, N = 2029) and one in the Netherlands (the Zuid-Holland Study, N = 2076). A third sample of American children (The Vermont Family Study, N = 399) was examined to determine concurrent validity with DSM diagnoses. Predictive validity over 14 years was assessed using the Zuid-Holland Study. Results Four classes of oppositional defiant problems were consistent in the two latent class analyses: No Symptoms, All Symptoms, Irritable, and Defiant. Individuals in the No Symptoms Class were rarely diagnosed concurrently with ODD or any future disorder. Individuals in the All Symptoms Class had an increased frequency of concurrent childhood diagnosis of ODD and of violence in adulthood. Subjects in the Irritable Class had low concurrent diagnosis of ODD, but increased odds of adult mood disorders. Individuals in the Defiant Class had low concurrent diagnosis of ODD, but had increased odds of violence as adults. Conclusions Only children in the All Symptoms class were likely to have a concurrent diagnosis of ODD. Although not diagnosed with ODD, children in the Irritable Class were more likely to have adult mood disorders and children in the Defiant Class were more likely to engage in violent behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Social withdrawal is a core neuropsychiatric phenomenon in developmental psychopathology. Its presence predicts psychopathology across many domains, including depression, psychosis, autism, anxiety, and suicide. Withdrawn behavior is highly heritable, persistent, and characteristically worsens without intervention. To date, few studies have successfully identified genetic associations with withdrawn behavior, despite the abundance of evidence of its heritability. This may be due to reliance of categorical over dimensional measures of the behaviorally inhibited phenotype. The aim of this study is to identify associations between known psychiatric candidate genes and a dimensionally derived measure of withdrawn behavior. Methods Genetic information was collected on 20 single-nucleotide polymorphisms ( SNPs) from a custom-designed SNP chip and TAQMAN arrays of 4 variable number of tandem repeat ( VNTR) genes for 551 individuals from 187 families. Linear mixed modeling was employed to examine the relationship between genotypes of interest and Child Behavior Checklist ( CBCL) Withdrawn Behavior Subscale Score ( WBS) while controlling for gender and age through multiple linear regressions. Results Withdrawn behavior was highly associated with polymorphism of the serotonin receptor 2A ( HTR2A) [ p = .009, estimate = 0.310 (bootstrap 95% CI 0.155-0.448), bootstrap p = .001] and of the alpha 2-adrenergic ( ADRA2A) [ p = .001, estimate = −0.310 (bootstrap 95% CI −0.479 to −0.126), bootstrap p = .001] genes after correction for gender and age. The association between withdrawn behavior and ADRA2A was stronger for younger children. Conclusions HTR2A and ADRA2A genes are associated with withdrawn behavior. This reinforces the role of catecholaminergic genes in the heritability of withdrawn behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Previous research highlights the significance of a functional polymorphism located in the promoter region (5-HTTLPR) of the serotonin transporter gene in emotional behaviour. This study examined the effect of the 5-HTTLPR polymorphism on emotion processing in a large number of healthy preschoolers. Methods: The 5-HTTLPR genotype was classified in 605 children as homozygous for the short allele (SS), homozygous for the long allele (LL), or heterozygous (LS). Emotion-processing was assessed using age-appropriate computer tasks where children matched happy, sad, angry, and fearful facial expressions preceded by a shape-matching task to assess basic matching ability. Results: We found that young children could differentiate between emotion categories ( F = 12.1, p < .001). The effect of 5-HTTLPR genotype depended on the emotion category presented ( F = 2.3, p = .031). This effect was explained by the finding that SS children were less accurate at recognising fearful faces than LL or LS children ( F = 5.3, p = .005). We did not find any significant differences as a result of 5-HTTLPR genotype for happy, sad or angry expressions ( p > .05). Conclusions: Results indicate that 5-HTTLPR allele status selectively impacts the processing of fearful but not other facial expressions. This pattern is already apparent in very young typically developing children. Results may signal an early vulnerability for affective problems before disorders emerge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The purpose of this study was to determine a score on the Obsessive Compulsive Scale (OCS) from the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) to screen for obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) in children and to rigorously test the specificity and sensitivity of a single cutpoint. Methods: A receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was applied to data from 61 patients with clinically determined OCD, 64 clinical controls and 73 general population controls to determine the best sum score on the CBCL-OCS to predict confirmed OCD in children. Using the ROC-determined cutoff, this score was applied to a national sample of CBCL data from 2460 singleton children ages 4–18 and to 20,016 children ages 7–18 from three large general population twin samples to determine the estimated prevalence in the general population. Results: Using a CBCL-OCS score of 5 demonstrated an area under the curve (AUC) of .88 with high sensitivity (92%) and moderate specificity (67%) compared to clinical controls. Compared to the general population controls, the AUC was .96 with high sensitivity (92%) and specificity (89%). In the twin samples, the number of participants with CBCL-OCS scores above this cutpoint was 2.3–7.1%. Conclusions: These findings suggest that the OCS of the CBCL may provide a highly effective way to screen for childhood OCD, and that the prevalence of childhood OCD may have been underestimated, thus prompting the need for further research into screening children for this condition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: No clear consensus has been reached yet on how best to characterize children who suffer from pediatric bipolar disorder (PBD). The CBCL-PBD profile on the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) has been consistently reported showing deviant findings on the Attention Problems, Aggressive Behavior, and Anxious-Depressed subscales. Aim: To examine the sensitivity and specificity of the proposed CBCL-PBD profile for determining DSM diagnosis of PBD. Methods: We applied receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis to data from 471 probands from two family studies of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and their 410 siblings. Results: The CBCL-PBD score demonstrated an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.97 for probands and 0.82 for siblings for current diagnosis of PBD, suggesting that the CBCL-PBD provided a highly efficient way of identifying subjects with a current diagnosis of PBD in this sample. Conclusions: These findings suggest that the CBCL-PBD may provide a highly efficient way of screening for childhood bipolar disorder. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]