Search

Background Most neurodevelopmental tests used to assess child development in sub-Saharan Africa were developed in western or high-income countries, raising the question of their usefulness with African children. Objective This systematic review identified and synthesized key findings from studies measuring development in children in Sub-Saharan Africa in early childhood and again at school age, to assess neurocognitive associations longitudinally from infancy through middle childhood. Methods The study was based on the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses method, selecting articles referenced in the PubMed, PsycInfo, and Embase databases using the following inclusion criteria: published between 2000 and 2022, written in French or English, and presenting results dealing with the objective assessment of child's neurodevelopment. All articles were registered in the Zotero reference manager and analyzed by title, abstract, and full text. Results Several of the seven selected studies confirmed that attention and working memory in infancy can predict children's neurocognitive performance, including mathematical ability, at school age. In two of the studies, children with poor mental development at 1 year of age are more likely to present with poorer behavioral development at school age, including learning difficulties in school and risk for grade repetition. Conclusion Cognitive ability assessed in early childhood is strongly associated with performance at school age in cohorts of African children followed longitudinally. Even with assessments adapted cross-culturally, infants and preschoolers at risk for poor developmental outcomes can be identified to better receive strategic early interventions to enhance their development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018) was an influential American writer who was a leading literary figure of the 20th century. She is known for her contributions to the science fiction and fantasy genres. She wrote numerous novels, short stories, poems, and essays throughout her career, exploring various themes and pushing the boundaries of speculative fiction. In this article, I discuss Le Guin's writings on the developmental tasks of adolescence. In Le Guin's fiction, she examines how different social and cultural contexts determine patterns of maturation and the acquisition of the roles and responsibilities of adulthood. This article focuses on two novels, A Wizard of Earthsea from the Books of Earthsea (Le Guin, 2018), and Coming of Age in Karhide (Le Guin, 2017). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we suggest that aging and development are two sides of the same coin, and that developing a comprehensive understanding of health and disease risk requires examining age‐related processes occurring throughout the earliest years of life. Compared to other periods in life, it is during this early period of acute vulnerability, when children's biological and regulatory systems are developing, that biological aging occurs most rapidly. We review theory and empirical research suggesting that processes of development and aging are intricately linked, and that early adversity may program biological parameters for accelerated aging and disease risk early in life, even though clinical signs of age‐related disease onset may not be evident until many years later. Following from this, we make the case for widespread incorporation of biological aging constructs into child development research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Adolescence, a developmental period characterized by significant changes in sleep, is associated with normative increases in impulsivity. While short sleep duration has been linked to elevated impulsivity, the neural mechanism underlying the relationship between short sleep duration and elevated impulsivity remains poorly understood. Methods: We analyzed a dataset of 7,884 drug‐naive 9–10 year‐olds from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study. Among them, 5,166 have two‐year follow‐up neuroimaging data. Linear mixed‐effects models, mediation analyses, and longitudinal mediation analyses were used to investigate the relationship between parent‐reported sleep duration, impulsivity, and functional and structural connectivity between the cortex and the striatum. Results: We found that less sleep duration is significantly associated with higher positive and negative urgency, which are two affect‐related components of impulsivity. In addition, we observed a link between short sleep duration and reduced corticostriatal connectivity. Neural pathways associated with short sleep duration—functional connectivity between the cingulo‐opercular network and the left caudate, and between the cingulo‐parietal network and the right pallidum—mediated the association between sleep duration and positive urgency both at baseline and two‐year follow‐up. Longitudinal mediation analyses further revealed that short sleep duration and elevated positive urgency exacerbated each other through these two corticostriatal connectivities. Conclusions: These findings highlight the key role of corticostriatal connectivities in the reciprocal relationship between short sleep duration and elevated impulsivity. Given the increasing prevalence of short sleep duration in adolescents, the link between sleep duration, impulsivity, and corticostriatal connectivities has important implications for timely interventions to address impulsive problems in early adolescents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study followed up ADHD/autistic symptoms and attentional performance in children/adolescents with ASD and typically developing ones (TD) over 5–7 years. The participants were stratified by age at baseline into child (< 12 years) and adolescent (12–19 years) groups. ADHD symptoms, especially hyperactivity, and attentional functions significantly improved during follow-up, more in children than in adolescents, in both ASD and TD. Significantly more omission errors and perseverations were noted in ASD than TD through the follow-up. Children with ASD had more improvement in reaction time while adolescents with ASD had less improvement in commission errors and detectability than TD. No correlation of attentional functions and ADHD symptoms in ASD implied different neural mechanisms of ADHD symptoms between ASD and ADHD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Identification and determination of age is imperative for diversity of reasons that include disputed birth records, premature delivery, legal issues etc. Assessment of growth and development of a child helps in orthodontic, tooth development, shedding analysis, surgical and orthopedic management in dentistry.Dental age is one of the few measures of physiologic development that is uniformly applicable from infancy to late adolescence.Several methods have been proposed for the assessment of a child's dental age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Finger position sense is a proprioceptive modality highly important for fine motor control. Its developmental time course is largely unknown. This cross-sectional study examined its typical development in 138 children (8–17 years) and a group of 14 healthy young adults using a fast and novel psychophysical test that yielded objective measures of position sense acuity. Participants placed their hands underneath a computer tablet and judged the perceived position of their unseen index finger relative to two visible areas displayed on a tablet following a two-forced-choice paradigm. Responses were fitted to a psychometric acuity function from which the difference between the point-of-subjective-equality and the veridical finger position (ΔPSE) was derived as a measure of position sense bias, and the uncertainty area (UA) as a measure of precision. The main results are: First, children under 12 exhibited a significantly greater UA than adults while adolescent children (13–17 years) exhibited no significant differences when compared to adults. Second, no significant age-related differences in ΔPSE were found across the age range of 8–17 years. This implies that the typical development of finger position sense from late childhood to adulthood is characterized as an age-dependent increase in proprioceptive precision and not as a decrease in bias. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the influence of intent understanding on children's moral development has been long studied, little research has examined the influence of belief understanding on that development. In two studies we presented children with morally relevant belief vignettes to examine the extent to which they incorporate both intent and belief information in their moral judgments. In Study 1 (N = 64), 5-year-olds with higher false belief understanding (FBU) rated agents with false beliefs as more positively intentioned in good intent trials (even though the outcome was bad) than in bad intent trials (even though the outcome was good). In contrast, 4-year-olds with higher FBU were generally unable to integrate their belief understanding with their moral evaluations, performing no better on intention questions than children with lower FBU. Neither age group significantly differentiated reward and punishments as a function of intent when a false belief was involved. In Study 2 (N = 109 children, N = 42 adults), we found that by simplifying our study design and reducing the task demands, 4-year-olds with higher FBU were able to make appropriate intent judgments. Yet, as in Study 1, all children had difficulty assigning punishment/reward based on intent. For both moral intentions and moral consequences, 4- and 5-year-olds with higher FBU differed from those of adults in several respects, indicating that moral reasoning develops substantially beyond the preschool years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Applying both latent variable and network frameworks, we conducted a comprehensive psychometric evaluation of the diverse array of symptoms from three externalizing dimensions, including attention problems, aggressive behavior, and delinquency/rule-breaking of the Child Behavior Checklist (Achenbach, 1991) across six time points from childhood to early adolescence. We also examined sex differences. Participants (N = 1,339) were drawn from two multisite longitudinal studies: Fast Track and the Child Development Project. Parents reported on externalizing psychopathology in kindergarten and Grades 1, 2, 4, 5, and 7. Using exploratory structural equation modeling, we found almost uniformly excellent fit across time and samples. However, we also observed multiple cross-loadings and heterogeneity in terms of which symptoms cross-loaded across time points. Alternatively, using network modeling, we observed that symptoms of attention problems and aggressive behavior had stronger connections, relative to delinquency/rule-breaking, across time and samples. Significant differences in overall connectivity were found at early (kindergarten vs. Grade 1, Grade 1 vs. Grade 2) and late (Grade 5 vs. Grade 7) time points for the combined sample and only late time points for the male sample. In addition, the items impulsive and lies or cheats consistently displayed the greatest bridge strength, that is, symptom from one dimension that connects to symptoms from another dimension, across time and samples. Our results illustrate how two methods-latent variable and network modeling-provide important and complementary information on multidimensional constructs. Findings also inform understanding of externalizing psychopathology through childhood to early adolescence by identifying key symptoms, critical transition points, and possible transdiagnostic liabilities. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From early ages, gaze acts as a cue to infer the interests, behaviours, thoughts and emotions of social partners. Despite sharing attentional properties with other non‐social directional stimuli, such as arrows, gaze produces unique effects. A spatial interference task revealed this dissociation. The direction of arrows was identified faster on congruent than on incongruent direction‐location trials. Conversely, gaze produced a reversed congruency effect (RCE), with faster identifications on incongruent than congruent trials. To determine the emergence of these gaze‐specific attentional mechanisms, 214 Spanish children (4–17 years) divided into 6 age groups, performed the aforementioned task across three experiments. Results showed stimulus‐specific developmental trajectories. Whereas the standard effect of arrows was unaffected by age, gaze shifted from an arrow‐like effect at age 4 to a gaze‐specific RCE at age 12. The orienting mechanisms shared by gaze and arrows are already present in 4‐year olds and, throughout childhood, gaze becomes a special social cue with additional attentional properties. Besides orienting attention to a direction, as arrows would do, gaze might orient attention towards a specific object that would be attentionally selected. Such additional components may not fully develop until adolescence. Understanding gaze‐specific attentional mechanisms may be crucial for children with atypical socio‐cognitive development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many sports, elite players outperform novices on tests for perceptual-cognitive skills, such as anticipation, decision-making and pattern recall. However, the developmental trajectory of these perceptual-cognitive skills has received limited attention. Therefore, this study examined the development of anticipation, decision-making and pattern recall in 202 female volleyball players aged between 7 and 26 years old. Participants were categorized into six age groups: U9, U11, U13, U15, U17 and Seniors. Using a video-based occlusion protocol, we assessed participants' ability to predict pass direction, decide the most optimal attack zone, or recall the opponents' defence positions. The results demonstrated that U17 and adult players had superior accuracy and shorter response times than younger players on all three tests. Notably, U9 players performed worse than older players on all tests. Binomial distributions showed that decision-making was above chance for U17 players and adults, whereas anticipation was above chance for almost all players. Our findings indicate that age-related improvements of perceptual-cognitive skills are evident at 11 years old. However, decision-making seems to develop considerably later than anticipation and pattern recall, suggesting different developmental trajectories for the different perceptual-cognitive skills. Longitudinal research regarding the development of perceptual-cognitive skills and their underlying mechanisms is warranted, as this could have important implications for talent detection and development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A central concern of family psychology and developmental science is assessing the stability or instability (i.e., relative standing) of family-level constructs across time. Almost exclusively, such constructs have heretofore been unitary variables. Using a longitudinal design, for the first time, this study traces the developmental stability of the dyadic construct of mother–child relationship quality from infancy to adolescence. Multiple age-appropriate measures converging on the construct of relationship quality were assessed in 375 mother–child dyads at 4 times: 5 months and 4, 10, and 14 years. Mother–child relationship quality showed stability (βs =.18–.53) in all families together, in families with girls and boys, and when family socioeconomic status was controlled. Consistent patterns of relationship quality are developmentally significant in themselves, convert to broader behavioral tendencies in children, and guide more effective intervention designs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE) is linked to a variety of neurodevelopmental challenges, including social functioning (SF) and executive functioning (EF) deficits. These deficits present differently across developmental stages from preschool age to adolescence. Methods: The post hoc analyses described here were conducted on data from 83 preschool‐age children with PAE (early childhood group; ages 2.5 to 5.0) and 95 adolescents (49 with PAE, 46 controls; ages 8 to 16). Each child completed EF tasks as part of several prior studies. Parents completed social and communication inventories about their child's abilities. Thirty‐three participants from the early childhood group returned for a 4‐year follow‐up and completed both SF and EF measures. Results: Both the early childhood and adolescent groups with PAE showed deficits in SF and EF. There was a relationship between SF and EF within the adolescent PAE group that was not present in the adolescent control group or the early childhood PAE group. However, at the 4‐year follow‐up (Mage = 8.45), participants originally in the early childhood PAE group also demonstrated this relationship. Conclusions: These findings support previous research on EF/SF deficits in adolescents with PAE while also addressing a gap in the literature concerning early childhood research on this topic. Additionally, these findings suggest that the relationship between EF and SF deficits may strengthen throughout development. This line of research highlights potential sensitive periods for SF and EF training in children with PAE and suggests that fetal alcohol spectrum disorders programs consider targeting EF training as a component of social skill interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to estimate nitrogen balance and protein requirements in adolescent sprint athletes as a function of growth rate and physical development. Sixty adolescent sprint athletes were followed up biannually over a 2-yr period. Individual growth curves and age at peak height velocity were determined. Skeletal muscle mass (SMM) was estimated based on anthropometric measurements and fat mass was estimated by underwater densitometry. Seven-day diet and physical activity diaries were completed to estimate energy balance and protein intake. Nitrogen analysis of 24-hr urine samples collected on 1 weekday and 1 weekend day allowed calculation of nitrogen balance. Body height, weight, and SMM increased throughout the study period in both genders. Mean protein intakes were between 1.4 and 1.6 g kg-1 day-1 in both genders. A protein intake of 1.46 g kg-1 day-1 in girls and 1.35 g kg-1 day-1 in boys was needed to yield a positive nitrogen balance. This did not differ between participants during and after their growth spurt. None of the growth parameters was significantly related to nitrogen balance. It can be concluded that a mean protein intake around 1.5 g kg-1 day-1 was sufficient to stay in a positive nitrogen balance, even during periods of peak growth. Therefore, protein intake should not be enhanced in peak periods of linear or muscular growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of biological markers of aging has primarily focused on adult samples. Epigenetic clocks are a promising tool for measuring biological age that show impressive accuracy across most tissues and age ranges. In adults, deviations from the DNA methylation (DNAm) age prediction are correlated with several age-related phenotypes, such as mortality and frailty. In children, however, fewer such associations have been made, possibly because DNAm changes are more dynamic in pediatric populations as compared to adults. To address this gap, we aimed to develop a highly accurate, noninvasive, biological measure of age specific to pediatric samples using buccal epithelial cell DNAm. We gathered 1,721 genome-wide DNAm profiles from 11 different cohorts of typically developing individuals aged 0 to 20 y old. Elastic net penalized regression was used to select 94 CpG sites from a training dataset (n = 1,032), with performance assessed in a separate test dataset (n = 689). DNAm at these 94 CpG sites was highly predictive of age in the test cohort (median absolute error = 0.35 y). The Pediatric-Buccal-Epigenetic (PedBE) clock was characterized in additional cohorts, showcasing the accuracy in longitudinal data, the performance in nonbuccal tissues and adult age ranges, and the association with obstetric outcomes. The PedBE tool for measuring biological age in children might help in understanding the environmental and contextual factors that shape the DNA methylome during child development, and how it, in turn, might relate to child health and disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research has found that insecure attachment is associated with depression. In the present study, we use an accelerated longitudinal cohort design to examine how the association between attachment and depression develops during childhood and adolescence. Specifically, 690 children from 3 distinct cohorts (grades 3, 6, and 9) completed self-report measures of attachment and depressive symptoms 3 times over 3 years. Growth curve analyses indicated that attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance were uniquely related to depressive symptoms. Higher levels of attachment anxiety and avoidance predicted higher levels of depressive symptoms over time. Additionally, changes in attachment security were associated with changes in depressive symptoms. The analyses suggest that insecure attachment and depressive symptoms co-vary and that these dynamics are evident in childhood and adolescence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Homelessness, unemployment, and food insecurity are the unfortunate reality for many young adults who age out of the foster care system. These rates remain high even for youth who participate in independent living programmes prior to exiting foster care. These high rates of poor outcomes suggest that many foster care youth are inadequately prepared to transition to adulthood. In order to improve services for youth preparing to age out of foster care, it is important to identify factors that contribute to these adverse outcomes and that could become targets of further interventions. One such factor, an underdeveloped sense of autonomy, may predispose youth to poor outcomes such as limited educational attainment, unstable housing, and unemployment. At least in Western cultures that value individualism, interventions that foster the development of autonomy during adolescence could potentially improve outcomes for youth in foster care. This article aims to review factors that promote the development of autonomy and discusses the unique barriers to autonomy development faced by youth in foster care. I conclude with several intervention strategies that could facilitate the development of autonomy in foster care youth and recommendations for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recently released National Institutes of Health Toolbox (NIHTB) batteries for neurological and behavioral function were designed to serve as standardized, common measures in clinical and epidemiological research. The current study aimed to examine constructs assessed by the self-report and parental proxy-report scales in the NIHTB Emotion Battery (NIHTB-EB) for Children by using factor analyses on data from the U.S. national normative sample of 2,916 English-speaking children. This battery contains 31 scales designed to assess both positive and negative aspects of social and emotional functioning that are considered developmentally relevant at each of three age ranges (3-7, 8-12, and 13-17 years). Results revealed four similar self-report factors for ages 8 to 12 years and 13 to 17 years. Proxy reports for ages 3 to 7 years revealed three factors, and for ages 8 to 12 years two factors. Based on the standardization sample data, age- and gender-corrected norms are presented for all NIHTB-EB individual scales and factor-based composites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most developmental work regards adverse developmental experiences as forces that undermine well-being. Here, I present an alternative—or complementary—view, summarizing recent evidence on puberty, endocrinology, cellular aging, and brain connectivity that collectively reveals developmental acceleration in response to contextual adversity. Findings are cast in evolutionary-developmental terms, highlighting the trade-off between accelerated aging and (a) increased morbidity and (b) premature mortality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Modified Erikson Psychosocial Stage Inventory (MEPSI) is an 80-item, comprehensive measure of psychosocial development based on Erikson's theory with published reliability and validity data. Although designed as a comprehensive measure, some researchers have used individual subscales for specific developmental stages as a measure; however, these subscale reliability scores have not been generally shared. This article reviewed the literature to evaluate the use of the MEPSI: the major research questions, samples/populations studied, and individual subscale and total reliability and validity data. In total, 16 research articles (1990-2011) and 28 Dissertations/Theses (1991-2016) from nursing, social work, psychology, criminal justice, and religious studies met criteria. Results support the MEPSI's global reliability (aggregate scores ranged .89-.99) and validity in terms of consistent patterns of changes observed in the predicted direction. Reliability and validity data for individual subscales were more variable. Limitations of the tool and recommendations for possible revision and future research are addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Emotion enhances recognition memory in children, adolescents, and adults. • For females, emotion consistently enhanced memory in participants aged 8–30 years. • For males aged 8–30, emotional memory enhancement diminished with age. • Gender differences in emotion effects on memory may emerge in adulthood. Abstract Emotion typically enhances memory. This "canonical" emotional memory enhancement (EME) effect has been extensively studied in adults, but its developmental trajectory is unclear. The handful of developmental studies that have manipulated emotion at encoding and then tested subsequent memory have yielded mixed results. To identify whether development change in EME occurs across middle childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood, we examined EME in 206 8- to 30-year-olds, using the same stimuli, paradigm, and analyses for all participants. At encoding, participants saw negative, neutral, and positive pictures while completing an incidental task. Two weeks later, participants completed a recognition memory test. We calculated negative–neutral and positive–neutral memory difference scores for each participant and then tested whether EME was predicted by age or gender. Negative pictures were remembered better than neutral pictures; the magnitude of this difference diminished in older male participants but not in older female ones. Positive pictures were also remembered better than neutral pictures, but this EME effect was small and did not change significantly with age or by gender. We also examined whether subjective ratings of stimulus emotion changed with age or between genders, and we report small differences. These results suggest that emotion effects on recognition memory are apparent by middle childhood and remain consistent across adolescence and early adulthood for girls and women, whereas emotion elicitation and EME effects diminish slightly with age for boys and men. These findings enrich both the EME literature specifically and what is known about emotion–cognition interactions across middle childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developmental research on Gestalt laws has previously revealed that, even as young as infancy, we are bound to group visual elements into unitary structures in accordance with a variety of organizational principles. Here, we focus on the developmental trajectory of both connection‐based and object‐based grouping, and investigate their impact on object formation in participants, aged 9–21 years old (N = 113), using a multiple‐object tracking paradigm. Results reveal a main effect of both age and grouping type, indicating that 9‐ to 21‐year‐olds are sensitive to both connection‐based and object‐based grouping interference, and tracking ability increases with age. In addition to its importance for typical development, these results provide an informative baseline to understand clinical aberrations in this regard. Statement of contribution What is already known on this subject? The origin of the Gestalt principles is still an ongoing debate: Are they innate, learned over time, or both? Developmental research has revealed how each Gestalt principle has its own trajectory and unique relationship to visual experience. Both connectedness and object‐based grouping play an important role in object formation during childhood. What does this study add? The study identifies how sensitivity to connectedness and object‐based grouping evolves in individuals, aged 9–21 years old. Using multiple‐object tracking, results reveal that the ability to track multiple objects increases with age. These results provide an informative baseline to understand clinical aberrations in different types of grouping. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A wealth of literature has examined the association between breastfeeding and the development of cognitive abilities in childhood. In particular, at least some evidence exists suggesting that breastfed children perform better on measures of intelligence later in life. Although a correlation appears to be present, fewer observational studies have included appropriate adjustment for potentially confounding variables; maternal intelligence, maternal education, and cognitive stimulation provided by mothers being chief among them. As a result, we analyze a national sample of approximately 790 American respondents to test the association between breastfeeding and intelligence during childhood and adolescence using multiple intelligence tests and controlling for a range of key covariates. Our results suggest that the correlation between breastfeeding throughout the first six months of life and intelligence is statistically significant and consistent, yet of substantively minor impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to provide insight into the development of postural control abilities in youth. A total of 276 typically developing adolescents (155 males, 121 females) with a mean age of 13.23 years (range of 7.11-18.80) were recruited for participation. Subjects performed two-minute quiet standing trials in bipedal stance on a force plate. Center of pressure (COP) trajectories were quantified using Sample Entropy (SampEn) in the anterior-posterior direction (SampEn-AP), SampEn in the medial-lateral direction (SampEn-ML), and Path Length (PL) measures. Three separate linear regression analyses were conducted to predict the relationship between age and each of the response variables after adjusting for individuals' physical characteristics. Linear regression models showed an inverse relationship between age and entropy measures after adjusting for body mass index. Results indicated that chronological age was predictive of entropy and path length patterns. Specifically, older adolescents exhibited center of pressure displacement (smaller path length) and less complex, more regular center of pressure displacement patterns (lower SampEn-AP and SampEn-ML values) compared to the younger children. These findings support prior studies suggesting that developmental changes in postural control abilities may continue throughout adolescence and into adulthood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dysfunctional emotion regulation is an important predictor of psychopathology. Although many clinical programs focus on emotion regulation skills, the successful application of these programs in children and adolescents requires knowledge on the normative use of emotion regulation strategies over age. To this end, the current cross-sectional study examined changes in emotion regulation throughout childhood and adolescence. The use of seven adaptive and five maladaptive emotion regulation strategies was measured with the FEEL-KJ in a representative sample ( N = 1397) of Dutch children and adolescents between 8 and 18 years old. Overall, the results indicated reduced use of adaptive strategies and increased use of maladaptive strategies in participants between 12 and 15 years old compared with younger or older participants. The findings of the current study indicate that adolescence is characterized by a maladaptive shift in emotion regulation. Given that the continued use of dysfunctional emotion regulation plays an important role in the development and maintenance of psychopathology, these results highlight the importance of prevention and treatment programs focused on emotion regulation to shield vulnerable adolescents against mental illness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The conundrums inherent in the study of child and adolescent development are likely never far from the minds of the readers of JCPP. The complexity of development is flagged clearly in this issue. Included papers remind us that the link between associations (here maternal depression and child internalising problems) can change over short time periods. Even when the magnitude of associations stay consistent over time (here between the home environment and depression), there may be different aetiological processes underlying these links. Going forward, we should not lose sight of the significance of small changes in study designs, whether concerning the age range of participants, stipulated reporting periods and data analysis decisions (such as combining data from different age groups). The value of longitudinal data in addressing these questions remains paramount. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conscientiousness is related to a range of important life outcomes, so it is important to understand its development early in life. We examined how conscientiousness changes from late childhood through middle adolescence and what other psychosocial changes it co-occurs with. We developed and validated a conscientiousness scale for use in existing data. Then in a longitudinal study of participants at ages 10, 13, and 16 ( N = 90 at Time 1) we used growth curve modeling to examine how conscientiousness co-develops with academic, health, and relationship functioning. Mean levels of conscientiousness decreased from 10 to 13 and then increased to age 16. The later increase was stronger among females. Changes in conscientiousness were associated with adaptive changes in other variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Paternal depression has been associated with suboptimal developmental outcomes in offspring. We sought to systematically review the research evidence from prospective studies for an association between paternal depression and child adolescent emotional and behavioral outcomes. We also reviewed potential mediators of this association and sources of methodological bias.Methods: A systematic review was conducted using the following databases: Medline, EMBASE, PsycINFO and Google Scholar. Reference lists of the included papers were also searched.Results: Twenty-one studies were included in the review. Findings suggested that paternal depression does negatively impact upon offspring development. This impact is observable when paternal depression is present in the antenatal and postnatal stages and during offspring adolescence. The strength of this association is strongly reliant upon a number of contextual mediators, namely; paternal negative expressiveness, hostility and involvement and marital conflict. A quality assessment rating showed the studies were relatively strong methodologically.Limitations: Heterogeneity regarding method of assessment and the magnitude and timing of exposure hinder attempts to make strong conclusions regarding the trajectory of paternal depression and its effects on child and adolescent outcomes.Conclusions: Paternal mental health screening during pregnancy is necessary in order to identify and prevent depression negatively impacting offspring functioning. Including both parents in this process should encourage the alleviation of the environmental mediators which dominate the negative association outlined within the review. Research examining gene-environment interaction is necessary to uncover more accurate details regarding paternal depression and subsequent offspring vulnerability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective The present study investigated frequency dependent developmental patterns of the brain resting-state networks from childhood to adolescence. Method Magnetoencephalography (MEG) data were recorded from 20 healthy subjects at resting-state with eyes-open. The resting-state networks (RSNs) was analyzed at source-level. Brain network organization was characterized by mean clustering coefficient and average path length. The correlations between brain network measures and subjects’ age during development from childhood to adolescence were statistically analyzed in delta (1–4 Hz), theta (4–8 Hz), alpha (8–12 Hz), and beta (12–30 Hz) frequency bands. Results A significant positive correlation between functional connectivity with age was found in alpha and beta frequency bands. A significant negative correlation between average path lengths with age was found in beta frequency band. Conclusions The results suggest that there are significant developmental changes of resting-state networks from childhood to adolescence, which matures from a lattice network to a small-world network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human adolescence is a time of enormous developmental change, second only to infancy and early childhood in terms of brain shaping and growth. It is also a period in life when the young adult is faced with distinct environmental challenges and stressors. Interestingly, we now know that these external sources of stress all have an impact on the intestinal microbiota. Given that there is now a significant body of knowledge indicating a role for the microbiota-gut-brain axis in development and function of the brain, and potentially the emergence of psychiatric illnesses, we need to draw our attention to the intestinal microbiota in the adolescent. As psychiatric illnesses frequently first manifest during the teenage years it may be that the intestinal bacteria are playing an as yet unidentified role in disease pathogenesis. Identifying a role for the microbiota in psychiatric illnesses opens up an exciting opportunity for therapeutic advances via bacterial manipulation. This could prove to be a beneficial and novel avenue for treatment of mental illnesses in the developing teen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Objective Although weight history is relevant in predicting eating disorder symptom severity, little is known about its role in the etiology of anorexia nervosa (AN). This study aimed to determine whether BMI or BMI trajectory differed between individuals who later developed adolescent-onset AN and a comparison group of HCs between school grades 1 through 6. Method This study was based on longitudinal data that identified 51 adolescents with AN and 51 matched HCs. Cases were identified through community screening in Sweden and included individuals born in 1969 through 1977. Measured weights and heights were retrieved and BMIs and weight trajectories of the AN and HC groups were compared using growth curve analysis. Main outcome measures included measured BMI and BMI trajectories from grades 1-6. Secondary outcomes examined included ponderal index at birth and maternal body weight. Results Individuals who later developed AN had higher BMIs than HCs between grades 1 and 6, by an average of 1.42 BMI-units. There was no difference in rate of weight gain between groups. Ponderal index at birth was higher for the AN as compared with HC group. Maternal weight did not differ significantly between groups. Discussion These findings, combined with those previously reported on the premorbid BMIs of those with bulimia nervosa, suggest that a predisposition toward elevated premorbid BMIs during childhood characterizes those who later develop anorexia or bulimia nervosa. These findings are consistent with a transdiagnostic perspective and suggest shared risk factors for AN and obesity. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (Int J Eat Disord 2016; 49:1002-1009) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has been linked to immaturity relative to peers in childhood, yet it is unclear how such immaturity is associated with ADHD across development. This longitudinal twin study examined the genetic and environmental contributions to the association between parents' perception of their child's immaturity relative to peers (RI) in childhood and ADHD symptoms across development.Method: 1,302 twin pairs from the Swedish Twin Study of Child and Adolescent Development were followed prospectively from childhood to early adulthood. Parent ratings of RI were collected at 8 to 9 years and parent and self-ratings of ADHD symptoms were collected at 8 to 9, 13 to 14, 16 to 17, and 19 to 20 years using the Child Behavior Checklist Attention Problems scale. In addition, ADHD symptoms corresponding to DSM criteria were used for sensitivity analysis. Analyses were conducted using longitudinal structural equation modeling with multiple raters.Results: RI-related etiologic factors, predominantly influenced by genes, explained 10-14% of the variance in ADHD symptoms from 8 to 9 up to 16 to 17 years. The influence of these RI-related factors on ADHD symptoms attenuated to 4% by 19 to 20 years of age. The remaining variance in ADHD symptoms was primarily explained by genetic factors independent of RI, which remained relatively stable across development, explaining 19% to 30% of the variance in ADHD symptoms from 13 to 14 up to 19 to 20 years.Conclusion: The results show that RI is significantly associated with ADHD symptoms, particularly during childhood and adolescence, and that the association is primarily explained by a shared genetic liability. Nevertheless, the magnitude of associations across development was modest, highlighting that RI is merely one aspect contributing to the complex etiology of ADHD symptoms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Bipolar disorder (BD) is a severe mental illness that can have high costs for youths (<18 years old) and adults. Relative to healthy controls (HC), individuals with BD often show impaired attention, working memory, executive function, and cognitive flexibility (the ability to adapt to changing reward/punishment contingencies). In our study of youths and young adults with BD, we investigated 1) how cognitive flexibility varies developmentally in BD, and 2) whether it is independent of other executive function deficits associated with BD.Methods: We measured errors on a reversal-learning task, as well as spatial working memory and other executive function, among participants with BD (N=75) and HC (N=130), 7-27 years old. Regression analyses focused on the effects of diagnosis on reversal-learning errors, controlling for age, gender, IQ, spatial span, and executive function. Similar analyses examined non-reversal errors to rule out general task impairment.Results: Participants with BD, regardless of age, gender, or cognitive ability, showed more errors than HC on the response reversal stages of the cognitive flexibility task. However, participants with BD did not show more errors on non-reversal stages, even when controlling for other variables.Limitations: Study limitations include the cross-sectional, rather than longitudinal, design; inability to measure non-linear age effects; and inclusion of medicated participants and those with psychiatric comorbidity.Conclusions: Individuals with BD show a specific impairment in reversing a previously rewarded response, which persists across the transition from childhood to young adulthood. Tailored interventions targeting this deficit may be effective throughout this developmentally turbulent time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Entrepreneurship is crucial not only for creating jobs and innovating, but also because it reflects how personal agency and risk taking contribute to social change. Because entrepreneurship is widely regarded as a skill of the 21st century, societies worldwide want to design and implement education programs to encourage entrepreneurs. In this article, I discuss the role of the formative years of adolescence in the development of entrepreneurship, reviewing research on adolescent precursors of entrepreneurship. I also explore the role of the developing self-concept and the interplay between biology and levels of context in the development of entrepreneurial skills throughout life. Finally, I propose a biopsychosocial model of entrepreneurial development and conclude with questions for researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Visual working memory (VWM) is the ability to hold in mind visual information for brief periods of time. The current study investigated VWM precision development longitudinally. Participants (N = 40, aged 7–11 years) completed delayed reproduction sequential VWM tasks at baseline and two years later. Results show age-related improvement in recall precision on both 1-item and 3-item VWM tasks, suggesting development during childhood and early adolescence in the resolution with which both single and multiple items are stored in VWM. Probabilistic modelling of response distribution data suggests age-related improvement in precision is attributable to a specific decrease in the variability (noisiness) of stored feature representations. This highlights a novel developmental mechanism which may underlie longitudinal improvement in VWM performance, crucially without invoking improvement in the number of items that can be stored. VWM precision provides a sensitive metric with which to track developmental changes longitudinally, shedding light on underlying cognitive mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing body of literature has revealed sex/gender differences in the acoustics of the sibilant fricative /s/. It has been suggested that some of this sex/gender-related variation might be socially motivated and acquired. However, the necessary developmental research to corroborate this proposal is absent from the literature. To address this, we examined sex/gender differences in the production of /s/ acoustics in relation to children׳s physical growth and gender identity. The speech production of children and adolescents aged 4–16 years old was recorded. Additionally, the physical height was measured and gender identity was evaluated through a parent-filled questionnaire. Three acoustic measures were calculated that describe the mean, standard deviation, and skewness of the spectral frequencies of /s/. Results indicated that gender identity played a key role in mediating the difference in /s/ acoustics between boys and girls for all three acoustic measurements. Additionally, for adolescent boys, gender identity explains within-gender variation in /s/. Our results thus highlight the importance of social-behavioral factors in the development of sex/gender difference in /s/ production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) young people experience a variety of developmental trajectories that consist of milestones, the sequence and timing of which differ across individuals. They include early feelings of being different from peers, the onset of same-sex attraction, questioning one's sexuality, first same-sex sexual experience, recognition and self-labelling, disclosure to others, first romantic relationship, and self-acceptance. The invention of ‘gay youth’ during the 1970s and 1980s is briefly reviewed with an emphasis on the ways in which the portrait created by early research fails to capture the developmental trajectories of millennial young people. Although some young people struggle with mental health problems as they navigate these milestones, research documents the complexity, variety, and normative nature of the vast majority of LGB young people. A growing chorus of developmental, behavioural, and social scientists now emphasize that many contemporary young people forego sexual confusion, recognize the sex or gender to which they are attracted to and love, and believe they are as mentally healthy as heterosexual young people. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Most people have experienced loneliness and have been able to overcome it to reconnect with other people. In the current review, we provide a life-span perspective on one component of the evolutionary theory of loneliness—a component we refer to as the reaffiliation motive (RAM). The RAM represents the motivation to reconnect with others that is triggered by perceived social isolation. Loneliness is often a transient experience because the RAM leads to reconnection, but sometimes this motivation can fail, leading to prolonged loneliness. We review evidence of how aspects of the RAM change across development and how these aspects can fail for different reasons across the life span. We conclude with a discussion of age-appropriate interventions that may help to alleviate prolonged loneliness. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Although considerable research has addressed development from childhood giftedness to adult excellence, subjective perceptions of this development by gifted individuals themselves have remained largely unexplored. This multiple case study examined the ways in which young adults, who in the past had been identified as gifted, made sense of their giftedness based on cues obtained from their social environment and the impact of this sensemaking on their development. Some participants made sense of their giftedness in a way that prevented them from developing a sense of agency in their education: Their sensemaking was based on social control or, conversely, on effortless learning and easy victories they experienced in childhood. The participants who showed the highest level of achievement and motivation in early adulthood perceived themselves as “agents of their learning” and made sense of their extraordinary outcomes as resulting from effortful, proper, and self-directed practice. Our findings indicate that a sense of agency is critical to maintaining gifted-level achievement through adolescence. We have identified some of the social environment factors that can diminish or enhance that sense of agency in high-achieving children. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Learning from feedback is an important aspect of executive functioning that shows profound improvements during childhood and adolescence. This is accompanied by neural changes in the feedback-learning network, which includes pre-supplementary motor area (pre- SMA)/anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), superior parietal cortex (SPC), and the basal ganglia. However, there can be considerable differences within age ranges in performance that are ascribed to differences in strategy use. This is problematic for traditional approaches of analyzing developmental data, in which age groups are assumed to be homogenous in strategy use. In this study, we used latent variable models to investigate if underlying strategy groups could be detected for a feedback-learning task and whether there were differences in neural activation patterns between strategies. In a sample of 268 participants between ages 8 to 25 years, we observed four underlying strategy groups, which were cut across age groups and varied in the optimality of executive functioning. These strategy groups also differed in neural activity during learning; especially the most optimal performing group showed more activity in DLPFC, SPC and pre-SMA/ACC compared to the other groups. However, age differences remained an important contributor to neural activation, even when correcting for strategy. These findings contribute to the debate of age versus performance predictors of neural development, and highlight the importance of studying individual differences in strategy use when studying development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Movements with both hands are essential to our everyday life, and it has been shown that performing asymmetric bimanual movements produces an interference effect between hands. There have been many studies--using varying methods--investigating the development of bimanual movements that show that this skill continues to evolve during childhood and adolescence. In the current study we used a spatial bimanual task to delineate the development of bimanual movements not only during different stages of childhood but also during late stages of adulthood. Furthermore, we used the same task as a window to observe the involvement of motor imagery through the same age groups. For this study we recruited participants from 4 different age groups and asked them to perform congruent and noncongruent bimanual movements in a Real condition, where participants moved both hands, and in an Imagery condition, where they had to imagine 1 hand's movements while actually using the other hand. Our results showed that, with actual movement execution, the interference between motor programs of the 2 hands is higher in children (6-10 years old) than in younger adults (20-30 years old), while it tends to increase again in the elderly adults (60-80 years old). Interestingly, in the Imagery condition, the interference was present only among 10-year-old and 20- to 30-year-old participants, suggesting that motor imagery, not yet developed in young children and compromised by age in the elderly subjects, did not modulate motor performance in these last 2 groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

No abstract available Copyright © 2014 S. Karger AG, Basel [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The developmental cognitive neuroscience literature has grown exponentially over the last decade. This paper reviews the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) literature on brain function development of typically late developing functions of cognitive and motivation control, timing and attention as well as of resting state neural networks. Evidence shows that between childhood and adulthood, concomitant with cognitive maturation, there is progressively increased functional activation in task-relevant lateral and medial frontal, striatal and parieto-temporal brain regions that mediate these higher level control functions. This is accompanied by progressively stronger functional inter-regional connectivity within task-relevant fronto-striatal and fronto-parieto-temporal networks. Negative age associations are observed in earlier developing posterior and limbic regions, suggesting a shift with age from the recruitment of “bottom-up” processing regions towards “top-down” fronto-cortical and fronto-subcortical connections, leading to a more mature, supervised cognition. The resting state fMRI literature further complements this evidence by showing progressively stronger deactivation with age in anti-correlated task-negative resting state networks, which is associated with better task performance. Furthermore, connectivity analyses during the resting state show that with development increasingly stronger long-range connections are being formed, for example, between fronto-parietal and fronto-cerebellar connections, in both task-positive networks and in task-negative default mode networks, together with progressively lesser short-range connections, suggesting progressive functional integration and segregation with age. Overall, evidence suggests that throughout development between childhood and adulthood, there is progressive refinement and integration of both task-positive fronto-cortical and fronto-subcortical activation and task-negative deactivation, leading to a more mature and controlled cognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Several independent studies have demonstrated that small amounts of in-scanner motion systematically bias estimates of resting-state functional connectivity. This confound is of particular importance for studies of neurodevelopment in youth because motion is strongly related to subject age during this period. Critically, the effects of motion on connectivity mimic major findings in neurodevelopmental research, specifically an age-related strengthening of distant connections and weakening of short-range connections. Here, in a sample of 780 subjects ages 8–22, we re-evaluate patterns of change in functional connectivity during adolescent development after rigorously controlling for the confounding influences of motion at both the subject and group levels. We find that motion artifact inflates both overall estimates of age-related change as well as specific distance-related changes in connectivity. When motion is more fully accounted for, the prevalence of age-related change as well as the strength of distance-related effects is substantially reduced. However, age-related changes remain highly significant. In contrast, motion artifact tends to obscure age-related changes in connectivity associated with segregation of functional brain modules; improved preprocessing techniques allow greater sensitivity to detect increased within-module connectivity occurring with development. Finally, we show that subject’s age can still be accurately estimated from the multivariate pattern of functional connectivity even while controlling for motion. Taken together, these results indicate that while motion artifact has a marked and heterogeneous impact on estimates of connectivity change during adolescence, functional connectivity remains a valuable phenotype for the study of neurodevelopment. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Background The human waking EEG spectrum shows high heritability and stability and, despite maturational cortical changes, high test-retest reliability in children and teens. These phenomena have also been shown to be region specific. We examined the stability of the morphology of the wake EEG spectrum in children aged 11 to 13 years recorded over weekly intervals and assessed whether the waking EEG spectrum in children may also be trait-like. Three minutes of eyes open and three minutes of eyes closed waking EEG was recorded in 22 healthy children once a week for three consecutive weeks. Eyes open and closed EEG power density spectra were calculated for two central (C3LM and C4LM) and two occipital (O1LM and O2LM) derivations. A hierarchical cluster analysis was performed to determine whether the morphology of the waking EEG spectrum between 1 and 20 Hz is trait-like. We also examined the stability of the alpha peak using an ANOVA. Results The morphology of the EEG spectrum recorded from central derivations was highly stable and unique to an individual (correctly classified in 85% of participants), while the EEG recorded from occipital derivations, while stable, was much less unique across individuals (correctly classified in 42% of participants). Furthermore, our analysis revealed an increase in alpha peak height concurrent with a decline in the frequency of the alpha peak across weeks for occipital derivations. No changes in either measure were observed in the central derivations. Conclusions Our results indicate that across weekly recordings, power spectra at central derivations exhibit more "trait-like" characteristics than occipital derivations. These results may be relevant for future studies searching for links between phenotypes, such as psychiatric diagnoses, and the underlying genes (i.e., endophenotypes) by suggesting that such studies should make use of more anterior rather than posterior EEG derivations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the differences between children's voices and adult voices. We give an overview of the anatomy in the head and neck and specifically the anatomy of the respiratory system and the larynx. We also describe the development of children's voices including different physiological measures and voice quality. The development and consequences for voice production and voice quality are addressed and related to gender differences in the growing child. We also discuss the prevalence of voice problems and hoarseness in children. Environmental and other factors contributing to voice problems in children are described, and finally, issues related to intervention and evidence-based practice are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trauma is associated with alterations in cortisol activity and reactivity that may vary in relationship to development, time, predisposition, personality, the nature of a traumatic event, and other circumstances. This article reviews existing research findings related to cortisol in laboratory, general stress, and traumatic conditions. We discuss variables that may influence cortisol activity and reactivity in an effort to discover what is known and what still needs to be learned about cortisol levels in youth exposed to traumas. The extant literature points to a number of potentially negative physical, emotional, and behavioral outcomes of altered cortisol reactivity, which suggests a clear need for early and effective interventions. Furthermore, research has often provided mixed findings from relatively small samples of youth. Improving the understanding of cortisol activity and reactivity in children and adolescents will necessitate examining large samples of different developmental age groups across time. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Background: DSM-IV specifies three ADHD subtypes; the combined, the hyperactive-impulsive and the inattentive. Little is known about the developmental relationships underlying these subtypes. The objective of this study was to describe the development of parent-reported hyperactivity-impulsivity and inattention symptoms from childhood to adolescence and to study their associations with genetic factors, family risk, and later adjustment problems in early adulthood. Method: Data in this study comes from 1,450 twin pairs participating in a population-based, longitudinal twin study. Developmental trajectories were defined using parent-ratings of hyperactivity-impulsivity and inattention symptoms at age 8-9, 13-14, and 16-17. Twin methods were used to explore genetic influences on trajectories. Family risk measures included low socioeconomic status, large family size and divorce. Self-ratings of externalizing and internalizing problems in early adulthood were used to examine adjustment problems related to the different trajectory combinations. Results: We found two hyperactivity-impulsivity trajectories (low, high/decreasing) and two inattention trajectories (low, high/increasing). Twin modeling revealed a substantial genetic component underlying both the hyperactivity-impulsivity and the inattention trajectory. Joint trajectory analyses identified four groups of adolescents with distinct developmental patterns of hyperactivity-impulsivity and inattention: a low/low group, a primarily hyperactive, a primarily inattentive and a combined (high/high) trajectory type. These trajectory combinations showed discriminant relations to adjustment problems in early adulthood. The hyperactive, inattentive and combined trajectory subtypes were associated with higher rates of family risk environments compared to the low/low group. Conclusion: Study results showed that for those on a high trajectory, hyperactivity decreased whereas inattention increased. The combinations of these trajectories lend developmental insight into how children shift from (i) a combined to inattentive subtype, and (ii) a hyperactive-impulsive to a combined subtype. This study suggests that ADHD subtypes cannot be viewed as discrete and stable categories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This longitudinal study identified common summer care arrangements for adolescents and examined whether those arrangements predicted risk for obesity (Body Mass Index (BMI) ≥ 85th percentile for age and gender) the following school year. Participants were a nationally representative sample of 1766 adolescents ages 10–18 from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics–Child Development Supplement. Results showed that, beyond measures of BMI taken before the summer and several demographic aspects known to predict obesity, youth whose summer arrangements involved regular participation in organized activities (e.g., sports) showed significantly lower risk for obesity than other youth. This was most evident during early adolescence. Youth whose regular summer arrangement was predominated by parent care without organized activity participation showed the greatest risk for obesity. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The article presents abstracts on planning literature which include approaches to empirical work in regional economics, understanding the barriers to social adaptation, and management of large city regions.