Search

This study examined how individual differences in expectations of social consequences relate to individuals’ expected involvement in health-risk behaviors (HRBs). A total of 122 adolescents (aged 11–17) reported their expected involvement in a number of risk behaviors and whether or not they expect to be liked more or less by engaging in the behavior: the expected social benefit. Higher perceived social benefit was associated with higher anticipated involvement in said behavior. This relationship was stronger for adolescents who reported a higher degree of peer victimization, supporting the hypothesis that experiencing victimization increases the social value of peer interactions. Findings suggest that adolescents incorporate expectations of social consequences when making decisions regarding their involvement in HRBs.

A growing number of early childhood (EC) parenting programs target adult executive function (EF) to build responsive parenting behaviors and to promote positive child development. Although measurement of EF is well understood in academic research, little work has examined EF measurement in community settings. The present study examined psychometric properties of the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function-Adult Version among 203 parents whose children were enrolled in EC programs serving under-resourced communities. We calculated Cronbach's α and mean-item correlations to test internal consistency reliability. To test factor structure, we conducted exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analyses. Results suggest adequate internal consistency and that factor structures, beyond the original proposed, are appropriate for our community sample. Together, findings indicate that self-report measures of adult EF may perform differently for families experiencing adversity, raising questions about the acceptability of clinical EF tools in in underserved communities.

Research on the effects of early life adversity, and in particular on the absence of responsive caregiving, has shown long-term impacts on well-being and development. These investigations have been conducted both in human populations and in animal models. The work has demonstrated that neglect experienced in the early years can affect not only behavior but also neurobiological functioning. In particular, studies of children in the foster care system show convergence with research on children adopted following institutional rearing in terms of dysregulation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, which produces the neuroendocrine hormone cortisol. The characteristic pattern that has been most commonly observed involves diminished diurnal cortisol production, particularly in terms of low levels of cortisol upon awakening. Notably, however, a number of evidence-based interventions for infant, toddler, and preschool-aged foster children have been shown to produce more typical patterns of cortisol production, in combination with improved behavioral, socioemotional, and foster care placement outcomes. In this paper, we review the literature on the effects of early disruptions in care on biobehavioral development, and summarize the results of the interventions for young foster children.

OBJECTIVE: Children who have experienced maltreatment and subsequent placement in foster care are at increased risk for problem behavior. Increased knowledge of the development of problem behavior in this population, particularly during toddlerhood, can greatly inform preventive intervention efforts. This study examined variability in problem behavior among toddlers entering new foster care placements and identified related child and parenting characteristics. METHOD: Ninety-one toddlers in foster care (M = 2.26 years) and their caregivers completed an initial assessment and were reassessed six months later. Child general cognitive ability was assessed via performance on a standardized developmental measure, and child problem behavior, parenting stress, frequency of family routines, and harsh discipline were assessed via caregiver report. RESULTS: Upon entering a new foster care placement and six months post-placement, respectively, 38% and 25% of the toddlers were within the borderline clinical or clinical range in terms of problem behavior when assessed using the Child Behavior Checklist. There was not a significant difference in problem behavior over this 6-month period, suggesting that problem behavior was quite stable among the toddlers as a group. However, general cognitive ability was a significant predictor of individual differences in change in problem behavior, with toddlers with lower general cognitive ability displaying increased problem behavior over this period. CONCLUSION: An elevated number of toddlers in foster care displayed clinically significant levels of problem behavior, further demonstrating that these children are an extremely high-risk group. The association between general cognitive ability and change in problem behavior highlights the importance of early developmental screenings, which may help to identify the children at greatest risk for problem behavior and most in need of preventive intervention efforts.

The majority of children living in foster care in the United States have a history of maltreatment and/or disrupted caregiving. Maltreatment in early childhood adversely affects development at many levels, including neurobiology and behavior. One neurobiological measure associated with maltreatment is alpha electroencephalogram (EEG) asymmetry. Prior research has found greater right frontal asymmetry among children with a history of maltreatment. However, little research has been extended developmentally downward to examine alpha asymmetry and its behavioral correlates among toddlers in foster care; this was the purpose of the present study. Differences in EEG asymmetry were examined between a sample of foster toddlers (mean age = 3.21 years, n = 38) and a community comparison, low-income sample without a history of foster care (mean age = 3.04 years, n = 16). The toddlers in the foster care group exhibited greater right alpha asymmetry, primarily driven by differences in parietal asymmetry. Neither frontal nor parietal asymmetry were clearly related to internalizing or externalizing behaviors, measured concurrently or at previous time points. These findings reveal differences in alpha EEG asymmetry among toddlers in foster care, and highlight the need to better understand associations between neurobiological and behavioral functioning following early adversity.

Childhood is a formative period of behavioral and biological development that can be modified, for better or worse, by the psychosocial environment that is in part determined by caregivers. Not only do our own genes and the external environment influence such developmental trajectories, but the community of microbes living in, on, and around our bodies—the microbiome—plays an important role as well. By surveying the gut microbiomes of a cross-sectional cohort of early school-aged children with a range of psychosocial environments and subclinical mental health symptoms, we demonstrated that caregiving behaviors modified the child gut microbiome’s association to socioeconomic risk and behavioral dysregulation., Psychosocial environments impact normative behavioral development in children, increasing the risk of problem behaviors and psychiatric disorders across the life span. Converging evidence demonstrates that early normative development is affected by the gut microbiome, which itself can be altered by early psychosocial environments. However, much of our understanding of the gut microbiome’s role in early development stems from nonhuman animal models and predominately focuses on the first years of life, during peri- and postnatal microbial colonization. As a first step to identify if these findings translate to humans and the extent to which these relationships are maintained after initial microbial colonization, we conducted a metagenomic investigation among a cross-sectional sample of early school-aged children with a range of adverse experiences and caregiver stressors and relationships. Our results indicate that the taxonomic and functional composition of the gut microbiome correlates with behavior during a critical period of child development. Furthermore, our analysis reveals that both socioeconomic risk exposure and child behaviors associate with the relative abundances of specific taxa (e.g., Bacteroides and Bifidobacterium species) as well as functional modules encoded in their genomes (e.g., monoamine metabolism) that have been linked to cognition and health. While we cannot infer causality within this study, these findings suggest that caregivers may moderate the gut microbiome’s link to environment and behaviors beyond the first few years of life.

This study was designed to provide some preliminary information about the imaginary companions created by children who have lived in foster care, including prevalence rates and qualitative descriptions of the imaginary companions. We were also interested in how descriptions of the imaginary companions created by children who had lived in foster care compare to those of other children. Children with a history of foster care ( n = 21) and children from a low socioeconomic status community sample ( n = 39) were interviewed about imaginary companions. Twenty-six children (43.3%) reported having imaginary companions. Although having an imaginary companion has sometimes been believed to be more common in children with a history of maltreatment, in this preliminary study, prevalence rates did not differ between the two groups of children. In addition, both groups of children described companions that were a positive source of entertainment, friendship, and social support.

The validation of laboratory paradigms that reliably induce a stress response [including hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and autonomic nervous system (ANS) activation], is critical for understanding how children's stress-response systems support emotional and cognitive function. Early childhood research to date is markedly limited, given the difficulty in establishing paradigms that reliably induce a cortisol response. Furthermore, research to date has not included a control condition or examined concurrent ANS reactivity. We addressed these limitations by characterizing the extent to which a modified matching task stressor paradigm induces HPA and ANS activation, beyond a closely matched control condition. Modifications include an unfamiliar and unfriendly assessor to increase the stressful nature of the task. Results validate the matching task as a laboratory stressor, with significant differences in HPA and ANS responsivity between conditions. The Stressor group exhibited a cortisol increase post-stressor, while the Control group was stable over time. Children in both conditions exhibited reduced parasympathetic activity to the first-half of the task, but in the second-half, only children in the Stressor condition, who were experiencing exaggerated signals of failure, exhibited further parasympathetic decline. The Stressor condition induced higher sympathetic activity (versus Control) throughout the task, with exaggerated second-half differences. Within the Stressor condition, responsivity was convergent across systems, with greater cortisol reactivity correlated with the magnitude of parasympathetic withdrawal and sympathetic engagement. Future research employing the matching task will facilitate understanding the role of HPA and ANS function in development.

Among children diagnosed with developmental delays, difficulties in self-regulation are prominent and have been linked to school readiness problems. The current study sought to examine the impact of the Kids in Transition to School (KITS) school readiness intervention program on self-regulation, with a specific focus on response monitoring skills, among children with developmental delays. Children (n = 20 in the KITS group and n = 21 in a services as usual group) were administered a flanker task during which event-related potential data were collected to examine group differences in response monitoring. Findings indicated that children in the KITS group showed significant enhancement of a neural index of response monitoring post-intervention. Specifically, the KITS group showed a significant change in the magnitude of their feedback-related negativity in response to negative performance feedback from baseline to post-intervention, whereas children in the services as usual group did not. There were no significant differences between the groups for the error-related negativity or the error-related positivity on incorrect trials nor were there group differences in behavioral performance on the task at the post-intervention assessment. Overall, these findings provide support for the plasticity of response monitoring skills in young children and support the growing literature demonstrating improved self-regulation outcomes via intervention that enhances children’s response monitoring.

Prior research has identified the presence of executive function (EF) deficits in child protective service (CPS) involved (versus non-involved) children but minimal work has examined predictors that might explain individual differences within these CPS-involved children. Here, we sought to characterize EF in a large sample (N = 694) of CPS-involved children and examine how specific adversities (physical abuse, neglect, caregiver domestic violence, and caregiver substance dependence) and cumulative adversity (at ages 0–3 and 3–6 years) predict EF (at approximately 5–6 years). It was expected that the sample would exhibit low EF overall based on previous research in maltreated children. Specific adversity and cumulative adversity analyses were largely exploratory given the limited previous work in this area. Results indicated poor EF overall, with 43.5% of children performing worse than chance. Among children who performed greater than chance, higher cumulative adversity, physical abuse, and caregiver substance use (at ages 3–6 years) predicted better EF. These findings join literature documenting that, within CPS-involved children, the presence of certain adversities predicts variable cognitive function. Findings highlight the potential relevance of evolutionary psychology to understanding how alterations in behavior linked to harsh and unpredictable early environments may cue accelerated brain development underlying relative cognitive advantages, within at-risk, low performing samples. Longitudinal studies are critical to determine if the relative EF advantages linked to higher adversity persist over time or result in lower EF later on, reflecting a more rapid, but overall limited, trajectory of cognitive development.

During adolescence the prevalence of certain health risk behaviours, such as binge drinking and illicit substance use, increases. Engagement in these behaviours has been attributed to immature self-regulation, heightened sensation seeking, and peer influence during adolescence. However, more recently, adolescence has been characterised as a time of risk sensitivity rather than universal increases in health-risk behaviour. For example, the extent to which individuals engage in health-risk behaviours may relate to their sensitivity to the social risk involved in engaging in the health-risk behaviour. In the present study we examined how individual differences in social risk perception relate to an individual’s expectation of future involvement in risky behaviour during adolescence. One hundred and twenty-two participants (ages 11-17, mean 14 years) reported their expected involvement in a number of risk behaviours and degree to which they thought a) engaging in these behaviours would make people like them more, and b) not engaging in these behaviours would make people like them less. Social risk perception was operationalised as the perceived social benefit gained from engaging in a risk behaviour, from low (people would like you less), to high (people would like you more). We used linear mixed effects modelling to assess the contribution of social risk perception in predicting individuals expected involvement in health risk behaviours. We found that adolescents who perceived the social benefit associated with engaging in a risk behaviour to be high were more likely to report higher expected involvement in said behaviour. This was true for illicit substance use, aggressive and illegal behaviours, and risky drinking, but not for risky sex. Adolescents who reported a higher degree of peer victimisation showed a stronger relationship between the perceived social benefit of engaging in, and expected involvement in, these risk behaviours. Further, perceived social benefit moderated the relationship between sensation seeking and expected involvement in risky behaviours. Taken together, these data suggest that, across a number of health risking behaviours, adolescents incorporate perceptions of social risk when making decisions regarding their expected involvement. We argue that future investigations of adolescent health risking behaviours should incorporate social risk.

Psychosocial environments impact normative behavioral development in children, increasing the risk of problem behaviors and psychiatric disorders across the lifespan. Converging evidence demonstrates early normative development is affected by the gut microbiome, which itself can be altered by early psychosocial environments. Nevertheless, these relationships are poorly understood in childhood, particularly beyond peri- and postnatal microbial colonization. To determine the gut microbiome’s role in the associations between childhood adversity and behavioral development, we conducted a metagenomic investigation among cross-sectional sample of early school-aged children with a range of adverse experiences and caregiver stressors and relationships. Our results indicate that the taxonomic and functional composition of the gut microbiome links to behavioral dysregulation during a critical period of child development. Furthermore, our analysis reveals that both socioeconomic risk exposure and child behaviors associate with the relative abundances of specific taxa (e.g.,BacteroidesandBifidobacteriumspecies) as well as functional modules encoded in their genomes (e.g., monoamine metabolism) that have been linked to cognition and health. We also identified heretofore novel linkages between gut microbiota, their functions, and behavior. These findings hold important translational implications for developmental psychology and microbiome sciences alike, as they suggest that caregiver behavior might mitigate the impact of socioeconomic risk on the microbiome and modify the relationship between subclinical symptoms of behavioral dysregulation and the gut microbiome in early school-aged children.

Although interventions that promote child-supportive parenting for children have been shown to positively impact caregiving behaviors as well as child behavioral and neurobiological functioning, less is known about which aspects of maternal brain functioning are affected by such interventions. In the present study, we conducted a preliminary evaluation of the impact of the Filming Interactions to Nurture Development (FIND) video coaching program on mothers with at least one child age four or younger. We employed a waitlist control design with pre-post data. Compared to mothers in the control condition (n = 16), mothers who received FIND (n = 16) showed changes in neural measures of inhibitory control and behavioral measures of parenting self-evaluation during a series of functional neuroimaging tasks. Specifically, we found a group by time interaction in clusters in the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and insula for the Correct Stop > Correct Go contrast of the stop signal task (SST), where FIND increased brain activity associated with inhibitory control compared to mothers in the control condition; and FIND increased mothers’ endorsement of child-supportive parenting traits in the parenting self-evaluation task (PSET). Exploratory moderators, study limitations, and the implications of these findings for strength-based parenting programs are discussed.

The current study compared behavioral and adrenocortical functioning of maltreated ( N = 91) and comparably aged (1.5–3 years) institutionally-reared children soon after (1.5–2.5 months) placement in foster care or adoptive homes, respectively. Foster and adoptive parents reported on the children’s socioemotional competence and behavior problems, experimenters scored fear and positive affect to laboratory tasks, and diurnal cortisol measures were obtained. We sought to address whether these early contexts, characterized by different types of neglect and deprivation, have differential effects on young children’s development. We found little support for the argument that either context results in uniformly poorer functioning soon after removal from adversity. Maltreated children were less fearful and more positive when exposed to both positive and novel events than institutionally-reared children. However, maltreated children were reported to have more behavior problems than did institutionally-reared children, and institutionally-reared children showed more typical declines in cortisol throughout the day than the maltreated children. These findings increase our ability to construct more targeted and effective interventions for these populations.

The use of theory-driven models to develop and evaluate family-based intervention programs has a long history in psychology. Some of the first evidence-based parenting programs to address child problem behavior, developed in the 1970s, were grounded in causal models derived from longitudinal developmental research. The same translational strategies can also be applied to designing programs that leverage emerging scientific knowledge about the effects of early adverse experiences on neurobiological systems to reduce risk and promote well-being. By specifying not only behavioral targets but also affected underlying neural systems, interventions can become more precise and efficient. This chapter describes the development of a program of research focusing on an intervention for young children in foster care. The intervention emerged from social learning theory research and employs a translational neuroscience approach. The conceptual model guiding the research, which incorporates behavioral domains as well as stress-regulatory neural systems, is described. Finally, future directions for translational neuroscience in family-based intervention research are considered.

In this article, we focus on applying methods of translational neuroscience to two-generation, family-based interventions. In recent years, a small but growing body of evidence has documented the reversibility of some of the neurobiological effects of early adversity in the context of environmental early interventions. Some of these interventions are now being implemented at scale, which may help reduce disparities in the face of early life stress. Further progress may occur by extending these efforts to two-generation models that target caregivers’ capabilities to improve children’s outcomes. In this article, we describe the content and processes of the Filming Interactions to Nurture Development (FIND) video coaching intervention. We also discuss the two-generation, translational neuroscience framework on which FIND is based, and how similar approaches can be developed and scaled to mitigate the effects of adversity.

BACKGROUND: Early childhood is characterized by dramatic gains in emotion regulation skills that support social adjustment and mental health. Understanding the physiological substrates of healthy emotion regulation may offer new directions for altering trajectories toward initiation and escalation of substance abuse. Here, we describe the intersections between parasympathetic and sympathetic tone, emotion regulation and prosocial behavior in a high-risk sample of preschoolers. METHOD: Fifty-two 3-6 year old children completed an assessment of attention regulation in response to affective stimuli. Cardiac respiratory sinus arrhythmia, an index of parasympathetic tone, and pre-ejection period, a marker of sympathetic activation, were recorded at rest and while children engaged in social interactions with their mothers and an unfamiliar research assistant. Mothers reported on children's emotional reactivity and prosocial behavior. RESULTS: Controlling for age and psychosocial risk, higher parasympathetic tone predicted better attention regulation in response to angry emotion and higher levels of prosocial behavior, whereas a reciprocal pattern of higher parasympathetic tone and lower sympathetic arousal predicted better attention in response to positive emotion and lower emotional reactivity. Children exposed to fewer risk factors and higher levels of maternal warmth were more able to sustain a high level of parasympathetic tone during interaction episodes. CONCLUSIONS: Findings suggest that autonomic measures represent biomarkers for socio-emotional competence in young children. They also point to the importance of early experiences in the establishment of physiological regulation and the promise of family-based intervention to promote healthy emotion regulation and prevent substance dependence in high-risk populations.Copyright © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd.. All rights reserved. Language: en

The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis is a critical component of the body’s stress-response neurobiological system, and its development and functioning are shaped by the social environment. Much of our understanding of the effects of the caregiving environment on the HPA axis is based on a) parenting in young children and b) individual maternal stressors, such as depression. Yet, less is known about how parenting behaviors and maternal stressors interact to influence child cortisol regulation, particularly in older children. With an ethnically diverse sample of 199 mothers and their early adolescent children (M = 11.00 years; 54% female), a profile analytic approach was used to investigate how multiple phenotypes of maternal stress co-occur and moderate the relation between parenting behaviors and youths’ diurnal cortisol rhythms. Latent profile analysis yielded 4 profiles: current parenting stress, concurrent parenting and childhood stress, childhood stress, and low stress. For mothers with the concurrent parenting and childhood stress profile, inconsistent discipline, poor parental supervision, and harsh caregiving behaviors each were related to flattened diurnal cortisol rhythms in their adolescents. For mothers with the current parenting stress and childhood stress profiles, their use of inconsistent discipline was associated with flattened diurnal cortisol rhythms in their adolescents. For mothers with the low stress profile, none of the parenting behaviors was related to their adolescents’ cortisol regulation. Findings suggest that based on mothers’ stress profile, parenting behaviors are differentially related to youths’ diurnal cortisol rhythms. Implications for parenting interventions are discussed.

There is growing evidence that social support can buffer the physiological stress response, specifically cortisol reactivity. We use a developmental framework to review the importance of social buffering in early childhood, a period of heightened plasticity for programming of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. The social environment, in which parents play the largest role in early life, is a critical agent in the developmental trajectory of the HPA axis. A prevailing model of social buffering primarily focuses on the role of social support in the context of acute stressors and cortisol response. This review expands this model to provide evidence of the mechanism of social buffering, or lack thereof, across periods of chronic stress by applying the social buffer model to children involved in the child welfare system. We also highlight current interventions that capitalize on the mechanism of social buffering to modify HPA axis functioning across childhood. Last, we synthesize our findings using the social buffering framework to inform future targeted interventions.

Early adverse experiences are well understood to affect development and well-being, placing individuals at risk for negative physical and mental health outcomes. A growing literature documents the effects of adversity on developing neurobiological systems. Fewer studies have examined stress neurobiology to understand how to mitigate the effects of early adversity. This review summarizes the research on three neurobiological systems relevant to interventions for populations experiencing high levels of early adversity: the hypothalamic-adrenal-pituitary axis, the prefrontal cortex regions involved in executive functioning, and the system involved in threat detection and response, particularly the amygdala. Also discussed is the emerging field of epigenetics and related interventions to mitigate early adversity. Further emphasized is the need for intervention research to integrate knowledge about the neurobiological effects of prenatal stressors (e.g., drug use, alcohol exposure) and early adversity. The review concludes with a discussion of the implications of this research topic for clinical psychology practice and public policy.

Because the period of transition at the beginning of kindergarten can potentially impact an individual’s overall development, preventive intervention at the transition to kindergarten could have long-lasting and widespread impacts on the lives of children and their families. In this chapter, we present the Kids in Transition to School (KITS) Program, an evidence-based preventive intervention designed to capitalize on the period of the transition into kindergarten in preparing high-risk children for school. KITS features components for both children and parents. The program has specific foci on developing children’s early academic, social, and self-regulation skills and increasing parents’ school engagement and the use of positive parenting practices. KITS teachers and parent group facilitators are trained in evidence-based techniques important for teaching individuals new skills with a particular focus on teaching social–emotional skills. KITS has been tested in three randomized clinical trials. Results have demonstrated that the program positively affects children’s academic and self-regulation skills as well as parents’ use of consistent parenting techniques and school involvement. Effects of KITS have also been demonstrated at a neurobiological level. Finally, the effects of KITS appear to persist at least until the third grade, 4 years after the completion of the program.

Childhood maltreatment has lasting negative effects throughout the life span. Early intervention research has demonstrated that these effects can be remediated through skill-based, family-centered interventions. However, less is known about plasticity during adolescence, and whether interventions are effective many years after children experience maltreatment. This study investigated this question by examining adolescent girls' ability to make advantageous decisions in the face of risk using a validated decision-making task; performance on this task has been associated with key neural regions involved in affective processing and executive functioning. Maltreated foster girls (n= 92), randomly assigned at age 11 to either an intervention designed to prevent risk-taking behaviors or services as usual (SAU), and nonmaltreated age and socioeconomic status matched girls living with their biological parent(s) (n= 80) completed a decision-making task (at age 15–17) that assessed risk taking and sensitivity to expected value, an index of advantageous decision making. Girls in the SAU condition demonstrated the greatest decision-making difficulties, primarily for risks to avoid losses. In the SAU group, frequency of neglect was related to greater difficulties in this area. Girls in the intervention condition with less neglect performed similarly to nonmaltreated peers. This research suggests that early maltreatment may impact decision-making abilities into adolescence and that enriched environments during early adolescence provide a window of plasticity that may ameliorate these negative effects.

Although poor parenting is known to be closely linked to self-regulation difficulties in early childhood, comparatively little is understood about the role of other risk factors in the early caregiving environment (such as a parent’s own experiences of childhood abuse) in developmental pathways of self-regulation into adolescence. Using a longitudinal design, this study aimed to examine how a mother’s history of abuse in childhood relates to her offspring’s self-regulation difficulties in preadolescence. Maternal controlling parenting and exposure to intimate partner aggression in the child’s first 24–36 months were examined as important early social and environmental influences that may explain the proposed connection between maternal abuse history and preadolescent self-regulation. An ethnically diverse sample of mothers (N = 488) who were identified as at-risk for child maltreatment was recruited at the time of their children’s birth. Mothers and their children were assessed annually from the child’s birth through 36 months, and at age 9–11 years. Structural equation modeling and bootstrap tests of indirect effects were conducted to address the study aims. Findings indicated that maternal abuse history indirectly predicted their children’s self-regulation difficulties in preadolescence mainly through maternal controlling parenting in early childhood, but not through maternal exposure to aggression by an intimate partner. Maternal history of childhood abuse and maternal controlling parenting in her child’s early life may have long-term developmental implications for child self-regulation.

Roos and colleagues' commentary on our recent meta-analysis examining acute stress effects on executive functions is an important delineation of the limits of meta-analyses with heterogeneous outcomes. In this response, we wish to both clarify the inferences we feel are appropriate given the analyses and address the methodological concerns they raise. Additionally, we present new analyses that answer questions raised in their commentary. We first discuss the classification of a broad array of tasks that depend upon the same construct (e.g., inhibition) and note that this allows for inferences regarding the process that underpins all of those tasks, but this does not entail that all tasks dependent upon that construct will evidence the same effect of stress. Second, we argue that requiring that a study present a significant effect of stress on cortisol for inclusion in analyses is too stringent for a number of reasons (e.g., some studies using validated stressor paradigms correctly do not assay cortisol for budgetary reasons) and we present analyses showing that even when studies that did not present a cortisol response were removed, the initially observed effects still held. Finally, we address concerns raised regarding analyses of time-dependent effects by presenting new analyses that help to allay those concerns. In sum, we applaud Roos and colleagues' exortation for greater methodological and conceptual rigor in studies of stress and executive function, and the additional analyses prompted by their questions help to clarify observed effects and further the field of stress and executive function research.

In this study, we utilized a novel fMRI paradigm to examine the behavioral and neural correlates of parenting self-evaluation in a sample of mothers with at least one child under the age of 4 (N = 37). Prior self-report, behavioral and observational research document the implications of parenting self-evaluations for parent well-being and caregiving behavior; however, relatively little is known about the neural circuitry underlying these self-referential processes and to what extent they are influenced by caregiving experience. Although neuroimaging paradigms indexing other aspects of parental function exist, this is the first to use functional neuroimaging to study parenting self-evaluation in a controlled laboratory setting. We found parenting self-evaluations elicited significantly greater activity across most cortical midline structures, including the medial prefrontal cortex compared to control evaluations; these findings converge with previous work on the neural underpinning of general trait self-evaluation. Notable differences by parity were observed in exploratory analyses: specifically, primiparous mothers endorsed a higher number of developmentally supportive traits, exhibited faster reaction times, and showed a greater difference in mPFC activity when making self-evaluations of developmentally supportive traits than of developmentally unsupportive traits, compared to multiparous mothers. Implications of these findings and study limitations are discussed.

In the decades since social learning parenting interventions emerged, many evidence-based programs have been implemented at scale in community settings, and much research is now focusing on ways to maintain fidelity and impact during the implementation process. Notably, a considerable amount of theoretical confluence has occurred in parenting interventions from social learning, attachment, and other theoretical perspectives, with parent coaching as an example of this new generation of relational interventions. In addition, research examining the neurobiological effects of early adverse experiences is providing insight into key mediating and moderating mechanisms underlying the effectiveness of social learning parenting interventions, and new strategies for tailoring interventions to the needs of specific populations are being developed, making interventions more efficient, precise, and effective.

Identifying environmental influences on inhibitory control (IC) may help promote positive behavioral and social adjustment. Although chronic stress is known to predict lower IC, the immediate effects of acute stress are unknown. The parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) may be a mechanism of the stress-IC link, given its psychophysiological regulatory role and connections to prefrontal brain regions critical to IC. We used a focused assessment of IC (the stop-signal task) to test whether an acute social stressor (the Trier Social Stress Test) affected participants’ pre- to post-IC performance (n = 58), compared to a control manipulation (n = 31). High frequency heart-rate variability was used as an index of PNS activity in response to the manipulation. Results indicated that stress impaired IC performance, blocking the practice effects observed in control participants. We also investigated the associations between PNS activity and IC; higher resting PNS activity predicted better pre-manipulation IC, and greater PNS stressor reactivity protected against the negative effects of stress on IC. Together, these results are the first to document the immediate effects of acute stress on IC and a phenotypic marker (PNS reactivity to stressors) of susceptibility to stress-induced IC impairment. This study suggests a new way to identify situations in which individuals are likely to exhibit IC vulnerability and related consequences such as impulsivity and risk taking behavior. Targeting PNS regulation may represent a novel target for IC-focused interventions.

This paper describes the Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care program (MTFC), an evidence based approach for providing psychotherapeutic treatment for very troubled children and adolescents that is an alternative to residential care. Versions of the MTFC program have been developed and validated for young children with a history of maltreatment as well as for older children and adolescents who are involved with the youth justice system. In the paper we describe the development of the MTFC program and its foundations in the social learning model that originated at the Oregon Social Learning Center in the 1960's and 70's. We present information about program elements. We then review the research that has been conducted on MTFC.

Identifying neurocognitive processes associated with effective inhibitory control is particularly relevant for individuals at high risk for disruptive behaviors, such as maltreated children. Performance feedback processing during a flanker task was investigated in maltreated preschool-aged children (N = 67) via an event-related potential component, the feedback-related negativity (FRN). The functionality of the FRN in children with high impulsivity was of interest, as impulsivity was associated with an exaggerated FRN in previous research. Results showed that high impulsivity was associated with an exaggerated FRN and greater post-error slowing. For children with high impulsivity, there was a correlation between the FRN and accuracy, which was not found in children with low impulsivity. This suggests that an exaggerated FRN is particularly important for children with high impulsivity to maintain effective inhibitory control.

The transition to school may be particularly difficult for children with developmental disabilities and behavioral difficulties. Such children are likely to experience problems with self-regulation skills, which are critical to school adjustment. Additionally, inconsistent discipline practices and low parental involvement in children's schooling may contribute to a poor transition to school. This study employed a randomized clinical trial to examine the effects of a school readiness intervention that focused on children's self-regulation skills as well as parenting and parental involvement in school. Results showed that the intervention had positive effects on children's self-regulation in kindergarten as measured by teacher and observer reports. Additionally, the intervention significantly reduced ineffective parenting prior to school entry, which in turn affected parental involvement. This finding is significant because it demonstrates that parental involvement in school may be increased by efforts to improve parenting skills in general. Overall, the study demonstrated that school adjustment across kindergarten among children with developmental disabilities and behavioral difficulties can be enhanced through an intervention aimed specifically at improving school readiness skills.

Parents with intellectual disability (ID) comprise a vulnerable population commonly in need of parenting support. Many parents with ID may struggle to engage in sensitive and responsive parent-child interactions due to cognitive, social, and economic challenges. Despite a large body of literature discussing parenting by people with ID, there is a concerning lack of evidence-based training programs targeting parent-child interaction skills in this population. As a growing number of parents with ID are referred for social and protective services, innovation is needed to support this group of parents. Video feedback (VF) interventions, in which parents view themselves engaging in positive, naturally-occurring interactions with their children under the guidance of a therapeutic coach, may fill this need. Here, we review challenges posed to many parents with ID, particularly those related to social information processing. We then describe key characteristics of VF interventions, explain how these characteristics accentuate the strengths and accommodate the challenges of parents with ID, and discuss population-specific adaptations of existing VF programs.

Half a century of research and program evaluation has fueled a diverse landscape of early childhood policies and practices that produce a range of positive effects on the life prospects of children who face the burdens of significant adversity. Drawing on advances in neurobiology, developmental psychology, developmental psychopathology, and prevention science, this paper presents a framework for elucidating underlying causal mechanisms that explain differences in outcomes, formulating enhanced theories of change about how to shift developmental trajectories, designing creative interventions and rethinking the concept of a two-generation strategy to produce breakthrough impacts, and launching a new era of investment in young children and their families that will achieve greater reductions in intergenerational disparities in learning, behavior, and health than those produced by current best practices. Particular attention is focused on the hypothesis that substantially better outcomes for vulnerable, young children could be achieved by greater attention to strengthening the resources and capabilities of the adults who care for them rather than by continuing to focus primarily on the provision of child-focused enrichment, parenting education, and informal support. Central to achieving this goal is the need to establish an innovation-friendly environment that embraces fast-cycle sharing, supports risk taking, and celebrates learning from failure.

Children in foster care have often encountered a range of adverse experiences, including neglectful and/or abusive care and multiple caregiver transitions. Prior research findings suggest that such experiences negatively affect inhibitory control and the underlying neural circuitry. In the current study, event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging was employed during a go/no go task that assesses inhibitory control to compare the behavioral performance and brain activation of foster children and nonmaltreated children. The sample included two groups of 9- to 12-year-old children: 11 maltreated foster children and 11 nonmaltreated children living with their biological parents. There were no significant group differences on behavioral performance on the task. In contrast, patterns of brain activation differed by group. The nonmaltreated children demonstrated stronger activation than did the foster children across several regions, including the right anterior cingulate cortex, the middle frontal gyrus, and the right lingual gyrus, during correct no go trials, whereas the foster children displayed stronger activation than the nonmaltreated children in the left inferior parietal lobule and the right superior occipital cortex, including the lingual gyrus and cuneus, during incorrect no go trials. These results provide preliminary evidence that the early adversity experienced by foster children impacts the neural substrates of inhibitory control.

Parental emotion coaching involves acknowledging and validating children’s feelings, as well as guiding them on how to manage intense or negative feelings. Although parental emotion coaching has been identified as a potentially important factor for children’s emotional development, research into this topic is scant. The present study examined whether maternal emotion coaching can play a mediational role between family risk (i.e. economic disadvantage, family stress, and maltreatment) and emotion regulation in preschoolers. Seventy-four preschoolers, aged 46–58 months, and their maternal caregivers participated in an observational laboratory study, including a narrative task in which mothers and children reminisced about a mildly upsetting event. We coded these conversations for maternal emotion coaching behaviors with the Family Emotional Communication Scoring System. A family risk score was obtained via the Family Events Checklist and demographic data. We measured children’s emotion regulation with the Emotion Regulation Checklist. Increased family risk was associated with both reduced child emotion regulation and reduced maternal emotion coaching. Maternal emotion coaching partially mediated the relation between family risk and child emotion regulation, in particular child emotional lability. The findings support further research into the possibilities of training mothers in high risk families in emotion coaching skills in order to foster their children’s emotional development.

The intergenerational transmission of school adjustment was explored in a sample of 213 children and their fathers. The fathers were participants in a longitudinal study that began when they were in the fourth grade, and their children have been assessed at the ages of 21 months and 3, 5, and 7 years. Two components of school adjustment were measured: academic achievement and peer relations. Results show that the fathers’ academic achievement and peer relations were directly related to the same factors in their offspring even when the fathers’ educational attainment and both the fathers’ and the children’s general cognitive abilities were included in the models. When potential mechanisms of intergenerational transmission were examined, father’s age at the birth of the child, income, and educational expectations for the child were links in the transmission of academic achievement from one generation to the next. For peer relations across generations, income, inconsistent parenting, and educational expectations were links in transmission. Implications of these findings are considered, including the possibility that interventions to improve school adjustment in one generation might have significant and long-reaching effects for the next.

Experiences of adversity in the early years of life alter the developing brain. However, evidence documenting this relationship often focuses on severe stressors and relies on peripheral measures of neurobiological functioning during infancy. In the present study, we employed functional MRI during natural sleep to examine associations between a more moderate environmental stressor (nonphysical interparental conflict) and 6- to 12-month-old infants’ neural processing of emotional tone of voice. The primary question was whether interparental conflict experienced by infants is associated with neural responses to emotional tone of voice, particularly very angry speech. Results indicated that maternal report of higher interparental conflict was associated with infants’ greater neural responses to very angry relative to neutral speech across several brain regions implicated in emotion and stress reactivity and regulation (including rostral anterior cingulate cortex, caudate, thalamus, and hypothalamus). These findings suggest that even moderate environmental stress may be associated with brain functioning during infancy.

This study addressed early calibration of stress systems by testing links between adversity exposures, developmental stability of hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis activity, and behavior problems in a sample of adopted children. Families (n = 200) were assessed when the child was 9, 18, and 27 months, 4.5 and 6 years to collect adversity information—parent psychopathology, stress, financial need, and home chaos. Morning and evening cortisol samples at the final two assessments indexed child HPA activity, and parent-reported internalizing and externalizing at the final assessment represented child behavior outcomes. Increases in cumulative adversity from 4.5 to 6 related to higher child morning cortisol, whereas age six cumulative adversities related to lower, unstable child evening cortisol. Examination of specific adversity dimensions revealed associations between (1) increasing home chaos and stable morning cortisol, which in turn related to internalizing problems; and (2) high parental stress and psychopathology and lower, unstable evening cortisol, which in turn related to externalizing problems. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Dev Psychobiol 56: 340–354, 2014.

Behavioral parent training programs have documented efficacy for improving behaviors among parents and their children and are frequently used by child welfare agencies to prevent removal of a child from the parental home or to facilitate reunification. Although an ideal time for parent training might be during supervised visits where parents may practice skills with their children under the guidance and support of a therapist or caseworker, this is not typically the case. Most often, parents within the child welfare system receive parent training in small groups without their children present, and to date, few studies have examined effects of behavioral parent training interventions during supervised visitation. In this study, concurrent multiple baseline across behaviors design was used to examine effects of a behavioral parent training program, Filming Interactions to Nurture Development (FIND), on parental skill acquisition with four mothers who had lost custody of their children but were being considered for reunification. Children emitted little or no problem behaviors during baseline or intervention, so parenting behavior was the primary dependent variable. Results obtained across participants documented a clear functional relation between implementation of the FIND intervention and increases in developmentally supportive parenting behaviors. Results of social validity and contextual fit measures suggest the intervention was perceived by mothers to be positive, feasible, and appropriate within the child welfare context. Practical and conceptual implications, limitations of this study, and directions for future research are discussed.

Adolescents with prenatal substance (drug and alcohol) exposure exhibit inhibitory control (IC) deficits and aberrations in associated neural function. Nearly all research to date examines exposure to individual substances, and a minimal amount is known about the effects of heterogeneous exposure-which is more representative of population exposure levels. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we investigated IC (Go/NoGo) in heterogeneously exposed (n = 7) vs. control (n = 7) at-risk adolescents (ages 13-17). The fMRI results indicated multiple IC processing differences consistent with a more immature developmental profile for exposed adolescents (Exposed > Nonexposed: NoGo > Go: right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, right cuneus, and left inferior parietal lobe; NoGo > false alarm: occipital lobe; Go > false alarm: right anterior prefrontal cortex). Simple effects suggest exposed adolescents exhibited exaggerated correct trial but decreased incorrect trial activation. Results provide initial evidence that prenatal exposure across substances creates similar patterns of atypical brain activation to IC success and failure.

Rationale Although one quarter of US and UK families rely on grandparents as the main providers of informal childcare, grandparental perspectives on the feeding and physical activity of young children remain understudied. Objective The study's aim was to elucidate parents' and grandparents' perspectives on young children's feeding and physical activity, and identify how they negotiate potential differences between these perspectives. Methods We interviewed 22 parents and 27 grandparents from 16 families of children aged 3–5 years in the Pacific Northwest, US. Using familial homeostasis as a novel theoretical framework, the interviews were analyzed to assess differences between parental and grandparental perspectives on feeding and physical activity. Results The analysis yielded six thematic categories: (1) disagreements about feeding stem from parents' and grandparents' differing definitions of healthy feeding; (2) differences between parents' and grandparents' feeding practices reflect differences in perceived caretaking roles; (3) parents and grandparents negotiate differences in feeding practices through grandparental compliance and parental compromise; (4) differences in preschoolers' physical activity are influenced by parents' and grandparents' own access to and engagement in physical activity; (5) parents and grandparents express few disagreements about preschoolers' screen-time; (6) parents and grandparents rarely discuss preschoolers' physical activity. The findings suggest that parental and grandparental decision-making about feeding and exercise is informed by ideas of what constitutes familial balance and a balanced lifestyle for a preschool aged child, rather than by the child's weight status. Conclusions Parents and grandparents appear to engage in practices designed to preserve familial homeostasis, which may provide a compelling explanation for the persistent difficulties in implementing family-based childhood obesity interventions.

This chapter provides a developmental psychopathology perspective on foster care research. Empirical studies of foster children have existed for over 100 years, documenting risks faced by this population and instances in which foster children display remarkable resilience. Knowledge emanating from the published studies on foster children, especially where it intersects with research on other populations that have experienced early life adversity, has potential to shed light on how healthy development can be negatively affected, but also how it may be preserved, when adverse rearing conditions exist. Investigations in this area have been conducted across numerous disciplines. Following a brief history of foster care in the United States and elsewhere, we review what is known about nine topics that are germane to the study of foster children from a developmental psychopathology perspective and conclude with a discussion of the translational implications of prior research and directions for future research. Keywords: foster care; risk; resilience; review; development

Maltreated foster children have a high prevalence of developmental delays, psychosocial maladjustment, and psychiatric symptoms (Klee, Kronstadt, & Zlotnick, 1997; Landsverk, Garland, & Leslie, 2002). Recent work has focused on understanding effects of maltreatment and caregiver transitions on neurobiological systems involved in the stress response, specifically the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis (Bruce, Fisher, Pears, & Levine, 2009; Dozier et al., 2006). The HPA axis—indexed by cortisol levels—displays a diurnal rhythm, typically characterized by relatively high morning levels that decline to near-zero by bedtime (Kirschbaum et al., 1990). This change across the day is referred to as the diurnal cortisol slope. Previous work indicates that young foster children are more likely than their nonmaltreated peers to evidence a flattened diurnal cortisol slope (or less change across the day), resulting from low morning cortisol levels, which may indicate a poorly regulated system (Dozier et al., 2006; Fisher et al., 2006). However, despite the high prevalence of socioemotional difficulties in this population, only a minority of foster children display low morning cortisol levels (Bruce et al., 2009). Because the HPA axis is also designed to respond to physical and psychological challenges in the environment (Kirschbaum et al., 1990), examining the responsiveness of the system to stressors may provide further insight into potential effects of maltreatment and caregiver transitions. Although research with older children and adults has often employed laboratory stressors to measure immediate changes in cortisol levels, research with normative samples of young children has focused on changes in the diurnal cortisol rhythm in response to naturally occurring stressors, such as the start of school (Bruce, Davis, & Gunnar, 2002; Davis, Donzella, Krueger, & Gunnar, 1999; Quas, Murowchick, Bensadoun, & Boyce, 2002; Turner-Cobb, Rixon, & Jessop, 2008). This work provides evidence for a transient perturbation in the diurnal cortisol rhythm in response to the start of school, characterized by a steeper slope on the 1st day of school compared to weekend days later in the year (Bruce et al., 2002). This steeper slope, which has been viewed as a healthy adaptation to a novel, significant event, resulted from higher morning and lower evening cortisol levels on the 1st day of school. However, individual differences appear to play a large role, such that higher temperamental surgency (Bruce et al., 2002; Davis et al., 1999) and lower effortful control (Turner-Cobb et al., 2008) predict a steeper slope beyond the 1st day of school, potentially indicative of greater reactivity or less recovery of the system. Although Gutteling, de Weerth, and Buitelaar (2008) documented effects of prenatal stress on the diurnal cortisol rhythm across the start of school, the effects of severe early life stress, such as maltreatment and caregiver transitions, remain unknown. Moreover, it is unclear whether comprehensive early preventive intervention programs such as Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care for Preschoolers (MTFC-P; Fisher, Ellis, & Chamberlain, 1999) affect changes in the diurnal cortisol rhythm in response to a naturally occurring stressor. MTFC-P supports foster parents in providing consistent and contingent responses to positive and negative child behaviors. The child’s environment thus becomes more predictable, responsive and reinforcing, which has been shown to prevent the development of an increasingly flattened diurnal cortisol rhythm in foster children (Fisher, Stoolmiller, Gunnar, & Burraston, 2007). However, the impact of MTFC-P on the responsiveness of the HPA axis to important life events, such as the start of school, remains untested. Foster children often experience difficulties in school (Pears, Fisher, Bruce, Kim & Yoerger, 2010), and preventive interventions that influence the capacity of the HPA axis to respond to the challenge of the start of school may support a more adaptive transition. This pilot study examines changes in diurnal cortisol in response to the start of school for three groups of children: foster children who received regular foster care (RFC); foster children who received MTFC-P; and low-income, nonmaltreated children living with their biological parents (community comparison [CC]). We hypothesized that RFC children would show an extended cortisol response, characterized by a steeper slope on the 1st and 5th days compared to the week before school, and that MTFC-P and CC children would show a transient cortisol response, characterized by a steeper slope only on the 1st day of school.

Despite growing concerns about foster placement instability, little information is available regarding the longitudinal patterns of placement histories among foster children. The purpose of the present study was to develop a charting system using child welfare records to facilitate a better understanding of longitudinal patterns of placement history for 117 foster children. The resulting Placement History Chart included all placements that occurred during the observed time period and accounted for various dimensions: number, length, type, and sequence of placements; timing of transitions; and total time in out-of-home care. The Placement History Chart is an effective tool for placing foster care experiences within a broader developmental context. As such, the Placement History Chart can be a valuable research tool for understanding various dimensions and variations of placement transitions among foster children by capturing sequences and cumulative risks over time. Furthermore, this chart can facilitate the development of intervention programs that are developmentally sensitive and effectively address particularly vulnerable subpopulations of foster children.

Poverty and single parent status, which often co-occur, have been shown to relate to lower effortful control, and this may be in part due to disruptions in hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis activity. Both poverty and single parent status may compromise parenting, which in turn may disrupt HPA axis activity and the development of effortful control. We examined whether parenting and HPA axis activity accounted for the effects of poverty and single parent status on the development of effortful control in preschool children (N=78). Effortful control was measured at two time points, 6months apart. Individually, poverty and single parent status were related to blunted HPA axis activity, characterized by low AM and PM cortisol. However, when examined together, the effects were present only for preschoolers whose parents were in poverty. Parental warmth and negativity accounted for the relations between poverty and blunted cortisol. Blunted cortisol was related to lower effortful control at Time 2. These results suggest a pathway through which poverty may impact children’ sd eveloping effortful control through parenting, which in turn may shape HPA axis activity. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Racial/ethnic minorities experience persistent health disparities due in part to their exposure to chronic SES and psychosocial risk. The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and its hormonal end product, cortisol, are believed to mediate the associations between chronic stress and poor health. In this study, racial/ethnic differences in diurnal salivary cortisol rhythms in 179 preadolescent youths and the contributing roles of SES risk, psychosocial risk, perceived discrimination, harsh parenting, and parental monitoring were examined. The analyses revealed racial/ethnic differences in diurnal cortisol rhythms, with African Americans having significantly flatter morning-to-evening cortisol slopes than Caucasians and with Latinos having significantly lower evening cortisol levels than Caucasians. Greater psychosocial risk and less parental monitoring were associated with flatter cortisol slopes. Racial/ethnic differences on the cortisol measures persisted when controlling for SES, psychosocial risk, and parenting quality. The need to assess chronic risk across the lifespan and disentangle possible genetic from environmental contributors is discussed.

This study examined the relation of low income and poverty to cortisol levels, and tested potential pathways from low income to disruptions in cortisol through cumulative family risk and parenting. The sample of 306 mothers and their preschool children included 29 % families at or near poverty, 27 % families below the median income, and the remaining families at middle and upper income. Lower income was related to lower morning cortisol levels, and cumulative risk predicted a flatter diurnal slope, with a significant indirect effect through maternal negativity, suggesting that parenting practices might mediate an allostatic effect on stress physiology.

Cross-cultural differences in temperament were investigated between infants (n = 131, 84 Finns), children (n = 653, 427 Finns), and adults (n = 759, 538 Finns) from the United States of America and Finland. Participants from both cultures completed the Infant Behavior Questionnaire, Childhood Behavior Questionnaire, and the Adult Temperament Questionnaire. Across all ages, Americans received higher ratings on temperamental fearfulness than Finnish individuals, and also demonstrated higher levels of other negative affects at several time points. During infancy and adulthood, Finns tended to score higher on positive affect and elements of temperamental effortful control. Gender differences consistent with prior studies emerged cross-culturally, and were found to be more pronounced in the U.S. during childhood and in Finland during adulthood.

Aggression between partners represents a potential guiding force in family dynamics. However, research examining the influence of partner aggression (physically and psychologically aggressive acts by both partners) on harsh parenting and young child adjustment has been limited by a frequent focus on low-risk samples and by the examination of partner aggression at a single time point. Especially in the context of multiple risk factors and around transitions such as childbirth, partner aggression might be better understood as a dynamic process. In the present study, longitudinal trajectories of partner aggression from birth to age 3 years in a large, high-risk, and ethnically diverse sample (N = 461) were examined. Specific risk factors were tested as predictors of aggression over time, and the longitudinal effects of partner aggression on maternal harsh parenting and child maladjustment were examined. Partner aggression decreased over time, with higher maternal depression and lower maternal age predicting greater decreases in partner aggression. While taking into account contextual and psychosocial risk factors, higher partner aggression measured at birth and a smaller decrease over time independently predicted higher levels of maternal harsh parenting at age 3 years. Initial level of partner aggression and change over time predicted child maladjustment indirectly (via maternal harsh parenting). The implications of understanding change in partner aggression over time as a path to harsh parenting and young children's maladjustment in the context of multiple risk factors are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved). Language: en

Prior researchers have shown that the brain has a remarkable ability for adapting to environmental changes. The positive effects of such neural plasticity include enhanced functioning in specific cognitive domains and shifts in cortical representation following naturally occurring cases of sensory deprivation; however, maladaptive changes in brain function and development owing to early developmental adversity and stress have also been well documented. Researchers examining enriched rearing environments in animals have revealed the potential for inducing positive brain plasticity effects and have helped to popularize methods for training the brain to reverse early brain deficits or to boost normal cognitive functioning. In this article, two classes of empirically based methods of brain training in children are reviewed and critiqued: laboratory-based, mental process training paradigms and ecological interventions based upon neurocognitive conceptual models. Given the susceptibility of executive function disruption, special attention is paid to training programs that emphasize executive function enhancement. In addition, a third approach to brain training, aimed at tapping into compensatory processes, is postulated. Study results showing the effectiveness of this strategy in the field of neurorehabilitation and in terms of naturally occurring compensatory processing in human aging lend credence to the potential of this approach. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).