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This prospective longitudinal study examined how maternal prenatal substance use disorder (SUD) and early mother-infant interaction quality are associated with child social cognition (emotion recognition and mentalization) at school age. A sample of 52 poly-substance-using mothers receiving early interventions and 50 non-users, along with their children, was followed from pregnancy to school age. First-year mother-infant interaction quality was measured with EA scales. At school age, child facial emotion recognition was measured with DANVA and mentalization with LEAS-C. SUD group children did not differ from comparison children in social cognition, but higher severity of maternal prenatal addiction predicted emotion recognition problems. High early mother-infant interaction quality predicted better emotion recognition and mentalization, and mother-infant interaction quality mediated the effect of prenatal SUD on emotion recognition. The results highlight the need for early treatments targeting both parenting and addiction, as well as long-term developmental support for these children.

Research has consistently shown that difficulties in facial emotion recognition (FER) are associated with peer problems and internalizing symptoms during middle childhood. However, no longitudinal research has investigated the direction of effects, that is, how these constructs influence each other across time. In this preregistered three-wave panel study, we tested the directional effects between FER, peer problems, and internalizing symptoms among Finnish school-aged children (n = 3,607; M age = 8.20, SD age = 0.86; 51% female). The results of random-intercept cross-lagged panel models showed that a low FER accuracy and high biases toward happiness and sadness correlated with higher levels of peer problems and internalizing symptoms at the between-person level. However, we found no evidence of directional effects at the within-person level. Overall, our findings suggest that these constructs might be associated because of shared underlying causes, rather than mutually influencing one another in middle childhood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has revealed a rise in family relationship problems during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially among couples with young children. However, longitudinal studies spanning the prepandemic and pandemic periods are rare. In this study, we examined changes in couple functioning during these periods. Moreover, we investigated the mediation and moderation effects of couple functioning on the association between COVID-19 stressors and harsh parenting. A total of 545 mothers (mean age 38 years, range 23–48 years) completed questionnaires on couple functioning during the prepandemic (2016–2020) and early pandemic (May–June 2020) periods. During the early pandemic, they also reported exposure to COVID-19 stressors and engaging in harsh parenting (e.g., conflicts and maltreatment). We found no overall deterioration in couple functioning during the early pandemic. Furthermore, COVID-19 stressors did not explain variance in couple functioning changes or correlate with harsh parenting. However, as hypothesized, couple functioning moderated the effect of COVID-19 stressors on harsh parenting. Only for couples with low prepandemic functioning was exposure to COVID-19 stressors associated with harsh parenting. In conclusion, our findings provided no evidence of COVID-19's detrimental effects on couples during the early pandemic. Instead, well-functioning couple relationships appear to mitigate the impact of pandemic stressors on parenting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A father's mental health is important for family well-being, but research is scarce on paternal symptoms during the transition to fatherhood. This study identified fathers' latent mental health trajectory classes from the pre- to postnatal period and examined their associations with early fathering experiences. It further analysed, whether a family's infertility history was associated with mental health trajectory classes and moderated their effects on fathering experiences. Finnish fathers (N = 773) reported psychological distress (General Health Questionnaire; GHQ-36) and depressive symptoms (Beck Depression Inventory; BDI-13) in pregnancy (T1), and at 2 months (T2) and 12 months (T3) postpartum. They further reported their fathering experience (Parenting Stress Index; PSI-36) at T2 and T3. Results revealed five paternal mental health trajectory classes, differing in timing and course of symptoms across the pre- and postpartum: stable low (79%) and moderate increasing (9%) levels of symptoms, and prenatal (5%), early fatherhood (3%) and heterogeneous high levels of (4%) problems. The trajectory classes were associated with fathering experiences within parental, interactive and child domains, across the child's first year. The stable low levels of symptoms-class showed the most positive experiences and the heterogeneous high levels of problems-class the most negative ones; mental health problems in the early fatherhood-class reported negative fathering experience, but only when the child was 2 months old. A family's infertility history neither showed any significant association with trajectory classes nor moderated their impact on early fathering, supporting the growing evidence that infertility treatments do not place an additional burden on early fatherhood.

The family environment shapes children's social information processing and emotion regulation. Yet, the long-term effects of early family systems have rarely been studied. This study investigated how family system types predict children's attentional biases toward facial expressions at the age of 10 years. The participants were 79 children from Cohesive, Disengaged, Enmeshed, and Authoritarian family types based on marital and parental relationship trajectories from pregnancy to the age of 12 months. A dot-probe task was used to assess children's emotional attention biases toward threatening (angry) and affiliative (happy) faces at the early (500 ms) and late (1250 ms) stages of processing. Situational priming was applied to activate children's sense of danger or safety. Results showed that children from Cohesive families had an early-stage attentional bias toward threat, whereas children from Enmeshed families had a late-stage bias toward threat. Children from Disengaged families had an early-stage attentional bias toward threat, but showed in addition a late-stage bias away from emotional faces (i.e., both angry and happy). Children from Authoritarian families, in turn, showed a late-stage attentional bias toward emotional faces. Situational priming did not moderate the effects of family system types on children's attentional biases. The findings confirm the influence of early family systems on the attentional biases, suggesting differences in the emotion regulation strategies children have developed to adapt to their family environments.

To better understand the role of neuroendocrinological regulation in adolescent mental health, stress reactivity needs to be analyzed through both the autonomic nervous system (ANS) and the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis. Accordingly, this study examined how adolescents' internalizing and externalizing mental health symptoms are associated with their salivary alpha-amylase and cortisol levels, responses, and coordination (symmetry versus asymmetry). We utilized a developmentally salient stress task of mother–adolescent conflict discussion. Eighty 18–20-year-old late adolescents (55% girls) participated in a home laboratory assessment involving a 10-min conflict discussion with their mothers. Five adolescent saliva samples were collected to measure alpha-amylase and cortisol levels before, immediately after, and in 10-min intervals following the conflict discussion, to indicate stress reactivity. Adolescents had reported their internalizing (depression, anxiety, somatization) and externalizing (inattention, hyperactivity, anger control problems) symptoms 1 year earlier as part of a prospective family study. Internalizing symptoms were associated with adolescents' high baseline cortisol levels, but not with cortisol responses or alpha-amylase levels or responses. In contrast, externalizing symptoms were associated with blunted alpha-amylase responses. Neither internalizing nor externalizing symptoms were associated with asymmetry between alpha-amylase and cortisol reactivity. The mother–adolescent conflict discussion was relevant as a stress stimulus to induce neuroendocrinological stress responses in adolescents. The nature of mental health problems was important for stress reactivity, yet, we found no evidence about mental health problems being related to endocrinological asymmetry in adolescents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To identify within‐family groups according to sleep schedule, problems, and impact, reflecting similarities or differences in adolescents, mothers, and fathers and to examine how mental health and attachments associate with these triadic sleep groups. Background: Family relationships shape sleeping, but within‐family research in adolescence is scarce. Method: Adolescents (17–18 years; 60% girls; n = 438), mothers (n = 448), and fathers (n = 358) filled in the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index. The adolescents reported mental health problems by the Behavior Assessment System and the parents by the General Health Questionnaire. All reported attachments by the Experiences in Close Relationships. Results: Cluster analysis identified four triadic sleep groups: "Good family sleep" (47%), "Poor adolescent and maternal sleep" (29%), "Poor paternal sleep" (16%), and "Poor family sleep" (8%). Adolescents in the "Poor family sleep" group had more mental health problems than they did in other groups, and fathers in the "Poor paternal sleep" group showed higher psychiatric symptoms than in the "Good family sleep" or "Poor adolescent and maternal sleep" groups. Adolescents in the "Poor family sleep" group reported higher insecure–anxious attachments than they did in other groups, and fathers reported higher insecure–avoidant and insecure–anxious attachments in the "Poor paternal sleep" than they did in other groups. Conclusion: A family systems approach provides new insight into sleep, mental health, and attachments. Implications: Interventions to improve sleep quality should consider family dynamics that may underlie potential sleep problems, and sleep as a public health issue can benefit from knowledge about family mental health and attachments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pregnancy and early motherhood involve uncertainty and change, which can evoke mental health problems. We identified maternal mental health trajectories in pre- and postnatal period, and examined their association with later child mental health and development. Finnish mothers reported psychological distress (General Health Questionnaire [GHQ-36]) and depressive (Beck Depression Inventory [BDI-13]) symptoms in pregnancy (T1; N = 788) and two months (T2; N = 657) and 12 months (T3; N = 545) postpartum. Both parents accounted their child's mental health (Behavior Assessment System for Children [BASC]) and social (Social Skills Rating System [SSRS], Child Behavior Scale [CBS]) and cognitive development (Five to Fifteen [FTF]) when the child was 7-8 years old (T4; N = 485). We identified five trajectories depicting unique timing and course of maternal mental health from pregnancy into 1 year of mothering: Stable low levels of mental health symptoms (75%) and prenatal (6%), early postpartum (9%) and late postpartum (6%) mental health problems. The fifth trajectory, heterogeneous high levels of mental health problems (4%) was an unclassified post hoc class, combining mothers with chronic high or highly variable mental health profiles. Results show some trajectory-related timing effects on children's mental health and cognitive development. The trajectories of early postpartum and heterogeneous high levels of mental health problems predicted higher level of internalizing symptoms as compared to stable low-levels trajectory. The heterogeneous high-levels trajectory predicted higher levels of problems in executive functions than the stable low and late postpartum trajectories, and in memory tasks than children in other trajectories. We discuss the timing and course of maternal mental health from the viewpoint of infant and child development. (Contains 4 tables and 3 figures.)

Introduction: Difficulties in emotional awareness (EA) are often linked to the risk of internalizing problems (IP). Most empirical studies have found this association but have not considered possible state- and trait-related fluctuations in EA and IP assessments. Aims: We tested the directionality of the state-level associations, that is, whether EA at Time 1 predicts IP at Time 2 or the other way around. In line with previous research, we hypothesized that low EA would predict a subsequent increase in IP, as difficulties in emotional awareness dispose one to emotional problems. As an alternative model, we tested the trait-level associations between EA and IP. We hypothesized that a negative latent correlation exists between EA and IP, as common factors may cause them to be associated at the trait level. Methods: Participants were 68 students who completed the Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale and the Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire at two-time points with a one-month interval. We used the Cross-lagged Panel Model to test the state-level associations and structural equation modeling to test trait-level effects. Results: Results displayed no directional effect of EA on IP, and neither did IP predict EA within one month. However, we found a trait-level correlation between EA and IP. We discuss the preliminary results between state and trait level EA and IP in the context of the early developmental environment. Conclusions: This study is a preliminary test of state- and trait-level associations between EA and IP, which could be valuable for practitioners and clinicians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Facial emotion recognition (FER) is a fundamental element in human interaction. It begins to develop soon after birth and is important in achieving developmental tasks of middle childhood, such as developing mutual friendships and acquiring social rules of peer groups. Despite its importance, FER research during middle childhood continues to be rather limited. Moreover, research is ambiguous on how the quality of one's early social‐emotional environment shapes FER development, and longitudinal studies spanning from infancy to later development are scarce. In this study, we examine how the cohesive, authoritarian, disengaged and enmeshed family system types, assessed during pregnancy and infancy, predict children's FER accuracy and interpretative biases towards happiness, fear, anger and sadness at the age of 10 years (N = 79). The results demonstrated that children from disengaged families (i.e., highly distressed relationships) show superior FER accuracy to those from cohesive families (i.e., harmonious and stable relationships). Regarding interpretative biases, children from cohesive families showed a greater fear bias compared to children from disengaged families. Our findings suggest that even in a relatively low‐risk population, variation in the quality of children's early family relationships may shape children's subsequent FER development, perhaps as an evolution‐based adaptation to their social‐emotional environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]