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Flexible social attention, including visually attending to social interaction partners, coupled with positive affect may facilitate adaptive social functioning. However, most research assessing social attention relies on static computer-based paradigms, overlooking the dynamics of social interactions and limiting understanding of individual differences in the deployment of naturalistic attention. The current study used mobile eye-tracking to examine relations between social attention, expressed affect, and behavioral inhibition during naturalistic play in young children. Children (N = 28, M[subscript age] = 6.12, 46.4% girls, 92.9% White) participated in a 5-min free play with a novel age- and sex-matched peer while mobile eye-tracking data were collected. Interactions were coded for social attention and expressed affect and modeled second-by-second, generating 4,399 observations. Children spent more time dwelling on toys than on peers or anywhere else in the room. Further analyses demonstrated children were almost twice as likely to gaze at their peer when simultaneously self-expressing positive affect. Additionally, children were more than twice as likely and more than three times as likely to self-express positive affect when dwelling on peer or in the presence of peer-expressed positive affect, respectively. Behavioral inhibition was not significantly related to social attention. However, children higher in behavioral inhibition were less likely to self-express positive affect in the presence of peer-expressed positive affect. The current results provide a snapshot of relations between social attention, expressed affect and individual differences during play and provide guidance for future work assessing the roles of social attention and positive affect in facilitating positive social interactions.

Objective: Understanding how positive parenting is conveyed across generations informs early childhood policy. Background: The extant literature has focused on how a mother's relationship with her own mother sets the stage for her parenting of her own children, yet less understood is how a mother's relationship with her father supports her responsive parenting and potentially informs her child's attachment security. Method: We analyzed data from 6,400 mothers of singleton infants participating in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Birth Cohort. We examined whether a mother's closeness with her own mother and father (Generation 1) related to her responsiveness and child attachment security (Generation 3) at age 24 months. Results: Most mothers reported being extremely (25.7%) or at least quite close (25.1%) with both their mother and father. How close mothers felt to their own parents was not associated with their observed level of responsiveness to their toddler or their toddler's attachment security, adjusting for sociodemographic covariates. Maternal education was the strongest predictor of responsiveness and attachment security. Conclusion: Maternal education is strongly related to responsiveness, and to a lesser extent, child attachment security, in toddlerhood. Implications.: Programs aimed at addressing the challenges of caregiving may overcome the limitations of lower education status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined how timing (i.e., relative maturity) and rate (i.e., how quickly infants attain proficiency) of A-not-B performance were related to changes in brain activity from age 6 to 12 months. A-not-B performance and resting EEG (electroencephalography) were measured monthly from age 6 to 12 months in 28 infants and were modeled using logistic and linear growth curve models. Infants with faster performance rates reached performance milestones earlier. Infants with faster rates of increase in A-not-B performance had lower occipital power at 6 months and greater linear increases in occipital power. The results underscore the importance of considering nonlinear change processes for studying infants' cognitive development as well as how these changes are related to trajectories of EEG power.

Objective: We provide proof-of-principle for a mental health risk calculator advancing clinical utility of the irritability construct for identification of young children at high risk for common, early onsetting syndromes. Method: Data were harmonized from two longitudinal early childhood subsamples (total N = 403; 50.1% Male; 66.7% Nonwhite; Mage = 4.3 years). The independent subsamples were clinically enriched via disruptive behavior and violence (Subsample 1) and depression (Subsample 2). In longitudinal models, epidemiologic risk prediction methods for risk calculators were applied to test the utility of the transdiagnostic indicator, early childhood irritability, in the context of other developmental and social-ecological indicators to predict risk of internalizing/externalizing disorders at preadolescence (Mage = 9.9 years). Predictors were retained when they improved model discrimination (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve [AUC] and integrated discrimination index [IDI]) beyond the base demographic model. Results: Compared to the base model, the addition of early childhood irritability and adverse childhood experiences significantly improved the AUC (0.765) and IDI slope (0.192). Overall, 23% of preschoolers went on to develop a preadolescent internalizing/externalizing disorder. For preschoolers with both elevated irritability and adverse childhood experiences, the likelihood of an internalizing/externalizing disorder was 39–66%. Conclusions: Predictive analytic tools enable personalized prediction of psychopathological risk for irritable young children, holding transformative potential for clinical translation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Irritability refers to the dispositional tendency to respond with anger and frustration to environmental challenges or limits, with both mood and behavioral elements. The dimensional spectrum of irritability is an RDoC‐informed transdiagnostic marker of psychopathology risk, specifically for the common and modifiable internalizing and externalizing disorders. Despite substantial interest in this robust developmentally based transdiagnostic indicator of psychopathology risk, its early brain markers are understudied. Here, we leveraged high‐quality, longitudinal behavioral phenotyping of irritability within an imaging substudy (n = 31) of toddlers, from the When to Worry (W2W) study. We examined prospective associations between volume in three subcortical regions implicated in irritability (the caudate, putamen, and amygdala) around the infants' first birthday (Baseline) and the dimensional spectrum of observed irritability using the Disruptive Behavior Diagnostic Observation Schedule (DB‐DOS) around toddlers' second birthday (Follow‐up). Both left (q =.04, FDR corrected) and right caudate volumes (q =.04, FDR corrected) at Baseline were negatively associated with observed irritability at Follow‐up. We did not find support for associations between putamen and amygdala volumes at Baseline and observed irritability at Follow‐up. These findings identify early prospective neuroanatomical correlates of toddler irritability and provide preliminary support for the caudate being one important brain region for further investigation regarding the early neural correlates of irritability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Preschool psychiatric symptoms significantly increase the risk for long-term negative outcomes. Transdiagnostic hierarchical approaches that capture general ('p') and specific psychopathology dimensions are promising for understanding risk and predicting outcomes, but their predictive utility in young children is not well established. We delineated a hierarchical structure of preschool psychopathology dimensions and tested their ability to predict psychiatric disorders and functional impairment in preadolescence. Methods: Data for 1253 preschool children (mean age = 4.17, s.d. = 0.81) were drawn from three longitudinal studies using a similar methodology (one community sample, two psychopathology-enriched samples) and followed up into preadolescence, yielding a large and diverse sample. Exploratory factor models derived a hierarchical structure of general and specific factors using symptoms from the Preschool Age Psychiatric Assessment interview. Longitudinal analyses examined the prospective associations of preschool p and specific factors with preadolescent psychiatric disorders and functional impairment. Results: A hierarchical dimensional structure with a p factor at the top and up to six specific factors (distress, fear, separation anxiety, social anxiety, inattention-hyperactivity, oppositionality) emerged at preschool age. The p factor predicted all preadolescent disorders (Δ R 2 = 0.04–0.15) and functional impairment (Δ R 2 = 0.01–0.07) to a significantly greater extent than preschool psychiatric diagnoses and functioning. Specific dimensions provided additional predictive power for the majority of preadolescent outcomes (disorders: Δ R 2 = 0.06–0.15; functional impairment: Δ R 2 = 0.05–0.12). Conclusions: Both general and specific dimensions of preschool psychopathology are useful for predicting clinical and functional outcomes almost a decade later. These findings highlight the value of transdiagnostic dimensions for predicting prognosis and as potential targets for early intervention and prevention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The association between prenatal stress and children's socioemotional development is well established. The COVID‐19 pandemic has been a particularly stressful period, which may impact the gestational environment. However, most studies to‐date have examined prenatal stress at a single time point, potentially masking the natural variation in stress that occurs over time, especially during a time as uncertain as the pandemic. This study leveraged dense ecological momentary assessments from a prenatal randomized control trial to examine patterns of prenatal stress over a 14‐week period (up to four assessments/day) in a U.S. sample of 72 mothers and infants. We first examined whether varied features of stress exposure (lability, mean, and baseline stress) differed depending on whether mothers reported on their stress before or during the pandemic. We next examined which features of stress were associated with 3‐month‐old infants' negative affect. We did not find differences in stress patterns before and during the pandemic. However, greater stress lability, accounting for baseline and mean stress, was associated with higher infant negative affect. These findings suggest that pathways from prenatal stress exposure to infant socioemotional development are complex, and close attention to stress patterns over time will be important for explicating these pathways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Temperamental behavioral inhibition (BI) is a robust endophenotype for anxiety characterized by increased sensitivity to novelty. Controlling parenting can reinforce children's wariness by rewarding signs of distress. Fine-grained, dynamic measures are needed to better understand both how children perceive their parent's behaviors and the mechanisms supporting evident relations between parenting and socioemotional functioning. The current study examined dyadic attractor patterns (average mean durations) with state space grids, using children's attention patterns (captured via mobile eye tracking) and parental behavior (positive reinforcement, teaching, directives, intrusion), as functions of child BI and parent anxiety. Forty 5- to 7-year-old children and their primary caregivers completed a set of challenging puzzles, during which the child wore a head-mounted eye tracker. Child BI was positively correlated with proportion of parent's time spent teaching. Child age was negatively related, and parent anxiety level was positively related, to parent-focused/controlling parenting attractor strength. There was a significant interaction between parent anxiety level and child age predicting parent-focused/controlling parenting attractor strength. This study is a first step to examining the co-occurrence of parenting behavior and child attention in the context of child BI and parental anxiety levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This study examined within‐ and between‐person associations among interparental conflict (IPC), threat appraisals, temperament, and anxiety to evaluate how these risk processes unfold at the daily level in adolescence. Background: Adolescence is a developmental period of increased risk for anxiety, and exposure to IPC in the home elevates this risk. Specifically, adolescents who perceive IPC as threatening are at particularly high risk for anxiety, yet less is known about how characteristics of the adolescent (temperamental effortful control and dispositional levels of anxiety), as well as characteristics of the family (usual IPC), may temper this risk pathway. Method: The sample included 151 adolescents and their caregivers who completed baseline surveys and 21 daily surveys. Longitudinal mixed models were used to test within‐ and between‐person associations between IPC and threat appraisals, and threat appraisals and anxious mood, including moderators of effortful control, dispositional anxiety, and usual IPC. Results: On days when IPC was higher than usual adolescents perceived more threat, and on days when adolescents perceived more threat they had higher levels of anxious mood. Within‐person links between IPC and threat appraisals were moderated by usual IPC and adolescent dispositional anxiety levels. The within‐person link between situational threat and anxious mood was moderated by dispositional anxiety levels. Conclusion: The results underscore the importance of considering individual differences in within‐person effects of IPC and threat appraisals on adolescent daily anxiety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]