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This longitudinal investigation evaluated parental cultural socialization practices as a central mechanism by which parents' cultural values influence developmental outcomes in ethnic–racial minority children. Drawing on a sample of 129 Latina mothers and their children (48.1% daughters and 51.9% sons), path analyses evaluated hypothesized individual and interactive contributions of mothers' Latina heritage and American mainstream cultural orientations to changes in children's self‐esteem via overt and covert cultural socialization practices. Mothers reported on their cultural orientation and socialization practices when their children were ages 5 and 8, respectively. Children reported their self‐esteem at ages 8 and 10. Controlling for family socioeconomic status, mothers' nativity status, and prior child self‐esteem, path analyses revealed a significant indirect effect from mothers' heritage orientation to increased child self‐esteem via overt cultural socialization practices. Interestingly, a multigroup analysis by gender showed that mothers' heritage orientation was positively related to overt and covert cultural socialization practices toward both daughters and sons, but the indirect paths to child self‐esteem through cultural socialization did not attain significance for daughters. Moreover, among sons, the indirect path through overt cultural socialization predicted increased self‐esteem, whereas the indirect path through covert cultural socialization predicted decreased self‐esteem. These findings show that cultural socialization is a salient process by which parental cultural orientation influences children's self‐esteem while highlighting the specificity of these effects across overt and covert expressions of cultural socialization and child gender. Efforts to promote positive self‐esteem among Latinx children should encourage parental cultural socialization practices, such as teaching, reading, and/or performing activities that celebrate the Latinx culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite abundant research documenting negative associations between parental psychological control and youth adjustment, little is known about precursors of parental psychological control. The current study evaluated maternal, youth, and neighborhood predictors of changes in maternal psychological control across the transition to adolescence. Mother-youth dyads (N = 211, 50.2% female children; 46.4% Latinx, 17.5% Black, 11.4% white, and 24.7% multiracial) reported on maternal psychological control at youth ages 10 and 12. Controlling for youth ethnicity and race, family income-to-needs, and prior levels of maternal psychological control at age 10, structural equation models showed that maternal problems (i.e., anxiety, alcohol dependence, caregiving helplessness) predicted increases and youth externalizing problems (e.g., attention problems, rule-breaking) predicted decreases in maternal reports of psychological control. Neighborhood risks (i.e., poverty, crime, single-parent households) predicted increases in youth reports of maternal psychological control. Exploratory analyses by gender indicated that neighborhood risks predicted decreases in maternal reports of psychological control for girls, but increases in maternal reports of psychological control for boys. This study identified specific antecedents of maternal psychological control that can be targeted in future intervention efforts to reduce negative parenting to promote positive youth development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study assessed maternal caregiving quality and children's prosocial behavior as related to changes in child self‐esteem from early childhood across the transition into formal schooling. Although a robust literature indicates that sensitive caregiving promotes self‐esteem, less is known about the potential contribution of children's positive social behavior to enhanced self‐esteem. This study drew on a diverse sample of young children (N = 250; Mage = 4.085, SD =.249; 50% female, 50% male; 46% Latinx) to evaluate prospective relations between an observational assessment of sensitive maternal caregiving at the age of 4 and child reports of self‐esteem at the age of 8 as mediated by teacher‐reports of children's prosocial behavior at the age of 6. Analyses revealed a significant indirect pathway whereby sensitive maternal caregiving promoted children's self‐esteem via children's prosocial behavior. These findings highlight both sensitive caregiving and children's prosocial behavior as promising points of intervention to bolster children's self‐esteem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This study examined early childhood paternal incarceration (PI; birth to Age 6) effects on children's elementary reading achievement (i.e., Ages 8–10) as mediated by mothers' supportive caregiving and moderated by child gender. Background: Extant research on PI has primarily focused on child behavioral problems. However, less is known about specific relations between PI and academic achievement. Method: Participants were drawn from an ongoing, longitudinal study of development using a subsample of 180 children and their maternal caregivers (51.5% female children; 48.9% Latinx; 26.7% experienced PI). Study variables were assessed using semi‐structured incarceration interviews, observational parenting tasks, and standardized achievement tests. A moderated mediation analysis evaluated the hypothesized model by child gender. Results: PI predicted decreased maternal supportive caregiving, which, in turn, predicted lower reading achievement, even when family socioeconomic status, child ethnicity‐race, prior supportive caregiving, prior reading achievement, and maternal psychopathology were held constant. Further, a moderation analysis indicated that the relation between maternal supportive caregiving and reading achievement was moderated by child gender. Conclusion: This investigation revealed a significant and negative indirect effect of early childhood PI on children's reading achievement via changes in maternal supportive caregiving. However, this indirect effect was significant for boys only. Implications: These findings highlight the potential for interventions and resources that promote supportive maternal caregiving to mitigate the deleterious effects of PI on children's reading achievement, especially for boys. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prosocial and health protective behaviors are critical to contain the COVID‐19 pandemic, yet adolescents have been difficult to engage. Attachment security promotes adolescents' capacities to navigate stress, and influences prosocial and health behaviors. Drawing on a diverse sample of 202 adolescents (48% female; 47.5% Latinx) this study evaluated relations among attachment, mental health, and prosocial and health protective responses to the COVID‐19 pandemic. Attachment security (age 12) predicted adolescents' (age 15) COVID‐19 prosocial (f2 =.201) and health protective behaviors (f2 =.274) during the pandemic via smaller‐than‐expected increases in mental health symptoms above pre‐pandemic levels (age 14). Findings highlight the importance of attachment for supporting adolescents' mental health responses to life stressors and promoting prosocial and health protective behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This investigation examined cross‐lagged relations between expressive control (i.e., management of expressed affect) and inhibitory control (i.e., management of behavior) to elucidate the development of self‐regulation across affective and behavioral domains. Regulation was assessed longitudinally at ages four, six, and eight using both observational laboratory tasks and teacher reports in a diverse sample of 250 children. Both observational and teacher‐reported models produced parallel results, with consistent prospective relations between expressive control and inhibitory control. In both models, better expressive control of affect at age four predicted better inhibitory control of behavior at six whereas better inhibitory control at age six predicted better expressive control at age eight. Cross‐domain longitudinal relations controlled for the stability of prior within‐domain regulation and concurrent cross‐domain relations. The replication of these findings across laboratory and school settings provides particularly robust evidence for these effects. This study demonstrated that clarifying developmental dynamics across domains of self‐regulation may be essential to understanding the full regulatory system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ed Zigler was a champion for underprivileged youth, one who worked alongside communities to fight for long-lasting systemic changes that were informed by his lifespan and ecological perspective on the development of the whole child. This paper reports on the development, implementation, and preliminary outcomes of an intervention that embodied the Zigler approach by adopting a community participatory research lens to integrate complementary insights across community-based providers (promotoras), Latinx immigrant families, and developmental psychologists in the service of promoting parent–child relationship quality and preventing youth aggression and violence. Analyses from the first 112 Latinx mother–youth dyad participants (46% female children, ages 8–17) in the resultant, Confía en mí, Confío en ti, eight-week intervention revealed significant pre–post increases in purported mechanisms of change (i.e., attachment security, reflective functioning) and early intervention outcomes (i.e., depressive, anxiety, and externalizing problems). Treatment responses varied by youth age. A case analysis illustrated the lived experiences of the women and children served by this intervention. We discuss future directions for the program, as well as challenges to its sustainability. Finally, we consider Ed's legacy as we discuss the contributions of this work to developmental science and our understanding of attachment relationships among low-income immigrant Latinx families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Acne is a hallmark of adolescence, affecting 85% of youth between the ages of 12 and 25 worldwide. Perhaps because of its ubiquity and minimal impact on physical functioning, acne is often dismissed as a time‐delimited cosmetic nuisance and has been summarily neglected by developmental scientists. However, emerging evidence suggests that acne is associated with clinically significant psychological adjustment problems, including depression and anxiety. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach that bridges developmental and dermatological science, we reposition acne as a prominent source of psychological maladjustment and health disparities in adolescence. Specifically, we propose that females and youth with darker skin may be disproportionately affected by the pernicious psychological effects of acne. Reconceptualizing adolescent acne as a developmentally and psychologically meaningful dermatologic disease with effects shaped by culture and health care disparities will advance our understanding of youth's mental health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children's self‐regulation is a core adaptive system in child development. Physiological indices of regulation, particularly the autonomic nervous system (ANS), have garnered increased attention as an informative level of analysis in regulation research. Cardiography supports the simultaneous examination of both ANS branches via measures of pre‐ejection period (PEP) and respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) as indicators of sympathetic and parasympathetic activity, respectively. However, despite their heavily intertwined functions, research examining autonomic coordination across sympathetic and parasympathetic systems is scarce. Moreover, extant efforts have favored static, mean level reactivity analyses, despite the dynamic nature of ANS regulation and the availability of analytic tools that can model these processes across time. This study drew on a sample of 198 six‐year‐old children from a diverse community sample (49.5% female, 43.9% Latinx) to examine dynamic autonomic coordination using bivariate latent change score modeling to evaluate bidirectional influences of sympathetic and parasympathetic activity over the course of a challenging puzzle completion task. Results indicated that children evidenced reciprocal sympathetic activation (i.e., PEP attenuation and RSA withdrawal) across the challenge task, and these regulatory responses were characterized by a temporally leading influence of PEP on lagging changes in RSA. The current findings contribute to our understanding of children's autonomic coordination while illustrating a novel analytic technique to advance ongoing efforts to understand the etiology and developmental significance of children's physiological self‐regulation. The current study explores dynamics underlying coordination between sympathetic and parasympathetic systems to better understand the process of autonomic regulation. Our findings build upon existing studies of coordination to show that, at least in the current context, regulatory responses were characterized by leading influence of PEP on lagging changes in RSA from epoch to epoch. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children's ability to engage in pretend play is important for healthy development. However, relative to cognitive play features, only a handful of studies have examined the influence of affect expression in pretend play on child development. This study evaluated prospective relations of 250 preschoolers' (Mage = 49.05 months, SD = 2.95; 50% female; 46% Latinx) expressions of prosocial and aggressive affect themes in solitary pretend play with their prosocial and aggressive behaviors in laboratory and school settings two years later. Prosocial and aggressive affect themes in preschoolers' pretend play evidenced specific and positive relations with prosocial and aggressive behaviors in the laboratory two years later, but not with teacher‐reported behaviors in school. Multigroup analyses indicated these relations did not vary as a function of child gender, ethnicity‐race, or poverty status. This study illustrates the complexity and behavioral significance of children's affect expression in pretend play. Implications for understanding children's play and social development include the need to consider affective (in addition to cognitive) play features, including specific affect themes in pretend play, as a potential window into children's behavioral strengths and vulnerabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study evaluated hypothesized relations of (in)congruent parent–child perceptions of parental warmth and hostility at age 7 with changes in child and parent reports of children's depressive symptoms and rule-breaking behaviors from ages 7 to 10. Dyads consisted of 193 parents (93.3% biological mothers) and children (49.2% female; 46.1% Latinx) drawn from a longitudinal study of child development. Child and parent reports of parental warmth and hostility were collected using parallel measures at age 7. Child and parent reports of child depressive symptoms and rule-breaking behaviors were collected at ages 7 and 10. After controlling for children's prior symptomatology and individual informant effects, polynomial regression analyses revealed a significant relation between (in)congruent perceptions of parental warmth and child-reported depressive symptoms. Specifically, congruent perceptions of high parental warmth at age 7 predicted decreased levels of child-reported depressive symptoms from ages 7 to 10, whereas congruent perceptions of low parental warmth predicted increased levels of child-reported depressive symptoms, especially among daughters. (In)congruent perceptions of parental hostility were related to child-reported rule-breaking behaviors. Specifically, congruent perceptions of high parental hostility predicted increased rates of child-reported rule-breaking behaviors, whereas incongruent perceptions of high parent-reported and low child-reported parental hostility predicted decreased rates of child-reported rule-breaking behaviors, especially among sons. This study documented the adaptive significance of parent–child (in)congruence in perceptions of parenting across middle childhood and revealed the potential specificity of relations by domain of adaptation and/or gender, thereby suggesting important implications for risk identification and treatment. Highlights: Polynomial regressions examined parent–child (in)congruence in perceived parenting. (In)congruence of warmth predicted child depressive symptoms, especially for girls. (In)congruence of hostility predicted child rule-breaking, especially for boys. (In)congruence effects varied by parenting domain, adaptative outcome, and gender. Parent–child (in)congruence can inform risk identification and treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on five waves of longitudinal data from 392 families (52% female; mean age of wave 1 [ M age_W1] = 12.89, standard deviation [ SD ] =.48; M age_W5 = 21.95, SD =.77; 199 European American and 193 Mexican American families; 217 intact and 175 stepfather families), this study documented transactional relations of mothers' and fathers' depressive symptoms with youth's symptomatology from early adolescence to young adulthood. Trait and time-varying cross-lagged models revealed that both mothers' and fathers' between- and within-person differences in depressive symptoms were associated with youth's internalizing and externalizing symptoms. Whereas each parent's depressive symptoms uniquely contributed to youth's internalizing symptoms, however, only mothers' depressive symptoms influenced youth's externalizing symptoms. Although reciprocal effects of youth's internalizing symptoms on parents' depressive symptoms were not significant, youth's externalizing symptoms predicted changes in mothers' depressive symptoms over time. Moderation analyses revealed distinct transactional patterns by family ethnicity and child gender, but not by family structure. This study revealed dynamic transactions among family members' symptomatology that point to opportune times and targets for intervention efforts aimed at mitigating the negative impact of parents' depressive symptoms on youth's adjustment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Longitudinal measurement invariance is a major concern for developmental scholars who seek to evaluate the same underlying construct across time. Unfortunately, discontinuities in the expression of various psychological constructs, as well as essential changes in measurement that are necessitated by shifting developmental capacities and practice effects over time, make the task of establishing longitudinal invariance extremely difficult. Drawing on 5 waves of longitudinal data from 392 families (52% female; Mage_W1 = 12.89, SD =.48; Mage_W5 = 21.95, SD =.77; 199 European American and 193 Mexican American families), the current investigation sought to establish measurement invariance across developmentally appropriate changes in measures of depressive symptomatology from early adolescence through early adulthood. Using a combination of item parceling and the common and unique items from 2 assessment instruments for depressive symptoms, the data supported strong factorial invariance in youth's depressive symptoms across 5 waves of measurement. Findings suggest that traditional invariance approaches can be adapted to determine whether the same construct underlies different measurement instruments across time. This analytic strategy can allow researchers and clinicians to use more sophisticated techniques to understand changes in symptomatology regardless of changes in measurement or developmental capacity. Applying this approach to model patterns of depressive symptomatology from early adolescence to early adulthood has important clinical implications for elucidating periods when youth experience elevations in depressive symptoms and heightened needs for intervention services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined communication between 51 transition-aged foster youth and their social workers as related to perceived relationship quality and satisfaction with care receipt/provision. Youth–worker dyads were audio-recorded during a requisite monthly meeting and completed assessments of perceived relationship quality and satisfaction with social services. Communication was rated in a 5-minute excerpt across full audio-recorded speech, verbal transcribed content, and nonverbal content-filtered tone. Findings: Ratings of workers' communication in transcribed content most closely reflected workers' reported perceptions of their relationship with the youth. In turn, youth's perceptions of the relationship and satisfaction with care were most strongly linked to the content of workers' communication. Similarly, youth's communication in full speech and content most closely reflected their reported perceptions of their relationship with the worker and their satisfaction with care, and workers' perceptions of the relationship and satisfaction with care were most strongly linked to these channels of youth communication. Applications: Findings suggest that foster youth and social workers may communicate their authentic beliefs and expectations differentially by communicative channel. Further, both communication partners appeared selectively attuned to the most authentic speaker channels. These findings can inform case planning and intervention work focused on leveraging the power of the worker–youth relationship to improve key service outcomes for foster youth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Experiences of ethnic-racial discrimination are associated with a host of problems in adolescence and adulthood, yet little is known about if and how such experiences influence children. Likewise, ethnic-racial identity (ERI) research has focused on adolescent and adult development to the detriment of understanding if and how ERI might influence early development, particularly in the context of ethnic-racial discrimination. To address these gaps, this study tested the hypotheses that a) children's perceived experiences of ethnic-racial discrimination would predict elevated behavior problems, and b) children's ERI with respect to their exploration of the meaning of their ethnicity-race and their sense of commitment to their ethnic-racial group(s) would mitigate this relation.Method: Path analyses evaluated the prospective contribution of children's perceived ethnic-racial discrimination at age 7 (N = 172) to examiner ratings of internalizing and externalizing behavior problems one year later as moderated by child-reported ERI.Results: Perceived experiences of ethnic-racial discrimination predicted increased internalizing and externalizing behavior problems one year later, but only among children who had relatively less-well developed ERI, particularly with regard to their sense of commitment to their ethnic-racial group(s).Conclusion: These findings document the incidence and the prospective negative impact of children's experiences of ethnic-racial discrimination on their behavioral adjustment, while illuminating the heretofore underappreciated protective role of ERI on children's development in contexts of discrimination. By cultivating ERI among children, parents, educators, and other community leaders can help children navigate institutionalized racism, and the prejudicial attitudes and discriminatory practices it engenders. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This investigation evaluated a theoretically specified model of associations among mothers’ history of child sexual abuse (CSA), a helpless state of mind (SOM) with regard to the mother–child relationship, and increased behavior problems in the next generation. Moreover, we evaluated the moderating influence of child gender on predicted relations between mothers’ CSA severity and helpless SOM (i.e., moderated mediation). Participants were 225 biological mother–preschooler dyads (48% female; 46.4% Latinx) drawn from an ongoing, longitudinal study of representation and regulation in child development. Mothers’ history of CSA was assessed when their children were 4 years old and emerged as a prominent risk factor in this diverse, high-risk community sample with 40% of mothers reporting contact-based sexual abuse prior to age 18. Mediation analyses revealed a significant indirect pathway from a continuous rating of mothers’ CSA severity to increased externalizing behavior problems from ages 4 to 8 in the next generation via mothers’ helpless SOM at age 6. Further, this indirect path was significant for mother–daughter dyads, but not for mother–son dyads. This investigation contributes to the neophyte literature on intergenerational CSA effects by revealing the impact of a mother’s CSA history on her SOM regarding the mother–child relationship, particularly when parenting daughters. Clinical interventions that enhance survivors’ awareness of and reflection on their SOM regarding the parent–child relationship may attenuate intergenerational CSA effects on child adaptation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a grounded theory approach, this study evaluated narratives from a sample of 170 emancipated foster youth (66.5% female; 84.6% non-white) as they reflected on their experiences between the ages of 18 and 25 across three data waves. Corbin and Strauss' (1990) three-phase coding process revealed five overarching themes: adult values and characteristics, nature of the transition process, material needs and resources, relationship concerns, and affective experiences. Although some elements of Arnett's (2000) model of emerging adulthood were evident in this sample of emancipated foster youth, such as individualistic qualities and instability, other core features were rarely discussed, such as self-focus and optimism, or were expressed in unique ways, such as exploration and feeling in-between. There were significant age-related changes, but not gender differences, in youth's discussion of varied themes. These findings suggest promising avenues for intervention during the sensitive period of developmental reorganization that characterizes the transition from adolescence to young adulthood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Despite robust evidence that prosocial behavior is associated with positive adaptation and likely engenders it, few studies have evaluated mechanisms that may account for these effects. The current study utilized a diverse sample of young children (N = 228, 49.6% female, 45.6% Latinx) to evaluate prospective relations between an observational assessment of children's prosocial sharing behavior at age 6 and children's depressive symptoms and academic achievement at age 8 via intervening teacher reports of a close relationship with the child. The findings supported a significant indirect pathway from prosocial sharing to fewer depressive symptoms and higher academic achievement via the closeness of children's relationship with their primary school teacher. Potential explanations for these findings and their implications for intervention are discussed. Highlights • Prosocial behavior predicted depression via a close teacher-child relationship. • Prosocial behavior predicted achievement via a close teacher-child relationship. • The proposed model was not moderated by gender, race/ethnicity, or SES. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ability to recognize and label emotions serves as a building block by which children make sense of the world and learn how to interact with social partners. However, the timing and salience of influences on emotion recognition development are not fully understood. Path analyses evaluated the contributions of parenting and child narrative coherence to the development of emotion recognition across ages 4 through 8 in a diverse (50% female; 46% Hispanic, 18.4% Black, 11.2% White, .4% Asian, 24.0% multiracial) longitudinally followed sample of 250 caregiver-child dyads. Parenting behaviors during interactions (i.e., support, instructional quality, intrusiveness, and hostility) and children's narrative coherence during the MacArthur Story Stem Battery were observed at ages 4 and 6. Emotion recognition increased from age 4 to 8. Parents' supportive presence at age 4 and instructional quality at age 6 predicted increased emotion recognition at 8, beyond initial levels of emotion recognition and child cognitive ability. There were no significant effects of negative parenting (i.e., intrusiveness or hostility) at 4 or 6 on emotion recognition. Child narrative coherence at ages 4 and 6 predicted increased emotion recognition at 8. Emotion recognition at age 4 predicted increased parent instructional quality and decreased intrusiveness at 6. These findings clarify whether and when familial and child factors influence emotion recognition development. Influences on emotion recognition development emerged as differentially salient across time periods, such that there is a need to develop and implement targeted interventions to promote positive parenting skills and children's narrative coherence at specific ages [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Foster youth evidence shows elevated rates of risk behaviors, including sexual risk-taking (e.g., unprotected sex). Some studies have identified child maltreatment, particularly sexual abuse, as a risk for later sexual risk-taking, but none have examined how child welfare placement experiences relate to youth's sexual risk-taking. This study investigated relations among child maltreatment, child welfare placements, and sexual risk-taking among 114 recently emancipated female foster youth. Sexual abuse and failed reunifications with parents were associated with greater sexual risk-taking. Moreover, dissociative symptoms exacerbated the relation between sexual abuse and sexual risk-taking. These findings highlight the need for greater consideration of risks associated with emancipated youth's sexual risk-taking and for more research to understand how youth experience unsuccessful family reunifications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite robust associations between child maltreatment experiences and emotional development, a paucity of research examines the influence of child maltreatment on empathy development, and still fewer studies differentiate these effects across maltreatment subtypes. The present study examined the development of children's empathy from ages six to eight, as predicted by maltreatment, and as moderated by children's attachment representations. Participants were a community sample of 250 children followed longitudinally and assessed in a laboratory setting with their primary caregivers. Child maltreatment experiences from birth to age six were assessed by semi-structured interviews with caregivers, which were rated according to widely-used child maltreatment coding protocols, and by caregiver and child self-report measures. Child empathy was assessed at ages six and eight by caregiver-report. Attachment representations were observed in children using the MacArthur Story Stem Battery. Child emotional abuse (β = −0.150, p =.012) and child neglect (β = −0.137, p =.016) predicted decreased empathy at age eight, whereas child physical abuse (β = 0.132, p =.027) and child exposure to domestic violence (β = 0.164, p =.004) predicted increased empathy at age eight. Further, children's negative representations of mother figures moderated the positive association between child physical abuse and empathy (β = −0.177, p =.005), such that the association became weaker as negative representations increased. These results highlight the nuanced ways in which child maltreatment experiences of different subtypes contribute to the development of empathy in school-aged children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emotional overinvolvement (EOI) in parents’ Five Minute Speech Samples (FMSSs; Magaña-Amato, 1993) is thought to measure overconcern and enmeshment with one’s child. Although related to maladaptive outcomes in studies of adult children, FMSS EOI evidences varied relations with behavior problems in studies with young children. These mixed findings may indicate that certain FMSS EOI criteria reflect inappropriate and excessive involvement with adult children, but do not indicate maladaptive processes when parenting younger children. Thus, this study evaluated relations of each FMSS EOI criterion with changes in child behavior problems from preschool to first grade in a community sample of 223 child–mother dyads (47.98% female; Wave 1 M(age) 49.08 months; 56.50% Hispanic/Latina). Maternal FMSS EOI ratings were obtained at Wave 1, and independent examiners rated child externalizing and internalizing behavior problems at Wave 1 and again 2 years later. Path analyses indicated that both the self-sacrifice/overprotection (SSOP) and statements of attitude (SOAs) FMSS EOI criteria predicted increased externalizing problems. In contrast, excessive detail and exaggerated praise were not related to child externalizing behavior problems, and Emotional Display was not evident in this sample. None of the FMSS EOI criteria evidenced significant relations with internalizing behavior problems. Multigroup comparisons indicated that the effect of SOAs on externalizing behavior problems was significant for boys but not for girls, and there were no significant group differences by race/ethnicity. These findings point to the salience of SSOP and SOAs for understanding the developmental significance of EOI in early development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sibling relationships are a powerful influence on child development, one that takes on particular significance in contexts of familial disruption or adversity. This study examined the effect of sibling co-placements during foster care on subsequent educational competence, occupational competence, housing quality, relational adjustment, and civic engagement in a sample of 170 recently emancipated foster youth (66.5% female; M age = 19.63). Analyses evaluated direct relations between the proportion of time spent with a sibling in foster placement and young adult adjustment outcomes, as well as indirect effects from sibling co-placement to later competence through youth's coherence displayed in a narrative of experiences in foster care. The coherence of life narratives develops in the context of primary relationships, including those with siblings, through co-constructed meaning making and emotional discourse, particularly regarding difficult life events. Emancipated foster youth's verbal narratives about their experiences in foster care were evaluated for narrative coherence based on the organization, complexity, and balance of youth's narratives. Analyses documented significant indirect effects of sibling co-placement on young adult competence through narrative coherence. Moreover, moderation analyses indicated that these effects were particularly robust among males. Findings are discussed with respect to relational mechanisms underlying resilience, and the potential for sibling co-placement to provide a relational context for risk and resilience among emancipated foster youth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This investigation evaluated relations between preschoolers’ representational content and coherence in the MacArthur Story Stem Battery (MSSB) at age four as related to child adjustment at age six. A community sample of 250 preschoolers (50% female;Mage= 49.05 months,SD= 2.9; 46% Hispanic, 18% Black, 11.2% White, 0.4% Asian, and 24.4% multiracial) completed assessments of relational representations using the MSSB at age four and of child adjustment at age six, including a measure of child-reported depressive symptomatology and observer ratings of child aggression during a Bobo doll task and inhibitory control during a delay of gratification task. Regression analyses demonstrated prospective relations between negative mother representation and less inhibitory control, negative child representation and higher aggression, and narrative coherence and more inhibitory control. Interactive analyses revealed relations between negative mother representation and difficulties in inhibitory control among White children and weaker relations among Black children. Prospective relations between narrative coherence and increased inhibitory control were less pronounced for Hispanic children. Findings indicate that preschoolers’ narratives can reveal the thematic content and structural coherence of their internalized beliefs and expectations of self and (m)other. Associations between representations and children’s adaptation have clear implications for representational processes and interventions in development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This investigation evaluated relations between preschoolers’ representational content and coherence in the MacArthur Story Stem Battery (MSSB) at age four as related to child adjustment at age six. A community sample of 250 preschoolers (50% female;Mage= 49.05 months,SD= 2.9; 46% Hispanic, 18% Black, 11.2% White, 0.4% Asian, and 24.4% multiracial) completed assessments of relational representations using the MSSB at age four and of child adjustment at age six, including a measure of child-reported depressive symptomatology and observer ratings of child aggression during a Bobo doll task and inhibitory control during a delay of gratification task. Regression analyses demonstrated prospective relations between negative mother representation and less inhibitory control, negative child representation and higher aggression, and narrative coherence and more inhibitory control. Interactive analyses revealed relations between negative mother representation and difficulties in inhibitory control among White children and weaker relations among Black children. Prospective relations between narrative coherence and increased inhibitory control were less pronounced for Hispanic children. Findings indicate that preschoolers’ narratives can reveal the thematic content and structural coherence of their internalized beliefs and expectations of self and (m)other. Associations between representations and children’s adaptation have clear implications for representational processes and interventions in development. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Using an ecological framework, this 2-wave longitudinal study examined the effects of parentification on youth adjustment across the transition to adolescence in a high-risk, low-income sample of African American (58%) and European American (42%) mother-child dyads (T1 Mage = 10.17 years, T2 Mage = 14.89 years; 52.4% female). Children's provision of family caregiving was moderately stable from early to late adolescence. Emotional and instrumental parentification evidenced distinct long-term effects on adolescents' psychopathology and the quality of the parent-child relationship. Ethnicity moderated these relations. Emotional and instrumental parentification behaviors were associated with predominantly negative outcomes among European American youth in the form of increased externalizing behavior problems and decreased parent-child relationship quality, whereas emotional parentification was associated with positive outcomes among African American youth in the form of increased parent-child relationship quality, and instrumental parentification was neutral. These findings support a multidimensional view of parentification as a set of culturally embedded phenomena whose effects can only be understood in consideration of the context in which they occur. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This study evaluated the prospective contribution of preschoolers' pretend play to observer reports of internalizing and externalizing behavior problems one year later, as mediated by observed coping flexibility during a delay of gratification task and as moderated by children's exposure to stressful life events. Preschoolers' (N =250; M age =49.05months, SD =2.95; 50% female) fantasy and affect expression in pretend play were assessed during a laboratory visit. Moderated mediation models tested for conditional indirect effects of play fantasy and affect expression on behavior problems through coping flexibility as a function of the child's exposure to stress. Preschoolers' fantasy and negative affect expression in pretend play predicted lower rates of internalizing, but not externalizing, problems. Coping flexibility partially mediated this relation, particularly among children with relatively more life stress. These findings clarify processes by which, and contexts within which, preschoolers' pretend play influences later behavioral adjustment. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Highlights: [•] This study evaluated relations between preschoolers’ pretend play and child adjustment in laboratory and school settings. [•] Imagination and affect expression in preschoolers’ pretend play were positively related to observer-rated adjustment. [•] In contrast, relations between pretend play features and teacher-rated adjustment varied by child race. [•] Relations between pretend play and school adjustment were positive for non-Black children, but negative for Black children. [•] Findings suggest that children's imagination and emotion expression are differentially valued as a function of child race. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the influence of caregiver-reported harsh physical and verbal punishment on children's behavioral and self-system adjustment. Children's emotion knowledge was evaluated as a heretofore unrecognized moderator of these relations. We assessed 250 preschool-aged children (50% female; Mage = 49.06 months) from diverse backgrounds (50% Hispanic, 18% African American, 10.4% Caucasian, 21.6% multiracial/other) using various instruments through teacher, caregiver, self, and observer report in the domains of harsh punishment, conduct problems, self-concept, and emotion knowledge. Emotion knowledge moderated the relation between harsh punishment and child adjustment. Harsh physical punishment was associated with conduct problems for children with higher emotion knowledge, especially for boys. Harsh verbal punishment was associated with self-concept deficits among children with higher emotion knowledge, especially for girls. These relations were also specifically applicable to non-Hispanic children. These results highlight the importance of investigating hypothesis-driven interactive effects and the specificity of experience to understand the psychosocial sequelae of parenting practices broadly, and to clarify the mixed evidence in the punishment literature specifically. Clinical implications point to the salience of emotion processes in parent-child disciplinary interventions for understanding the prevalence and pattern of child behavioral adjustment and self-concept, as well as more broadly to the role of individual differences in children's responses to adversity and subsequent therapeutic needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This investigation employed latent profile analysis to identify distinct patterns of multiform competence among 164 emancipated foster youth (Mage = 19.67 years, SD = 1.12; 64% female). Fit indices and conceptual interpretation converged on a four-profile solution. A subset of emancipated youth evidenced a maladaptive profile (16.5%; n = 27), which was characterized by low educational competence, low occupational competence, low civic engagement, problematic interpersonal relationships, low self-esteem, and high depressive symptoms. However, the largest group of emancipated youth exhibited a resilient profile in which they were faring reasonably well in all domains despite marked adversity (47%; n = 77). Two additional groups evidenced discordant adjustment patterns wherein they exhibited high levels of psychological competence despite behavioral difficulties (i.e., internally resilient; 30%; n = 49) or significant emotional difficulties despite manifest competence (i.e., externally resilient; 6.5%; n = 11). The obtained profiles were validated against independent measures of behavioral and socioemotional adjustment. Exploratory analyses examined etiological differences across profiles with respect to child welfare variables, such as age at entry into care, placement disruption, reason for placement, and severity of child maltreatment. The findings highlight the need for multidimensional models of risk and resilience and illustrate the importance of heretofore underappreciated heterogeneity in the adaptive outcomes of emancipated foster youth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goals of this study were to (a) examine the phenomenology and developmental correlates of problematic Internet use (PIU) in a large and diverse college student sample; (b) evaluate a developmental process model of PIU in which the expected association between child maltreatment and PIU would be explained by alexithymia; and (c) explore these relations as a function of gender and race. PIU was assessed in a sample of 1,470 college students (62.9 percent female, 37.1 percent male; Mage=19.13 years [ SD=1.49]; 46.1 percent Asian, 28.2 percent Hispanic, 16.3 percent White, 5.9 percent Black, and 3.5 percent Multiracial/Other) who participated in a larger study of young adult adaptation, which included measures of child maltreatment, alexithymia, self-concept, social support, and psychopathology. Males and Asian students endorsed higher levels of PIU than females and other ethnoracial groups, respectively. PIU was related to contemporaneous maladaptation in the form of decreased self-concept, lower social support, and increased psychopathology across groups. Experiences of child maltreatment were related to increased PIU, and mediation analyses showed that this relation was partially explained by alexithymia. These relations were comparable across males and females and between Asian and non-Asian respondents. The analyses provide evidence for the significant role of child maltreatment and the cognitive-affective deficits it precipitates in understanding pathways toward PIU in young adulthood. Our findings suggest that maltreated youth are at disproportionate risk for PIU, and their capacities to regulate and process emotion are important targets for prevention and therapeutic intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the overwhelming majority of research on the consequences of childhood maltreatment reports differential outcomes of specific maltreatment subtypes (e.g., physical abuse vs. emotional abuse) as though they are independent, maltreatment experiences often occur in combination. The present study evaluated multiple maltreatment experiences in a sample of 2,637 undergraduate students who reported on childhood maltreatment and current adjustment. The authors used latent class analysis to examine predominant patterns of multiple maltreatment experiences and investigated indices of psychosocial adjustment associated with those patterns. Results suggested that specific constellations of multiple maltreatment have qualitatively different associations with adjustment. Emotional abuse, alone or in combination with other maltreatment types, was especially salient for psychopathology (e.g., anxiety, depression), while a combination of physical and emotional abuse was most strongly associated with conduct-related problems (e.g., substance use, risky sexual behavior). These findings have both practical and empirical significance for understanding and classifying experiences of maltreatment. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This investigation examined transactional relations across contextual strain, parenting quality, and child adjustment in 209 mothers and children at 24, 42, and 72 months of age. Independent ratings of mothers' stressful life events, social support, and relationship quality provided an objective measure of maternal contextual strain. Observers evaluated parenting quality during parent-child interactions at each time point. Child regulatory functioning during laboratory tasks at 24 and 42 months was evaluated by independent observers based on both behavioral (e.g., noncompliance, distractibility) and emotional (e.g., frustration, anger) indices. At 72 months, teachers reported on children's externalizing behaviors, and children completed objective measures of academic achievement. Nested path analyses were used to evaluate increasingly complex models of influence, including transactional relations between child and parent, effects from contextual strain to parenting and child adaptation, and reciprocal effects from child and parent behavior to contextual strain. Over and above stability within each domain and cross-sectional cross-domain covariation, significant paths emerged from maternal contextual strain to subsequent child adjustment. Bidirectional relations between parenting and child adjustment were especially prominent among boys. These findings counter unidirectional models of parent-mediated contextual effects by highlighting the direct influences of contextual strain and parent-child transactions on early childhood behavioral and academic adjustment, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: This investigation examined developmental pathways between childhood emotional maltreatment and adaptational outcomes in early adolescence. This study utilized a developmental psychopathology perspective in adopting a multidimensional approach to the assessment of different forms of emotional maltreatment and later adjustment outcomes. Specifically, emotional abuse (i.e., verbal criticism, hostility) and emotional neglect (i.e., psychological unavailability) were compared using a process-level analytic approach to examine if and how different forms of emotional maltreatment would contribute to adolescent adjustment via aggression and social withdrawal in middle childhood. Methods: The current study sample is drawn from a longitudinal, prospective study of a high-risk community sample (N =196), incorporating a multi-method and multi-informant design. Multiple mediator models were tested via bootstrapping regression techniques. Results: Bivariate correlations revealed that both emotional neglect and emotional abuse were associated with increased aggression and social withdrawal in middle childhood, and lower ratings of socioemotional competence in early adolescence. However, the mediational model, which controlled for child gender and concurrent physical and sexual maltreatment, was only significant for the contribution of emotional abuse to lower adolescent competence via social withdrawal in middle childhood. Post hoc analyses revealed that this association was only significant for boys. Conclusions: While social withdrawal in middle childhood significantly explained the observed relation between emotional abuse and decreased competence in adolescence, this process did not emerge as salient in understanding the relation between emotional neglect and adolescent adaptation. Furthermore, these developmental processes appeared to vary by gender. The results are in need of replication and extension to other outcome domains, but represent an important contribution to the empirical study of specific forms of emotional maltreatment. Practice implications: Emotional maltreatment is generally overlooked and unrecognized as compared to physical or sexual forms of maltreatment. This study adds to the accumulating empirical evidence that the effects of emotional maltreatment are disabling, enduring, and should be carefully assessed by clinicians. Furthermore, this assessment should specify the particular form of emotional maltreatment that has occurred, as the results of the study indicate that developmental processes and adjustment outcomes may vary according the type of emotional maltreatment (i.e., emotional abuse, emotional neglect) that is experienced. Finally, clinicians must recognize that a single maltreatment type may vary in its impact on subsequent adjustment, as significant gender differences emerged in the current study that point to the role of individual differences that warrant further investigation. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In conjunction with prospective ratings of child maltreatment (i.e., sexual abuse, physical abuse, and physical neglect) and measures of dissociation and somatization, this study examined prospective pathways between child maltreatment and nonsuicidal, direct self-injurious behavior (SIB; e.g., cutting, burning, self-hitting). Ongoing participants in the Minnesota Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (N = 164; 83 males, 81 females) completed a semistructured interview about SIB when they were 26 years old. SIB emerged as a heterogeneous and prominent phenomenon in this low-income, mixed-gender, community sample. Child sexual abuse predicted recurrent injuring (i.e., three or more events; n = 13), whereas child physical abuse appeared more salient for intermittent injuring (i.e., one to two events; n = 13). Moreover, these relations appeared largely independent of risk factors that have been associated with child maltreatment and/or SIB, including child cognitive ability, socioeconomic status, maternal life stress, familial disruption, and childhood exposure to partner violence. Dissociation and somatization were related to SIB and, to a lesser degree, child maltreatment. However, only dissociation emerged as a significant mediator of the observed relation between child sexual abuse and recurrent SIB. The findings are discussed within a developmental psychopathology framework in which SIB is viewed as a compensatory regulatory strategy in posttraumatic adaptation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This investigation examined process-level pathways to nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI; e.g., self-cutting, -burning, -hitting) in 2 cohorts of suburban, upper-middle-class youths: a cross-sectional sample of 9th-12th graders (n = 1,036, 51.9% girls) on the West Coast and a longitudinal sample followed annually from the 6th through 12th grades (n = 245, 53.1% girls) on the East Coast. High rates of NSSI were found in both the cross-sectional (37.2%) and the longitudinal (26.1%) samples. Zero-inflated Poisson regression models estimated process-level pathways from perceived parental criticism to NSSI via youth-reported alienation toward parents. Pathways toward the initiation of NSSI were distinct from those accounting for its frequency. Parental criticism was associated with increased NSSI, and youth alienation toward parents emerged as a relevant process underlying this pathway, particularly for boys. The specificity of these pathways was explored by examining separate trajectories toward delinquent outcomes. The findings illustrate the prominence of NSSI among "privileged" youths, the salience of the caregiving environment in NSSI, the importance of parental alienation in explaining these relations, and the value of incorporating multiple systems in treatment approaches for adolescents who self-injure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides an empirical and theoretical foundation to support increased attention to neurodevelopmental processes in understanding the developmental sequelae of child emotional abuse (CEA). After reviewing the socioemotional consequences of CEA, an overview of the mammalian stress response system is provided, the deleterious impact of early psychosocial adversity on the organization and integration of this system is discussed, and the applicability of these findings for considering CEA and its developmental consequences within a multi-level, integrative, developmental psychopathology framework is explained. Building on evidence that CEA is likely to result in significant and enduring alterations in the neurobiology of stress response systems and, by extension, in neurodevelopment more broadly, specific suggestions for future research and practice are offered. This article encourages greater attention to CEA as a salient developmental experience and to neurophysiological processes as a heretofore overlooked source of information about the relation between CEA and adaptation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article utilizes a developmental psychopathology framework to explicate one pathway, originating in childhood traumatic experience, toward the development of self-injurious behavior (SIB). The descriptive psychopathology of SIB is summarized first, followed by an overview of theoretical interpretations of SIB within psychoanalytic, neo-analytic, behavioral, and biological paradigms. Building on these empirical and theoretical foundations, a developmental psychopathology framework is used to model the development of SIB in the aftermath of childhood traumatic experience, particularly maltreatment. In this model, maltreatment undermines positive adaptation at motivational, attitudinal, instrumental, emotional, and/or relational levels of competence. In turn, vulnerabilities in the child''s adaptive resources necessitate the application of alternative regulatory and relational strategies, such as self-injury, to the negotiation of contemporaneous and prospective developmental issues. The article concludes with a discussion of the empirical and clinical implications of a developmental understanding of SIB as a compensatory regulatory strategy in posttraumatic adaptation. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The COVID‐19 pandemic resulted in a reorganization of adolescents' routines, especially their sleep schedules. Utilising 175 caregiver‐adolescent dyads, the current study examined associations of biological (e.g., prenatal substance use), environmental (e.g., poverty), and relational (e.g., child maltreatment) subtypes of early life adversity (ELA) with various components of adolescents' sleep across the first year of the COVID‐19 pandemic. Relational ELA explained unique variance in adolescents' sleep disturbances, but not other sleep components, following short‐ and longer‐term exposure to the COVID‐19 pandemic. However, the direction of this association switched such that relational ELA predicted decreased sleep disturbances during the initial phase of the U.S. COVID‐19 pandemic in spring 2020 beyond pre‐pandemic levels, but, over time, contributed to increased sleep disturbances beyond early‐pandemic levels as the pandemic extended into the winter of 2020. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This longitudinal investigation tested a theoretically-specified model of the etiology and developmental consequences of parent-child role confusion, wherein there is a deterioration of generational boundaries such that the parent looks to their child to meet the parent's own needs for comfort or support. Employing a diverse sample of 250 female caregiver-child dyads (50% female and 46% Latinx children), this study tested a fully-latent structural equation model to evaluate serial mediation from parents' reported history of their own maltreatment to children's psychopathology in late childhood via role confusion during the preschool years and children's negative representations of the parent in middle childhood. As hypothesized, the severity of parents' own history of child maltreatment was associated with higher role confusion in their relationship with their preschooler, and this role confusion contributed to children's negative representations of the parent during middle childhood, which, in turn, were associated with higher levels of child psychopathology. This study informs developmental science and clinical practice by elucidating modifiable mechanisms by which a parent's prior experience of child maltreatment may impact their child's adaptation in the next generation. Interventions that support the stability of vertical parent-child boundaries may buffer children from negative intergenerational child maltreatment effects. • A history of maltreatment predicted role-confused parenting in the next generation. • Parent-preschooler role confusion was associated with more child psychopathology. • This relation was explained by children's negative representations of the parent. • Supporting family boundaries may reduce transgenerational maltreatment effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite evidence that insensitive parenting is associated with later academic achievement, few studies have evaluated mechanisms that may account for these effects. This study utilized a diverse sample of child-caregiver dyads (N = 245, 50.2% male, 46.5% Latinx) to evaluate a sequential mediation model from observations of female caregivers' insensitive parenting behaviors at age 4 to children's maternal representations at age 6, to teachers' reports of conflict in the teacher-child relationship at age 7 and, ultimately, to children's academic achievement at age 8. Even when holding prior levels of each study construct constant, analyses revealed a significant sequential mediation such that insensitive parenting contributed to increases in children's harsh maternal representations, which, in turn, predicted increases in teacher-child conflict at school and, ultimately, decreases in children's reading and math achievement. These findings highlight parenting and teacher-child relationship qualities as promising targets for interventions to promote children's academic achievement. • Insensitive parenting predicts decreases in child academic achievement. • Representational and relational processes mediate the parenting-achievement path. • Harsh maternal representations predict increases in teacher-child conflict. • Teacher-child conflict predicts decreases in child academic achievement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theories of allostatic load suggest that recurrent adaptive adjustments in contexts of adversity may have a negative impact on physical well-being. To test this hypothesis, this study evaluated 6-year-old children's ego-resilience and physical abuse experiences on behavior problems and physical illness at the age of 8 years. A significant interaction between ego-resilience and physical abuse exposure indicated that, although ego-resilience buffered physically abused children from internalizing problems, it also predicted more physical illness in that group. Findings contribute to the growing body of evidence suggesting that efforts to mobilize an adaptive response in contexts of adversity may exact a cost on physical well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined associations between child sexual abuse (CSA) survivors' self-definition status (i.e., whether or not survivors self-identified as sexually abused) and multiple measures of psychopathology, self-system functioning, and risk behaviors. We evaluated the hypothesis that survivors with concordant abuse perceptions (i.e., individuals who reported objective CSA and self-defined as sexually abused) would evidence more pronounced adjustment difficulties in young adulthood than survivors with discordant perceptions (i.e., individuals who reported objective CSA but did not self-define as sexually abused). In this large and ethnically diverse college student sample (N = 2,195; 63.8% female, 36.2% male; 83.3% nonwhite), objective experiences of CSA were associated with increased psychopathology, decreased self-system functioning, and increased risk behaviors, but the magnitude of these effects varied by survivors' self-definition status. Relative to their nonmaltreated peers, survivors with concordant abuse perceptions evidenced the largest elevations in psychopathology and risk behaviors, whereas survivors with discordant abuse perceptions evidenced the largest deficits in self-system functioning. These findings indicate that standard screening criteria may misidentify a sizable group of CSA survivors because these individuals do not perceive their experiences as "abuse." Efforts to understand the meaning ascribed to CSA experiences may profitably guide clinical interventions to enhance specific domains of functioning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Attachment theory posits that children's interactions with caregivers contribute to internalized representations that reflects the common and recurring elements of sensitive caregiving interactions (i.e. the secure base script). These internalized representations are theorized to influence later adaptation, including the development of psychopathology. Given prior research suggesting that stress exposure may undermine secure base script knowledge (SBSK), this study evaluated SBSK development in early childhood as a mechanism by which childhood stress exposure may influence later adaptation. We hypothesized that children's (N = 230; Mage = 73.30 months, SD = 2.51, 50% girls; 45.7% Latinx) stress exposure would be associated with lower levels of SBSK at age 6, which, in turn, would contribute to increased internalizing and externalizing symptoms at age 8. SBSK emerged as a significant mechanism by which early life stress may contribute to later externalizing, but not internalizing, child behavior problems. These findings highlight the role of SBSK as a profitable focus for both risk identification and intervention efforts aimed at reducing behavioral maladaptation among stress-exposed children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Clinical phenomena often feature skewed distributions with an overabundance of zeros. Unfortunately, empirical methods for dealing with this violation of distributional assumptions underlying regression are typically discussed in statistical journals with limited translation to applied researchers. Therefore, this investigation compared statistical approaches for addressing highly skewed data as applied to the evaluation of relations between child maltreatment and non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI). Method: College students (N = 2,651; 64.2% female; 85.2% nonwhite) completed the Child Abuse and Trauma Scale and the Functional Assessment of Self-Mutilation. Statistical models were applied to cross-sectional data to provide illustrative comparisons across predictions to a) raw, highly skewed NSSI outcomes, b) natural log, square-root, and inverse NSSI transformations to reduce skew, c) zero-inflated Poisson (ZIP) and negative-binomial zero-inflated (NBZI) regression models to account for both disproportionate zeros and skewness in the NSSI data, and d) the skew-t distribution to model NSSI skewness. Results: Child maltreatment was significantly and positively related to NSSI frequency in the raw, transformation, and zero-inflated models, but this relation was negative in the skew-t model. Conclusions: These findings highlight the importance of using zero-inflated models rather than transformation approaches to address data skew. Moreover, whereas the skew-t distribution has been used to model skewed non-clinical data, this study suggests that the skew-t approach may not be well-suited to address skewed clinical data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior research on Expressed Emotion (EE) in parents' Five Minute Speech Samples (FMSS) suggests that parental attitudes that are overprotective or blur boundaries between the parent and child (i.e., the criteria for self-sacrifice/overprotection; SSOP) are related to increases in children's behavior problems. Some theorists contend that parents who demonstrate high levels of SSOP treat their children more insensitively, but others argue that SSOP does not result in insensitive parenting during the early childhood years. To date, there is no evidence that can be brought to bear upon this tension within the field regarding the developmental implications of SSOP in childhood. This longitudinal investigation of 223 child-mother dyads (47.9% female; Mage_W1 = 49.08 months; 56.5% Hispanic/Latina) evaluated whether maternal insensitivity at age 6 mediated the link between mothers' SSOP with respect to their 4-year-old children and children's behavior problems (i.e., internalizing, attention/hyperactivity) at age 8. A path analysis revealed significant indirect pathways from mothers' SSOP during the preschool period to children's increased internalizing and attention/hyperactivity problems at age 8 via elevated maternal insensitivity at age 6. These associations did not differ significantly across groups as a function of child gender, maternal race/ethnicity, single-mother status, or family poverty. FMSS evaluations of SSOP may offer a culturally valid and clinically valuable screening tool to detect parental attitudes that confer elevated risks for insensitive parenting practices and later child adjustment difficulties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract As the consequences of childhood maltreatment for adult adjustment become increasingly established in the literature, investigations of individual differences in these effects must evolve to examine more nuanced components of the maltreatment experience. This is particularly true for studies of childhood emotional abuse (CEA), which represents an umbrella label for numerous qualitatively different experiences. The present study examined the distinct contributions and potential interactive effects of CEA frequency and intensity on adult psychopathology, caregiving behaviors, and caregivers' representations of the caregiver-child relationship in a diverse sample of 62 female caregivers of 4-year-old children, all of whom had experienced CEA. Frequency and intensity emerged as orthogonal characteristics of CEA with differential effects on adult adaptation. Higher CEA frequency predicted increased adult psychopathology, whereas higher CEA intensity predicted increased boundary dissolution in caregivers' representations. Further, an interaction between frequency and intensity predicted negativity in caregivers' representations, such that higher frequency of high intensity, but not low intensity, CEA predicted decreased negativity. Neither frequency nor intensity of CEA predicted observed caregiving behaviors. These results provide evidence that characteristics of CEA signal important differences in its experience, with differential implications for later adjustment. The specific differences in caregiving representations associated with high vs. low intensity CEA suggest that diverging mechanisms by which these experiences eventuate in adult outcomes should also be investigated. Above all, this study suggests that the measurement of CEA, and childhood maltreatment broadly, will benefit from enhanced attention to specific characteristics of individuals' experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined children's parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) regulation, which was indexed by respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) during rest, reactivity, and recovery episodes, and sex as moderators of predicted relations between observed intrusive parenting and later observer-rated child behavior problems. Child-caregiver dyads ( N = 250; 50% girls; 46% Latino/a) completed a series of laboratory assessments yielding independent measures of intrusive parenting at age 4, PNS regulation at age 6, and child behavior problems at age 8. Results indicated that intrusive parenting was related to more internalizing problems among boys who showed low RSA reactivity (i.e., PNS withdrawal from pre-startle to startle challenge), but RSA reactivity did not moderate this relation among girls. Interestingly, RSA recovery (i.e., PNS activation from startle challenge to post-startle) moderated these relations differently for boys and girls. For girls with relatively low RSA post-startle (i.e., less recovery), intrusive parenting was positively related to both internalizing and externalizing problems. However, the reverse was true for boys, such that there was a significant positive relation between intrusive parenting and later externalizing problems among boys who evidenced relatively high RSA post-startle (i.e., more recovery). Findings provide evidence for the moderation of intrusive caregiving effects by children's PNS regulation while highlighting the differential patterning of these relations across distinct phases of the regulatory response and as a function of child sex. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Consistent with models of environmental sensitivity (Pluess, 2015), research suggests that the effects of parents' behaviors on child adjustment are stronger among children who struggle to regulate their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors compared with children with better self-regulation. This study extended prior research by assessing maternal representations of the child, which presumably underlie mothers' parenting behaviors, to evaluate the moderating influence of preschoolers' self-regulation on relations between mothers' representations and changes in children's negative and positive developmental adjustment outcomes from preschool to first grade. Participants were 187 mothers and their preschoolers. Mothers' representations were assessed via the coherence of their verbal narratives regarding their preschooler and teachers reported on preschoolers' self-regulation. In preschool and first grade, examiners rated children's externalizing behavior problems and ego-resilience, and teachers rated children's externalizing behavior problems and peer acceptance. Consistent with the environmental sensitivity framework, the coherence of mothers' narratives predicted changes in adjustment among children with self-regulation difficulties, but not among children with better self-regulation. Preschoolers with self-regulation difficulties whose mothers produced incoherent narratives showed increased externalizing behavior problems, decreased ego-resilience, and lower peer acceptance across the transition to school. In contrast, preschoolers with better self-regulation did not evidence such effects when their mothers produced incoherent narratives. The implications of these findings for understanding and supporting children's adjustment during the early school years are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]