Parent Coaching Fidelity Trajectories of In-Person and Telehealth Sessions during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic has posed significant challenges to delivery of preventive and mental health services, and providers have rapidly transitioned to telehealth service provision. Factors such as sudden isolation, financial strain, and physical and mental health stress presented unique challenges for providers and families and highlight the need for accessible and effective services. Thus, providers' fidelity of implementation during the pandemic is an important area for research.

Examining Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) constructs for anger expression and regulation in toddlers.

The present study is focused on anger expression and regulation within the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) construct of Frustrative Nonreward. Although previous studies have examined associations between child anger regulation and expression, these studies do not directly address the dynamic processes involved in Frustrative Nonreward using microlongitudinal methods. The current study used data from 561 adopted children, their adoptive parents, and birth parents and aimed to address gaps in the literature by examining: (a) temporal associations between anger expression during a frustrating situation, and behaviors thought to regulate emotions (e.

Assessing Changes in Parent Sensitivity in Telehealth and Hybrid Implementation of Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-Up During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, home visiting services for families with young children pivoted to continue providing services virtually. One such service was Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up (ABC), a brief prevention/intervention program targeting increased parental sensitivity. 70 families participated in a sensitivity assessment before and after receiving ABC.

Transitioning to telehealth due to COVID-19: Maintaining model fidelity in a home visiting program for parents of vulnerable infants.

Maintaining treatment fidelity when implementing evidence-based interventions is a significant challenge. The inability to deliver in-person services due to the COVID-19 pandemic critically challenged the foundation of implementation fidelity for home visiting programs across the globe. The Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-Up (ABC) program is an evidence-based home visiting intervention designed to increase sensitivity in parents of infants who have experienced early adversity.

Adapting an Evidence-Based Home Visiting Intervention for Mothers With Opioid Dependence: Modified Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up.

Infants born to mothers who are dependent on opioids often have difficulty regulating behavior and physiology at birth. Without sensitive maternal care, these infants are at risk for ongoing problems with self-regulation. Mothers who are dependent on opioids may experience challenges related to their substance use (e.

Inherited and Environmental Moderators of Mother-Child Behavioral Contingency and Contingent Negativity at 27 Months.

Previous research has shown that as depressive symptomology increases, mothers tend to show withdrawn or harsh interaction patterns with their children, and the quality of these interaction patterns have subsequently been linked to child behavior problems. However, little research has examined bidirectional influences between mothers and their children, and how these moment-to-moment contingencies differ based on heritable and environmental characteristics. We used data from the Early Growth and Development Study a prospective adoption study to examine how adoptive mothers' depressive symptoms and children's heritable tendencies for negative affectivity interact to predict the quality of mother-child interactions at child age 27-months.

Changes in provider Fidelity after introducing a new model of intervention.

Given the impact of implementation fidelity on community-based outcomes, it is important to understand how fidelity may change over time as providers learn an intervention. Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up is an evidence-based early intervention that assesses fidelity during weekly supervision. Providers are first trained in the infant model, with toddler model training considered to be a separate, specialized opportunity.

Toddler emotion expressions and emotional traits: Associations with parent-toddler verbal conversation.

The present study examines how toddler emotions may influence their own or their parents' participation in parent-toddler verbal conversation. Limited, indirect evidence suggests that toddler positive emotions may encourage, whereas negative emotions may disrupt, parent-toddler verbal exchanges, but these hypotheses have not been tested directly. We investigated two aspects of toddler emotions- their emotion expressions and their emotional traits- and examined their relations with parent-toddler verbal conversation engagement.

Emotion Regulation among Children in Foster Care Versus Birth Parent Care: Differential Effects of an Early Home-Visiting Intervention.

Children involved with Child Protective Services (CPS) often show worse emotion regulation than non-involved children, with downstream effects on adaptive functioning. The current study uses two randomized control trials, one conducted with foster caregivers and one conducted with birth parents, to investigate the longitudinal effects of caregiver type (foster versus birth parent) and a home-visiting parenting intervention on emotion regulation among young children referred to CPS. Participants were 211 children referred to CPS during infancy or toddlerhood, of whom 120 remained with their birth parents and 91 were placed in foster care.

Novel Methods for Screening: Contributions from Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up.

Preventative interventions are needed across the lifespan, including for children who have experienced maltreatment. However, interventions' effect sizes are typically smaller in real-world settings than in clinical trials. Identifying providers who are likely to implement interventions with fidelity could promote implementation outcomes through targeted allocation of training resources.

Moving an Evidence-Based Parenting Program Into the Community.

Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up (ABC) is a parenting program developed to enhance sensitivity among parents of infants who experience early adversity. In several randomized clinical trials, the intervention's efficacy has been demonstrated. Moving interventions into the community with adequate fidelity is challenging, though, and intervention effects are often much smaller than when tested in randomized clinical trials.

Enhancing executive functioning among toddlers in foster care with an attachment-based intervention.

Young children in foster care often experience adversity, such as maltreatment and lack of stability in early caregiving relationships. As a result, these children are at risk for a range of problems, including deficits in executive functioning. The Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up for Toddlers (ABC-T) intervention was designed to help foster parents behave in ways that promote the development of young children's emerging self-regulatory capabilities.

Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up: An evidence-based intervention for vulnerable infants and their families.

In this paper, we highlight issues we consider key to the development of an evidence-based intervention for the parents of young children who had experienced early adversity. The intervention was initially developed for foster infants, but adapted for infants living with their neglecting parents, then for young children adopted internationally, and finally for toddlers in foster care or living with neglecting birth parents. The intervention and its adaptations share a focus on the importance of providing nurturance to children when they are distressed, and following children's lead when they are not distressed.

Transactional Patterns of Maternal Depressive Symptoms and Mother-Child Mutual Negativity in an Adoption Sample.

Transactional models of analysis can examine both moment-to-moment interactions within a dyad and dyadic patterns of influence across time. This study used data from a prospective adoption study to test a transactional model of parental depressive symptoms and mutual negativity between mother and child over time, utilizing contingency analysis of second-by-second behavioral data. To consider both genetic and environmental influences on mutual negativity, depressive symptoms were examined in both adoptive and birth mothers.

"I Want to be There When He Graduates:" Foster Parents Show Higher Levels of Commitment than Group Care Providers.

Group care is a frequent placement for adolescents placed in out of home care when their birth parents' care is deemed unsafe. In the present study, we assessed whether foster parents show greater commitment to children than group care providers. Given that group care represents a number of living arrangements, we considered both shift care (where staff work shifts and do not live with the children) and cottage care (where staff live for extended periods of time with the children in a group living context).

Longitudinal relations among language skills, anger expression, and regulatory strategies in early childhood.

Researchers have suggested that as children's language skill develops in early childhood, it comes to help children regulate their emotions (Cole, Armstrong, & Pemberton, 2010; Kopp, 1989), but the pathways by which this occurs have not been studied empirically. In a longitudinal study of 120 children from 18 to 48 months of age, associations among child language skill, observed anger expression, and regulatory strategies during a delay task were examined. Toddlers with better language skill, and whose language skill increased more over time, appeared less angry at 48 months and their anger declined more over time.