Unlabelled: Transgender/non-binary (TNB) adolescents are at increased risk for mental health concerns, and caregiver awareness is important to facilitate access to care. Yet, limited research has examined caregiver awareness of TNB mental health. Thus, we examined (1) the prevalence of internalizing symptoms (depression, generalized anxiety, separation anxiety, social anxiety) among TNB adolescents and (2) associations between adolescent and caregiver reports of adolescent mental health symptoms.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGender identity is a core component of human experience, critical to account for in broad health, development, psychosocial research, and clinical practice. Yet, the psychometric characterization of gender has been impeded due to challenges in modeling the myriad gender self-descriptors, statistical power limitations related to multigroup analyses, and equity-related concerns regarding the accessibility of complex gender terminology. Therefore, this initiative employed an iterative multi-community-driven process to develop the Gender Self-Report (GSR), a multidimensional gender characterization tool, accessible to youth and adults, nonautistic and autistic people, and gender-diverse and cisgender individuals.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: Extremely preterm birth has been associated with atypical visual and neural processing of faces, as well as differences in gray matter structure in visual processing areas relative to full-term peers. In particular, the right fusiform gyrus, a core visual area involved in face processing, has been shown to have structural and functional differences between preterm and full-term individuals from childhood through early adulthood. The current study used multiple neuroimaging modalities to build a machine learning model based on the right fusiform gyrus to classify extremely preterm birth status.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: Many transgender adolescents experience clinically elevated anxiety and depression. Testosterone (T), used as a gender affirming treatment, may reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression. We assessed the effect of gender affirming T treatment on internalizing symptoms, body image dissatisfaction, and activation patterns within the amygdala-prefrontal cortex circuit in transgender adolescent boys.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFExecutive function (EF) underlies broad health and adaptive outcomes. For transgender youth, navigating gender discernment and gender affirmation demand EF. Yet, factors associated with transgender youth EF are unknown.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: Youths with special healthcare needs face challenges transitioning from pediatric to adult health care. Understanding possible mechanisms contributing to poor healthcare transition could improve care. This study explores associations between health literacy (HL), transition readiness, and healthcare utilization.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIndividuals with epilepsy are at risk for social cognition deficits, including impairments in the ability to recognize nonverbal cues of emotion (i.e., emotion recognition [ER] skills).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: The aim of the study was to examine reproductive health attitudes and behaviors related to contraception use, provider counseling, parenthood goals, and fertility preservation (FP) in TNB adolescents.
Methods: A 24-item survey was administered to 44 TNB adolescents aged 12-19 years.
Results: Contraceptive use was variable even among the 46% who reported sexual activity.
Adolescence is a period of intensive development in body, brain, and behavior. Potentiated by changes in hormones and neural response to social stimuli, teenagers undergo a process of social re-orientation away from their caregivers and toward expanding peer networks. The current study examines how relative relational closeness to peers (compared to parents) during adolescence is linked to neural response to the facial emotional expressions of other teenagers.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Caring for teens with special health care needs places physical and mental health burdens on parents, which can be exacerbated by the stresses of transitions to independence. Medical homes can improve teen transitions to greater self-management and reduce health care-related time and financial burdens for families. We examined the association between parent-reported teen medical home status and caregiver health-related quality of life (HRQOL).
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