Professional quality of life in home visitors: Core components of the reflective supervisory relationship and IMH-E Endorsement engagement.

Infant and early childhood home visiting models are gaining prominence as effective programs for families. Most U.S.

A Longitudinal and Multidimensional Examination of the Associations Between Temperament and Self-Restraint During Toddlerhood.

Developing self-restraint, or the inhibition of behavior in response to a prohibition, is an important process during toddlerhood. The objective of this study was to gain a better understanding of individual differences in the development of self-restraint during toddlerhood by examining stable elements and growth of temperament (i.e.

IS REFLECTIVE SUPERVISION ENOUGH? AN EXPLORATION OF WORKFORCE PERSPECTIVES.

Infant mental health practice requires the performance of intense emotional labor. Professionals comprising the infant mental health (IMH) field are largely women at seminal points in adult life-span development. The purpose of this article is to explore the day-to-day challenges faced by clinical infant mental health professionals and their perspectives on the supports available for effective job performance.

Longitudinal pathways from early maternal depression to children's dysregulated representations: a moderated mediation analysis of harsh parenting and gender.

There is some evidence linking maternal depression, harsh parenting, and children's internal representations of attachment, yet, longitudinal examinations of these relationships and differences in the developmental pathways between boys and girls are lacking. Moderated mediation growth curves were employed to examine harsh parenting as a mechanism underlying the link between maternal depression and children's dysregulated representations using a nationally-representative, economically-vulnerable sample of mothers and their children (n = 575; 49% boys, 51% girls). Dysregulation representations were measured using the MacArthur Story Stem Battery at five years of age (M = 5.

Longitudinal Influence of Paternal Distress on Children's Representations of Fathers, Family Cohesion, and Family Conflict.

A parent's distress is known to color children's experiences of their families. Studies, however, have rarely focused on the levels of distress experienced by fathers, and in particular, as they affect the emotional experiences of their children. We examine the impact that fathers' experience of distress throughout their children's early years has on children's emerging narrative representations of father-child relationships and of family conflict and cohesion.

Testing alternative hypotheses regarding the association between behavioral inhibition and language development in toddlerhood.

Studies have reported an inverse association between language development and behavioral inhibition or shyness across childhood, but the direction of this association remains unclear. This study tested alternative hypotheses regarding this association in a large sample of toddlers. Data on behavioral inhibition and expressive and receptive language abilities were collected from 816 twins at ages 14, 20, and 24 months.

Parent adaptation and family functioning in relation to narratives of children with chronic illness.

Background: This study assessed the experience of parents who have a child diagnosed with chronic illness and whether children's narratives mirror these experiences.

Method: A total of 66 parents completed assessments about adaptation and family functioning. Children with type 1 diabetes or asthma participated in a story-stem narrative task.

Autonomic correlates of children's concern and disregard for others.

Psychophysiological research on empathy and prosociality in children has focused most often on cardiac activity, heart rate (HR), and HR deceleration in particular. We examined these processes in 7-year-old children during two empathy mood inductions. We independently assessed children's responses to others' distress in two different contexts: structured probes (simulated pain) and maternal interviews.

The magnitude of genetic and environmental influences on parental and observational measures of behavioral inhibition and shyness in toddlerhood.

Behavioral inhibition is a temperamental trait that refers to slow approach to novel items, shyness towards new people, and fearfulness in new situations, and individuals may develop inhibited response styles by as early as 2 years of age. There are important methodological considerations in the assessment of early temperament, with parental report and observational measures providing both corroborative and unique data. The present study examined behavioral inhibition measured by parental report and observational measures in a genetically informative sample to delineate the agreement between the methods and the uniqueness of each method, and to estimate the magnitude of genetic and environmental influences on the common and unique variance.

Developmental trajectories in toddlers' self-restraint predict individual differences in executive functions 14 years later: a behavioral genetic analysis.

We examined whether self-restraint in early childhood predicted individual differences in 3 executive functions (EFs; inhibiting prepotent responses, updating working memory, and shifting task sets) in late adolescence in a sample of approximately 950 twins. At ages 14, 20, 24, and 36 months, the children were shown an attractive toy and told not to touch it for 30 s. Latency to touch the toy increased with age, and latent class growth modeling distinguished 2 groups of children that differed in their latencies to touch the toy at all 4 time points.

Mothers' resolution of their young children's psychiatric diagnoses: associations with child, parent, and relationship characteristics.

Maternal resolution of a child's diagnosis relates to sensitive caregiving and healthy attachment. Failure to resolve is associated with maternal distress, high caregiving burden, and the quality of marital and social support. This study examined maternal resolution of diagnosis in a child psychiatric population utilizing the Reaction to Diagnosis paradigm.

Empathy in early childhood: genetic, environmental, and affective contributions.

We investigated the genetic and environmental origins of children's empathy toward a distress victim and its correlates with emotional symptoms and affective knowledge. The cognitive (hypothesis testing) and affective (empathic concern) empathy of 122 twin pairs in response to simulated pain by an adult examiner was observed at 3.5 years of age.

The developmental origins of a disposition toward empathy: Genetic and environmental contributions.

The authors investigated the development of a disposition toward empathy and its genetic and environmental origins. Young twins' (N = 409 pairs) cognitive (hypothesis testing) and affective (empathic concern) empathy and prosocial behavior in response to simulated pain by mothers and examiners were observed at multiple time points. Children's mean level of empathy and prosociality increased from 14 to 36 months.

Story stem responses of preschoolers with mood disturbances.

Observing the young child's affect regulation and thought processes during a clinic assessment visit is of critical importance although challenging for children referred for mood disturbance. In this study, parents reported symptoms using standardized clinical interviews and story stems narratives were administered to 20 referred and 12 typically developing preschool age children. Comparison of the referred and typically developing children in our sample showed that specific story contexts varied in eliciting responses reflecting disorganization and thought disturbance from the referred children.

Story stem narratives with young children: moving to clinical research and practice.

Story stem narrative methods have demonstrated reliability and validity as assessments of the young child's representations of parent - child and peer relationships. Most, but not all, prior research has been conducted with samples of typically developing children. Growing interest in the method from clinical researchers and child psychiatry clinics brings forward a number of critical issues in its use with children referred for severe behavioural disruption and mood disorder.

Outcome of a randomized multifaceted intervention with low-income families of wheezing infants.

Objective: To evaluate the outcome of a secondary intervention conducted with infants at risk for asthma.

Design: Families of wheezing infants were randomized to a 1-year intervention or control group; outcome evaluation occurred from April 1, 2000, through September 30, 2003, when children reached 4 years of age.

Setting: Home intervention and clinic evaluation.

Short-term impact of a randomized multifaceted intervention for wheezing infants in low-income families.

Objective: To present an interim analysis of the effect of a home-based intervention with low-income caregivers of wheezing infants at risk for childhood asthma on mediating variables.

Method: Infants aged 9 to 24 months with 3 or more physician-documented wheezing episodes were randomly assigned to environmental support intervention (ES) (n = 90) or control (n = 91) groups. Nurse home visitors intervened for 1 year to decrease allergen and environmental tobacco smoke exposure and improve symptom perception and management.

Maternal preconceptions about parenting predict child temperament, maternal sensitivity, and children's empathy.

This study examined the influence of maternal preconceptions on child difficult temperament at 6 months and maternal sensitivity at 12-15 months and whether all 3 variables predicted children's empathy at 21-24 months. Within a low-income, ethnically diverse sample of 175 mother-child dyads, path models were tested with 3 empathy indices (prosocial, indifference, inquisitive) as outcomes. Results indicated that maternal preconceptions significantly predicted child difficult temperament, maternal sensitivity, and children's empathy.

Morbidity patterns among low-income wheezing infants.

Objective: This study describes morbidity attributable to wheezing illness in a multi-ethnic sample of low-income infants younger than age 2, and examines biological, environmental, and psychosocial correlates of morbidity indexes.

Method: Infants 9 to 24 months old, considered at risk for developing asthma on the basis of having had 3 or more health care contacts with documented wheezing, received comprehensive evaluations as part of an environmental intervention study. Baseline evaluations with the infants, their families, and their home environments focused on biological, environmental, and psychosocial factors that would potentially increase asthma risk for the children.

Unraveling the ecology of risks for early childhood asthma among ethnically diverse families in the southwest.

Objectives: We describe the prevalence of asthma risk factors within racial/ethnic and language groups of infants participating in an intervention study for reducing chronic asthma.

Methods: Low-income children aged 9 to 24 months with 3 or more episodes of wheezing illness were enrolled. Baseline information included family and medical histories, allergic status, environmental exposures, emotional environment, and caregiver psychosocial resources.