Functional abdominal pain in childhood and long-term vulnerability to anxiety disorders.

Background: Cross-sectional studies link functional abdominal pain (FAP) to anxiety and depression in childhood, but no prospective study has evaluated psychiatric status in adulthood or its relation to pain persistence.

Methods: Pediatric patients with FAP (n = 332) and control subjects (n = 147) were tracked prospectively and evaluated for psychiatric disorders and functional gastrointestinal disorders (FGIDs) at follow-up in adolescence and young adulthood (mean age = 20.01 years).

Attentional bias to pain and social threat in pediatric patients with functional abdominal pain and pain-free youth before and after performance evaluation.

This study investigated attentional biases for pain and social threat versus neutral stimuli in 54 youth with functional abdominal pain (FAP) and 53 healthy control subjects (ages 10 to 16 years). We assessed attentional bias using a visual probe detection task (PDT) that presented pain and social threat words in comparison to neutral words at conscious (1250 ms) and preconscious (20 ms) presentation rates. We administered the PDT before and after random assignment of participants to a laboratory stressor--failure versus success feedback regarding their performance on a challenging computer game.

Children's Somatization Inventory: psychometric properties of the revised form (CSI-24).

Objective: To conduct a multimethod psychometric evaluation to refine the Children's Somatization Inventory (CSI) and to investigate its dimensionality.

Method: The CSI was administered to 876 pediatric patients with chronic abdominal pain at their initial visit to a pediatric gastroenterology clinic. Tools from three psychometric models identified items that most effectively measured the construct of somatization and examined its dimensionality.

A developmental perspective on functional somatic symptoms.

Objective: To provide a new approach for conceptualizing and studying functional somatic symptoms (FSS) in children and adolescence.

Methods: A developmental model is proposed based on the synthesis of the extant literature and previous theoretical perspectives of FSS in children and adolescents.

Results: Multiple risk and protective factors from child, familial, social, and environmental domains, the interactions across risk domains, and potential developmental pathways of FSS are identified.

The influence of perinatal complications and environmental adversity on boys' antisocial behavior.

Background: The purpose of the present study was to test components of Raine's (2002) biosocial model, specifically the interactive effects of perinatal complications, rejecting parenting, and family adversity on the development of early-onset antisocial behavior (ASB). Boys' internalizing problems were also tested to investigate the specificity of the model.

Methods: Birth records in addition to longitudinal data were collected on 310 low-income boys followed from birth until 10 years of age.

The development of family hierarchies and their relation to children's conduct problems.

Despite the intuitive richness of family systems theory, relatively little research has sought to test the validity of constructs theorized to be critical in the development of children's adjustment. One such cornerstone of structural and strategic family therapy is the family hierarchy. The present study investigated both the development of hierarchical structure in families from infancy to late middle childhood and relations between strong hierarchical structure and children's conduct problems.

Anger regulation in disadvantaged preschool boys: strategies, antecedents, and the development of self-control.

Emotion regulation strategies observed during an age 3 1/2 frustration task were examined in relation to (a) angry affect during the frustration task, (b) child and maternal characteristics at age 1 1/2, and (c) indices of self-control at age 6 in a sample of low-income boys (Ns varied between 189 and 310, depending on the assessment). Shifting attention away from sources of frustration and seeking information about situational constraints were associated with decreased anger. Secure attachment and positive maternal control correlated positively with effective regulatory strategy use.