Dimensions of childhood adversity differentially affect autonomic nervous system coordination in response to stress.

It is well-established that disrupted autonomic nervous system (ANS) reactivity exacerbates risk for long-term maladjustment following childhood adversity (CA). However, few studies have integrated measures of both the sympathetic (SNS) and parasympathetic (PNS) branches of the ANS, resulting in a unidimensional understanding of ANS functioning as a mechanism of risk. Further, past work has primarily measured CA only at the aggregate level (e.

Parental Depression Symptoms, Skin Conductance Level Reactivity and Parenting: Associations with Youth Psychopathology.

Parental depression symptoms are a prevalent risk factor for internalizing and externalizing problems in youth, with parenting and parents' physiological stress reactivity representing potential contributing factors in the intergenerational transmission of psychopathology symptoms. In a sample of adolescents (N = 97) and their parents, the current study examined parental depression symptoms, an observational measure of parenting, and parents' physiological reactivity during a dyadic conflict discussion task in association with adolescents' internalizing and externalizing psychopathology. Parental depression symptoms and harsh/insensitive parenting showed positive associations with youth psychopathology symptoms.

Coping with Huntington's Disease in Patients and At-Risk Individuals.

Background: Huntington's disease (HD) presents patients and individuals at risk for HD with significant levels of stress. However, relatively little research has examined how individuals cope with stress related to the disease or the association of specific coping strategies with psychological symptoms.

Objective: This study examined the ways in which HD patients and at-risk individuals cope with HD-related stress using a control-based model of coping and the association of coping strategies with symptoms of depression and anxiety.

Momentary autonomic engagement during parent-adolescent conflict: Coping as a moderator of associations with emotions.

Regulatory efforts are hypothesized to affect associations between emotions and physiology (i.e., concordance) to facilitate adaptive functioning.

Stress in Huntington's Disease: Characteristics and Correlates in Patients and At-Risk Individuals.

Background: Huntington's disease (HD) is a neurodegenerative disease that presents families with significant numbers of stressful events. However, relatively little empirical research has characterized the stressors encountered by members of HD-affected families and their correlations with psychological symptoms.

Objective: This study examined frequencies of specific stressors in HD patients and at-risk individuals and the correlates of these stressors with demographics, disease characteristics, and symptoms of depression and anxiety.

The Association of Quality of Life with Psychosocial Factors in Adolescents with Tourette Syndrome.

Individuals with Tourette syndrome (TS) have poorer quality of life (QoL) than their peers, yet factors contributing to poor QoL in this population remain unclear. Research to date has predominantly focused on the impact of tics and psychiatric symptoms on QoL in TS samples. The aim of this cross-sectional, multi-informant study was to identify psychosocial variables that may impact adolescent QoL in TS.

Physiology and emotions: Within individual associations during caregiver-adolescent conflict.

Concordance between physiological and emotional responses is central to models of emotion and has been shown to correspond to effective responses and well-being in adults. A deeper understanding of physiological-emotional concordance during ecologically relevant scenarios is essential to then determine if these associations predict mental health problems or can serve as a helpful biomarker of risk or resilience in adults and youth. The present study assessed the minute-to-minute associations between sympathetic (i.

Intrapersonal and Interpersonal Disengagement Coping: Associations with Emotions of Youth At-Risk for Huntington's Disease.

Background: Families in which a parent has Huntington's disease (HD) are faced with significant stressors that can contribute to difficulties in communicating together about illness-related concerns. Family members who use more disengagement coping strategies, including denial and avoidance, to deal with illness-related stressors may have the greatest challenges to effective communication.

Objective: The current study examined the associations of intrapersonal and interpersonal disengagement coping responses with observed and reported emotions of adolescents and young adults (AYA) at genetic risk for HD.

Adolescents' Coping and Internalizing Symptoms: Role of Maternal Socialization of Coping and Depression Symptoms.

Parental emotion socialization, including processes of the socialization of coping and emotion regulation, is a key factor in shaping children's adjustment in response to acute and chronic stress. Given well-established links between parental depression and youth psychopathology, levels of parental depression symptoms are an important factor for understanding emotion socialization and regulation processes. The present study examined associations among maternal coping and depression symptoms with their adolescents' coping and internalizing problems.

Impairments to executive function in emerging adults with Huntington disease.

Background And Objectives: The clinical diagnosis of Huntington disease (HD) is typically made once motor symptoms and chorea are evident. Recent reports highlight the onset of cognitive and psychiatric symptoms before motor manifestations. These findings support further investigations of cognitive function across the lifespan of HD sufferers.

COVID-19 stressors and symptoms of anxiety and depression in a community sample of children and adolescents.

Background: The COVID-19 public health crisis has created abrupt and unparalleled disruptions to the daily lives of children and adolescents across the world, placing them at significant risk for developing symptoms of anxiety and depression.

Method: The current study used two data collection periods to determine which types of COVID-19-related stressors were associated with the greatest risk of anxiety and depression symptoms in a community sample of children and adolescents in the United States (U.S.

Mean-level correspondence and moment-to-moment synchrony in adolescent and parent affect: Exploring associations with adolescent age and internalizing and externalizing symptoms.

Interactions with parents are integral in shaping the development of children's emotional processes. Important aspects of these interactions are overall (mean level) affective experience and affective synchrony (linkages between parent and child affect across time). Respectively, mean-level affect and affective synchrony reflect aspects of the content and structure of dyadic interactions.

Inhibitory control, working memory and coping with stress: Associations with symptoms of anxiety and depression in adults with Huntington's disease.

Objective: Huntington's disease (HD) is an autosomal dominant neurodegenerative disease characterized by neuropsychiatric symptoms (e.g., anxiety and depression), where individuals suffer high levels of stress from the social, physical, and cognitive burden of the disease.

Adverse childhood experiences, parenting, and socioeconomic status: Associations with internalizing and externalizing symptoms in adolescence.

Background: Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), low socioeconomic status (SES), and harsh parenting practices each represent well-established risk factors for mental health problems. However, research supporting these links has often focused on only one of these predictors and psychopathology, and interactions among these variables in association with symptoms are not well understood.

Objective: The current study utilized a cross-sectional, multi-informant, and multi-method design to investigate the associations of ACEs, SES, parenting, and concurrent internalizing and externalizing problems in adolescents.

Coping with COVID-19 stress: Associations with depression and anxiety in a diverse sample of U.S. adults.

Unlabelled: The COVID-19 pandemic has brought unprecedented levels of stress to individuals in the U.S. and throughout the world.

Child Hostility toward a Parent with a History of Depression and Family Functioning.

Family dysfunction has been associated with both child externalizing problems, including hostility, and parent depression or depressive symptoms. Research investigating child hostility directed toward a parent with a history of depression is absent, yet it may be associated with especially high levels of family dysfunction. The current study aimed to assess (1) the relation between observed child hostility, measured by the Iowa Family Interaction Rating Scale, toward such a parent and child-reported family dysfunction, using the Family Assessment Device, and (2) whether current parent depressive symptoms, measured by the Beck Depression Inventory-II, moderated this association.

Neurobiological and Psychosocial Correlates of Communication Between Huntington's Disease Patients and Their Offspring.

Objective: Huntington's disease (HD) is an autosomal dominant neurodegenerative disease that presents significant challenges to family communication. The investigators examined observations of communication between parents with HD and their offspring talking about the challenges of HD and explored potential correlates of their communication.

Methods: The sample included parents with HD and their adolescent and young-adult offspring (N=64).

Healthcare Delivery and Huntington's Disease During the Time of COVID-19.

Background: Safer-at-home orders during the COVID-19 pandemic altered the structure of clinical care for Huntington's disease (HD) patients. This shift provided an opportunity to identify limitations in the current healthcare infrastructure and how these may impact the health and well-being of persons with HD.

Objective: The study objectives were to assess the feasibility of remote healthcare delivery in HD patients, to identify socioeconomic factors which may explain differences in feasibility and to evaluate the impact of safer-at-home orders on HD patient stress levels.

Observed Maternal Coping Socialization and Child Internalizing Symptoms: The Roles of Maternal Depressive Symptoms and Peer Stress.

Empirical evidence relying primarily on questionnaire reports indicates parent coping socialization messages play an important role in children's psychological functioning. The present study utilized a multi-informant, multi-method design to build on previous coping socialization research in childhood and adolescence. A novel coding system was developed to measure observed parental socialization of coping messages from observations of a discussion-based peer stress task.

Comparison of three models of adverse childhood experiences: Associations with child and adolescent internalizing and externalizing symptoms.

Exposure to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) is prevalent and confers risk for psychopathology later in life. Approaches to understanding the impact of ACEs on development include the independent risk approach, the Dimensional Model of Adversity and Psychopathology (DMAP) distinguishing between threat and deprivation events, and the cumulative risk approach. The present research provides an empirical confirmation of DMAP and a comparison of these three approaches in predicting internalizing and externalizing symptoms in youth.

Cognitive and Attentional Function in Children with Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome: A Pilot Study.

While survival for children with hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS) has improved, compromised cardiac output and oxygen delivery persist, and children show cognitive deficits. Most research has assessed young children on broad cognitive indices; less is known about specific indices in older youth. In this pilot study, cognitive function and attention in youth ages 8 to 16 years with HLHS (n = 20) was assessed with the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children - Fifth Edition (WISC-V) and NIH Toolbox Cognition Battery (NTCB); parents completed the Child Behavior Checklist.

Predictors of placement disruptions in foster care.

Background: Many children who are removed from a dangerous or neglectful home and placed in state custody subsequently experience additional disruptions while in custody, which can compound the effects of ongoing stress and instability. As such, placement stability has been identified as a critical objective and a key indicator of success for children residing in substitutive care.

Objective: To examine the utility of child protective services data in identifying predictors of placement disruption.

Stress Exposure and Maternal Depression as Risk Factors for Symptoms of Anxiety and Depression in Adolescents.

Little research has explored the implications of stress inside and outside of the family as a risk factor for psychological symptoms in adolescents of depressed mothers. In a sample of 115 adolescents and their mothers with and without depression histories, adolescents' family and peer stress exposure was measured through the Responses to Stress Questionnaire, and adolescents' anxious/depressed symptoms were measured with the Youth Self Report and Child Behavior Checklist. Mothers reported their current depression symptoms on the Beck Depression Inventory-II.

Responsive Parenting Behaviors and Cognitive Function in Children With Sickle Cell Disease.

Objective: Children with sickle cell disease (SCD) are at increased risk for cognitive impairment as a result in part from biological characteristics of the disease; however, limited research has explored possible social and contextual factors associated with risk for cognitive problems. The primary aim of the present study was to examine the relation between children's cognitive functioning and responsive parenting, a potentially important contextual factor in children with SCD, accounting for family socioeconomic disadvantage, child disease severity, and caregivers' perceived stress.

Methods: Forty-eight children completed standardized cognitive assessments and caregivers provided self-reports of general and disease-related stress.

Coping and Stress Reactivity as Moderators of Maternal Depressive Symptoms and Youth's Internalizing and Externalizing Symptoms.

Youth's responses to stress are a central feature of risk and resilience across development. The current study examined whether youth coping and stress reactivity moderate the association of current maternal depressive symptoms with youth's internalizing and externalizing symptoms. Mothers (M = 41.