Effortful Control, Parent-Child Relationships, and Behavior Problems among Preschool-Aged Children Experiencing Adversity.

Young children who experience adversity are at increased risk for developing psychological difficulties across the lifespan. Among community samples, parent-child relationship dynamics interact with child effortful control to predict child behavior problems. The nature of these associations has not been examined among children who have experienced early childhood adversity and who may be particularly sensitive to familial effects on child development.

Mothers' recollections of parenting by their own mothers and fathers and maternal and infant outcomes.

Objective: Using a family network approach, we examined patterns of remembered parental rearing by both parents and associations with maternal and infant outcomes.

Background: Women's memories of how they were cared for by their own mothers in childhood are associated with important outcomes in the perinatal period. However, few studies assess women's recollections of caregiving by their fathers, despite fathers' influence on the larger family context and child adjustment.

"It's Like Making Reflective Practice More of the Heart of Who We Are": An Exploration of Facilitators and Barriers to Implementing Reflective Supervision in State Pre-K.

High-quality supervision for teachers in early care and education (ECE) is essential for building positive teacher-child relationships and enhancing ECE program quality, which in turn promotes healthy social-emotional and academic development in young children. Reflective supervision (RS) is a process-oriented and relationship-centered supervisory approach that has growing empirical evidence supporting its use. As the evidence base for RS continues to expand, and early childhood-serving settings-including ECE-increasingly consider this approach, understanding whether RS is likely to be routinely used in ECE settings and what helps or hinders use of this approach is critically important.

Community-engaged research: Bringing the science of developmental psychopathology into the real world.

The science of developmental psychopathology has made outstanding progress over the past 40 years in understanding adaptive and maladaptive developmental processes across the life span. Yet most of this work has been researcher driven with little involvement of community partners in the research process, limiting the potential public health significance of our work. To continue to advance the field we must move beyond the physical and conceptual walls of our research laboratories and into the real world.

Early childhood trauma exposure and neurocognitive and emotional processes: Associations in young children in a partial hospital program.

Early childhood trauma has been linked to neurocognitive and emotional processing deficits in older children, yet much less is known about these associations in young children. Early childhood is an important developmental period in which to examine relations between trauma and executive functioning/emotion reactivity, given that these capacities are rapidly developing and are potential transdiagnostic factors implicated in the development of psychopathology. This cross-sectional study examined associations between cumulative trauma, interpersonal trauma, and components of executive functioning, episodic memory, and emotion reactivity, conceptualized using the RDoC framework and assessed with observational and performance-based measures, in a sample of 90 children (ages 4-7) admitted to a partial hospital program.

Examining the Biological Impacts of Parent-Child Relationship Dynamics on Preschool-Aged Children who have Experienced Adversity.

Parent-child relationship dynamics have been shown to predict socioemotional and behavioral outcomes for children, but little is known about how they may affect biological development. The aim of this study was to test if observational assessments of parent-child relationship dynamics (cohesion, enmeshment, and disengagement) were associated with three biological indices of early life adversity and downstream health risk: (1) methylation of the glucocorticoid receptor gene (), (2) telomere attrition, and (3) mitochondrial biogenesis, indexed by mitochondrial DNA copy number (mtDNAcn), all of which were measured in children's saliva. We tested hypotheses using a sample of 254 preschool-aged children ( age = 51.

Reflective supervision and consultation and its impact within early childhood-serving programs: A systematic review.

Reflective supervision and consultation (RS/C) is regarded as best practice within the infant/early childhood mental health field. Benefits of RS/C on the early childhood workforce and children and families have been demonstrated through case studies, conceptual pieces, and individual research studies. However, findings across studies have not been summarized using gold-standard methodology, thus the state of existing empirical support for RS/C is unclear.

Understanding links between maternal perinatal posttraumatic stress symptoms and infant socioemotional and physical health.

Maternal posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) are associated with adverse consequences for older children, but very few studies have examined links between perinatal maternal PTSS and infant outcomes. Trauma exposure and psychopathology, including PTSS, is often heightened for women during pregnancy through 1 year postpartum. Therefore, the perinatal period may be a critical time for understanding the risk maternal PTSS and other mental health factors pose to the socioemotional and physical health of infants.

Dyadic Reports Using the Parental Support after Child Sexual Abuse Measure: Psychometrics and Associations with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Symptoms.

This study assessed the psychometric properties of a new measure, the Parental Support after Child Sexual Abuse (PSCSA) survey, and tested the association between parents' and children's parental support reports and children's post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms. A total of 99 Icelandic children (86.5% girls, 6-18 years old, = 13.

The intergenerational interplay of adversity on salivary inflammation in young children and caregivers.

Systemic inflammation links exposure to early childhood adversity to later disease. The associations among adversity and disease risk might in part operate through poor oral hygiene and subsequent periodontal inflammation, which can be measured in saliva. Few studies, however, have examined the association between adversity and salivary inflammation in young children.

Cascades of Risk Linking Intimate Partner Violence and Adverse Childhood Experiences to Less Sensitive Caregiving During Infancy.

This study evaluated if maternal intimate partner violence (IPV) had indirect effects on sensitive parenting in infancy through prenatal depressive symptoms and postpartum parenting stress and if maternal adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) moderated these indirect effects. We hypothesized that: (a) IPV would be associated with greater prenatal depressive symptoms, which would predict greater postpartum parenting stress, and ultimately less sensitive parenting and (b) the link between IPV and depressive symptoms would be strongest for mothers with high ACEs. Participants included 295 mothers and their infants who were assessed prenatally and at 12 months postpartum.

The trajectory of PTSD among youth in foster care: A survival analysis examining maltreatment experiences prior to entry into care.

Background: Youth in foster care are more likely than non-foster care youth to experience posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). While research has identified maltreatment as a risk factor for PTSD, this research remains limited because it tends to only (a) examine a single type or dimension of maltreatment and ignore the polyvictimization and heterogeneity in exposure, and (b) study this relation across a short period time or retrospectively at the end of care.

Objective: The current study used survival analysis to simultaneously examine the influence of maltreatment characteristics on the risk of receiving a PTSD diagnosis at any time in care following entry into care.

A systematic review of childhood maltreatment and DNA methylation: candidate gene and epigenome-wide approaches.

Childhood maltreatment is a major risk factor for chronic and severe mental and physical health problems across the lifespan. Increasing evidence supports the hypothesis that maltreatment is associated with epigenetic changes that may subsequently serve as mechanisms of disease. The current review uses a systematic approach to identify and summarize the literature related to childhood maltreatment and alterations in DNA methylation in humans.

Internalizing, Externalizing Problems and Psychiatric Hospitalizations: Examination of Maltreatment Chronicity and Coping Style in Adolescents in Foster Care.

Child maltreatment is associated with internalizing and externalizing problems in adolescents, as well as psychiatric hospitalizations, which represent severe mental health difficulties and substantial burden on individuals and the health care system. These negative outcomes are especially prevalent in youth in foster care. Not all youth exposed to maltreatment, however, demonstrate poor mental health outcomes.

Intergenerational Effects of Maternal Childhood Experiences on Maternal Parenting and Infant Developmental Progress.

Objective: This study evaluated the intergenerational indirect effects of maternal childhood experiences on infant progress in reaching developmental milestones through maternal scaffolding behaviors. We hypothesized that mothers who perceived their own mothers as highly supportive in childhood, even in the context of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), would be more likely to engage in scaffolding with their infants, which in turn would predict greater infant developmental progress (e.g.

Adversity exposure and obesogenic food consumption in young children: The transgenerational role of emotion dysregulation.

Background: Childhood adversity is linked with unhealthy eating behaviours and obesity, but the mechanisms underlying this association are unclear, specifically the transgenerational behavioural precursors that develop in early childhood.

Objective: To determine whether adversity predicts change in obesogenic food consumption through child emotion dysregulation, and whether caregiver emotion dysregulation modifies this association.

Methods: Participants included 190 low-income caregiver-child dyads (mean child age = 4.

Child Maltreatment, Chronic Pain, and Other Chronic Health Conditions in Youth in Foster Care.

Childhood maltreatment is associated with chronic pain in adults. The goals of this study were 1) to examine this relation in youth placed in foster care with high levels of maltreatment exposure, and 2) to investigate the relation between maltreatment frequency and acute pain, and maltreatment frequency and general chronic health condition. Participants included 403 youth ages 8-19 who resided in foster or residential/group homes.

The relation between dimensions of maltreatment, placement instability, and mental health among youth in foster care.

Youth in foster care with maltreatment experiences often demonstrate higher rates of mental and behavioral health problems compared to youth in the general population as well as maltreated youth who remain at home. Previous research has demonstrated that dimensions of maltreatment (type, frequency, and severity) and placement instability are two prominent factors that account for high rates of psychopathology (e.g.

Maltreatment, Coping, and Substance Use in Youth in Foster Care: Examination of Moderation Models.

Child maltreatment is associated with negative outcomes such as substance use (SU). This study tested relations among maltreatment history, coping behavior, and SU behavior in youth residing in foster care. Participants were 210 youth ( M = 12.

Coping styles in youth exposed to maltreatment: Longitudinal patterns reported by youth in foster care.

Coping styles in youth living in foster care with a history of maltreatment were examined to determine the nature and stability of self-reported coping behavior over time. Participants included 542 (time 1), 377 (time 2), and 299 (time 3) youth ages 8-22 years (M=13.28years, SD=3.

Case file coding of child maltreatment: Methods, challenges, and innovations in a longitudinal project of youth in foster care.

State social service agency case files are a common mechanism for obtaining information about a child's maltreatment history, yet these documents are often challenging for researchers to access, and then to process in a manner consistent with the requirements of social science research designs. Specifically, accessing and navigating case files is an extensive undertaking, and a task that many researchers have had to maneuver with little guidance. Even after the files are in hand and the research questions and relevant variables have been clarified, case file information about a child's maltreatment exposure can be idiosyncratic, vague, inconsistent, and incomplete, making coding such information into useful variables for statistical analyses difficult.

Diabetes conflict outstrips the positive impact of self-efficacy on youth adherence and glycemic control in type 1 diabetes.

Objective: To examine whether self-efficacy buffers the deleterious consequences of diabetes-specific family conflict on self-monitoring blood glucose (SMBG) and glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) in youth with type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM).

Methods: A total of 129 youth with T1DM (aged 10-16 years) completed measures of diabetes-specific family conflict and self-efficacy for diabetes management, and their blood glucose meter data and HbA1c were extracted from the electronic medical record. We preformed moderation analyses to examine whether self-efficacy moderated the association that diabetes-specific family conflict had with SMBG and HbA1c.

The Link Between Adverse Childhood Experiences and Diabetes.

Exposure to adversity in childhood (adverse childhood experiences [ACEs]) is linked to a number of chronic diseases in adulthood, yet there is limited research examining the impact of ACEs on diabetes. The current review sought to examine the association between ACEs, other trauma exposure or posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) diagnosis, and risk for diabetes. Thirty-eight studies are reviewed.

A Short Form of the Trauma Symptom Checklist for Children.

The purpose of the current study was to develop a short form (SF) of the Trauma Symptom Checklist for Children (TSCC). The TSCC-SF) maintained 29 items, from the original 54 items, in a sample (N = 215) of sexually abused children who were seeking treatment at a child advocacy center. Exploratory factor analysis refined the original measure, and confirmatory factor analysis provided evidence for best fit for a six-factor, 29-item model.