Parent-child emotion dynamics in families presenting for behavioral parent training: Is there a link with child behavior, parenting, and treatment outcome?

Objective: Behavioral parent training (BPT) is the standard of care for early onset behavior disorders (BDs), however, not all families benefit. Emotion regulation (ER) is one potential mechanism underlying BPT outcomes, yet there are challenges in capturing intra- and interpersonal aspects of emotion regulation within parent-child interactions that are central to BPT. This study examined how vocally encoded emotional arousal unfolds during parent-child interactions and how parents and children influence each other's arousal (Aim 1), the links between these emotion dynamics, child behavior, and parenting at baseline (Aim 2), and BPT outcome (Aim 3).

Technology-Enhanced BPT for Early-Onset Behavior Disorders: Improved Outcomes for Children With Co-Occurring Internalizing Symptoms.

Objective: Early-onset behavior disorders (BDs) are common and costly. The evidence-base for Behavioral Parent Training (BPT), the standard of care for early intervention for BDs in young children, is well-established; yet, common comorbidities such as internalizing symptoms are common and their impact, not well understood. The goal of the current study was to examine the potential for technology to improve BPT effects on observed parenting and child behavior outcomes for families of children recruited for clinically significant problem behavior who also presented with relatively higher internalizing symptoms.

Technology-Enhanced Behavioral Parent Training: The Relationship Between Technology Use and Efficiency of Service Delivery.

Behavior disorders (BDs) are common and, without treatment, can have long-term impacts on child and family health. Behavioral Parent Training (BPT) is the standard of care intervention for early-onset BDs; however, structural socioeconomic barriers hinder treatment outcomes for low-income families. While digital technologies have been proposed as a mechanism to improve engagement in BPT, research exploring the relationship between technology use and outcomes is lacking.

A randomized controlled trial of technology-enhanced behavioral parent training: sustained parent skill use and child outcomes at follow-up.

Background: Early-onset (3-8 years old) disruptive behavior disorders (DBDs) have been linked to a range of psychosocial sequelae in adolescence and beyond, including delinquency, depression, and substance use. Given that low-income families are overrepresented in statistics on early-onset DBDs, prevention and early-intervention targeting this population is a public health imperative. The efficacy of Behavioral Parent Training (BPT) programs such as Helping the Noncompliant Child (HNC) has been called robust; however, given the additional societal and structural barriers faced by low-income families, family engagement and retention barriers can cause effects to wane with time.

COVID-19 and the Acceleration of Behavioral Parent Training Telehealth: Current Status and Future Directions.

The SARS-COV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic and associated social distancing guidelines have accelerated the telehealth transition in mental health. For those providing Behavioral Parent Training (BPT), this transition has called for moving sessions that are traditionally clinic-based, active, and directive to engaging, supporting, and treating families of children with behavior disorders remotely in their homes. Whereas many difficulties accompany this transition, the lessons learned during the current public health crisis have the potential to transform BPT service delivery on a large scale in ways that address many of its long-standing limitations.

Clinical Presentation and Treatment of Early-Onset Behavior Disorders: The Role of Parent Emotion Regulation, Emotion Socialization, and Family Income.

Parent emotion regulation and socialization have been linked to various aspects of child functioning. In the case of early-onset behavior disorders in particular, parent emotion regulation may be an important correlate of the coercive cycle implicated in early-onset behavior disorders thus, symptom presentation at baseline. Further, emotion socialization may be complicated by a pattern of parent-child interactions in which both supportive or unsupportive parenting behaviors in response to behavioral dysregulation may increase vulnerability for problem behavior in the future.

Validation of the Multidimensional Assessment of Parenting: An application of item response theory.

Parenting is a critical mechanism contributing to child and adolescent development and outcomes. The Multidimensional Assessment of Parenting Scale (MAPS) is a new measure that aims to address gaps in the literature on existing self-report parenting measures. Research to date on the MAPS includes essential steps of scale development and validation; however, replicating scale dimensionality and examining differential item functioning (DIF) based on child age and a parent or child gender is a critical next step.

Optimizing Engagement in Behavioral Parent Training: Progress Toward a Technology-Enhanced Treatment Model.

Low-income families are more likely to have a child with an early-onset Behavior Disorder (BD); yet, socioeconomic strain challenges engagement in Behavioral Parent Training (BPT). This study follows a promising pilot to further examine the potential to cost-effectively improve low-income families' engagement in and the efficiency of BPT. Low-income families were randomized to (a) Helping the Noncompliant Child (HNC; McMahon & Forehand, 2003), a weekly, mastery-based BPT program that includes both the parent and child or (b) Technology-Enhanced HNC (TE-HNC), which includes all of the standard HNC components plus a parent mobile application and therapist web portal that provide between-session monitoring, modeling, and coaching of parent skill use with the goal of improved engagement in the context of financial strain.

Helping the Noncompliant Child: An Updated Assessment of Program Costs and Cost-Effectiveness.

Behavior disorders (BD) in children can lead to delinquency, antisocial behavior, and mental disorders in adulthood. Evidence-based behavioral parent training (BPT) programs have been developed to treat early-onset BDs, yet cost analyses of BPT are deficient. We provide updated estimates of cost and cost-effectiveness of Helping the Noncompliant Child (HNC), a mastery-based BPT, delivered to low-income families.

Engagement in technology-enhanced interventions for children and adolescents: Current status and recommendations for moving forward.

Treatment engagement is a primary challenge to the effectiveness of evidence-based treatments for children and adolescents. One solution to this challenge is technology, which has been proposed as an enhancement to or replacement for standard clinic-based, therapist delivered services. This review summarizes the current state of the field regarding technology's promise to enhance engagement.

Conducting Psychological Intervention Research in the Information Age: Reconsidering the "State of the Field".

Enthusiasm for technology in mental health has evolved as a function of its promise to increase the reach and impact of services, particularly for traditionally at-risk and underserved groups. Preliminary findings suggest that technology-enhanced interventions indeed hold promise for increasing engagement in and outcomes of evidence-based treatment approaches. The time- and resourceintensive nature of traditional randomized control trials, however, may be even more of a challenge for further advancement in this area, given the rapid innovation of consumer driven new product development.

Parent-Adolescent Socialization of Social Class in Low-Income White Families: Theory, Research, and Future Directions.

The formative role of social class in the United States has long been a focus of fields such as economics, history, and political science. Yet, little psychological theory or data are available to guide our understanding of what messages regarding social class are transmitted within and across generations and how those transmissions are most likely to occur. As a launching point for such work, we focus this initial contextual and largely theoretical review on parent-adolescent socialization of social class in low-income, White families of adolescents in particular.

Detection of changes in naturalistic scenes: comparisons of individuals with and without mental retardation.

Abilities of individuals with and without mental retardation to search for and detect salient changes to naturalistic scenes were investigated using the flicker paradigm. Located in areas of central or marginal interest, changes involved an object's color, shape, or presence. Individuals with mental retardation required more time to detect changes of all types, and the magnitude of the group difference was more pronounced for marginal-interest changes.

Enhancing free-recall rates of individuals with mental retardation.

Generative encoding contexts promote activation of multiple retrieval routes and have been shown to enhance free-recall rates of individuals without mental retardation. The present extension to individuals with mental retardation involved a comparison of two encoding conditions: (a) fade-in, initially presenting pictures out of focus then slowly fading them into focus, and (b) fade-out, presenting pictures clearly then slowly blurring them. Results indicated that free-recall rates were greater for the fade-in items for the individuals with mental retardation and CA-matched comparisons, but not for the MA-matched group.

Depressed men's lower ability to interpret nonverbal cues: a preliminary study.

The ability to interpret nonverbal facial cues was tested with 20 depressed males prior to treatment. Each subject and matched control was asked to interpret videotaped facial cues of individuals engaged in a gambling task. Interpretive ability was significantly lower for the nontreated depressed white men than for their matched controls.

Behavioral response to buspirone in cocaine and phencyclidine withdrawal.

The effects of buspirone in treating cocaine and phencyclidine (PCP) withdrawal were studied. Withdrawal symptoms of these two street-drugs are thought to be due to norepinephrine, dopamine and possibly serotonin depletion. Buspirone acts by enhancing dopaminergic and noradrenergic firing as well by suppressing serotonergic activity.

Cocaine-associated violence and relationship to route of administration.

The relationship between route of cocaine administration, that is, free base/crack smoking (FB), intravenous injection (IV), and nasal insufflation (NS) and level of violence was studied. The authors hypothesized that the route that produced the most intense effects (i.e.

Clonidine in the treatment of premenstrual syndrome: a subgroup study.

The authors studied the effects of clonidine on a subgroup of women who had symptoms associated with premenstrual syndrome; the subgroup comprised 24 women aged 19 to 41 years who had "moderate" to "severe" cyclic decreases in beta-endorphin levels. All of the women received clonidine and placebo in a double-blind cross-over design that spanned four menstrual cycles. Clonidine was significantly (p less than .

Verapamil and lithium in maintenance therapy of manic patients.

A year-long double-blind cross-over study was used to compare the long-term therapeutic effects of lithium versus verapamil in a group of 20 manic volunteers. Subjects received each medication for six months. Before cross-over, verapamil patients showed a significant improvement after 60 days, lithium-treated patients after 180 days.

Augmentation of haloperidol by ascorbic acid in phencyclidine intoxication.

The authors studied 40 white men with acute phencyclidine (PCP) intoxication. On a random basis, 10 were treated with ascorbic acid, 10 with placebo, 10 with haloperidol, and 10 with a combination of ascorbic acid and haloperidol. While haloperidol was significantly more effective than ascorbic acid, the combination was significantly more effective than either used alone.

Space-based abstinence: alleviation of withdrawal symptoms in combinative cocaine-phencyclidine abuse.

Twenty male combinative cocaine free-base/phencyclidine (space-base) abusers were studied for forty-five days, in a double-blind design. Treatment with desipramine was significantly more effective than placebo in alleviating abstinence symptoms. This study tends to support the catecholamine-depletion hypothesis of cocaine and phencyclidine withdrawal.

Blunting of TSH response to TRH in chronic cocaine and phencyclidine abusers.

The TRH stimulation test was administered to 10 cocaine and 10 phencyclidine abusers as well as to 10 controls. No subjects had clinical evidence of depression. Significantly more blunting of the response of TSH to TRH was shown in cocaine and phencyclidine abusers compared with that seen in controls.

Comparison of clonidine and lithium in the treatment of mania.

The authors compared the antimanic effects of clonidine with lithium carbonate in a double-blind crossover design with 24 volunteers. Lithium was observed to be more effective than clonidine. Some patients reported experiencing hypotension (N=8) and depression (N=7) while taking clonidine.