Fast Track Intervention Effects and Mechanisms of Action Through Established Adulthood.

Early preventive interventions can improve outcomes in childhood, but the most effective interventions can continue to deliver benefits through the life course. The Fast Track intervention, a randomized controlled trial for children at risk of conduct problems, has lowered psychopathology, substance use problems, and criminality and elevated happiness at age 25. However, research has not studied whether the intervention's effects continue further into established adulthood.

Maltreatment and Parent-Child Attachment as Predictors of Dating Violence and Risky Sexual Behaviour Among High-Risk Teens.

A history of maltreatment can increase risk for dating violence (DV) and risky sexual behaviour (RSB) among adolescents. Secure parent-child attachment may reduce this risk, yet few studies have examined this as a protective factor. This study differentiated developmentally appropriate, exploratory sexual behaviours from RSB and examined whether maltreatment experiences and parent-child attachment in adolescence predicted DV and RSB reported five years later in a high-risk sample.

Introduction to the Special Issue: Novel Insights into the Externalizing Psychopathology Spectrum in Childhood and Adolescence from Intensive Longitudinal Data.

Externalizing psychopathology is highly prevalent in children and adolescents. Yet, current understanding of the externalizing psychopathology spectrum is predominantly founded on cross-sectional and conventional longitudinal designs. Compared to these designs, intensive longitudinal data have greater ecological validity and provide insight into within-person fluctuations and short-term developmental dynamics.

Psychosis Symptom Trajectories Across Childhood and Adolescence in Three Longitudinal Studies: An Integrative Data Analysis with Mixture Modeling.

Psychotic-like experiences (PLEs) are common throughout childhood, and the presence of these experiences is a significant risk factor for poor mental health later in development. Given the association of PLEs with a broad number of mental health diagnoses, these experiences serve as an important malleable target for early preventive interventions. However, little is known about these experiences across childhood.

Childhood Experiences of Alternative Care and Callousness/Unemotionality: A Conceptual Model, Scoping Review, and Research Agenda.

Individuals with experiences of alternative care (AC; i.e., out-of-home care and institutional care) are at high risk for various mental health and relational problems stemming from exposure to serious attachment disruptions, loss, and complex trauma.

Kindergarten conduct problems are associated with monetized outcomes in adolescence and adulthood.

Background: Across several sites in the United States, we examined whether kindergarten conduct problems among mostly population-representative samples of children were associated with increased criminal and related (criminal + lost offender productivity + victim; described as criminal + victim hereafter) costs across adolescence and adulthood, as well as government and medical services costs in adulthood.

Methods: Participants (N = 1,339) were from two multisite longitudinal studies: Fast Track (n = 754) and the Child Development Project (n = 585). Parents and teachers reported on kindergarten conduct problems, administrative and national database records yielded indexes of criminal offending, and participants self-reported their government and medical service use.

Callous-Unemotional Traits in Adolescents' Daily Life: Associations with Affect and Emotional and Conduct Problems.

Intensive longitudinal methods (e.g., daily diary) inform understanding of dynamic processes by parsing within-person state-like fluctuations from stable between-person trait-like differences.

Externalizing psychopathology from childhood to early adolescence: Psychometric evaluation using latent variable and network modeling.

Applying both latent variable and network frameworks, we conducted a comprehensive psychometric evaluation of the diverse array of symptoms from three externalizing dimensions, including attention problems, aggressive behavior, and delinquency/rule-breaking of the Child Behavior Checklist (Achenbach, 1991) across six time points from childhood to early adolescence. We also examined sex differences. Participants ( = 1,339) were drawn from two multisite longitudinal studies: Fast Track and the Child Development Project.

Predictors of problematic adult alcohol, cannabis, and other substance use: A longitudinal study of two samples.

This study examined whether a key set of adolescent and early adulthood risk factors predicts problematic alcohol, cannabis, and other substance use in established adulthood. Two independent samples from the Child Development Project (CDP; = 585; 48% girls; 81% White, 17% Black, 2% other race/ethnicity) and Fast Track (FT; = 463; 45% girls; 52% White, 43% Black, 5% other race/ethnicity) were recruited in childhood and followed through age 34 (CDP) or 32 (FT). Predictors of substance use were assessed in adolescence based on adolescent and parent reports and in early adulthood based on adult self-reports.

Intergenerational effects of the Fast Track intervention on the home environment: A randomized control trial.

Background: Maladaptive family environments harm child development and are passed across generations. Childhood interventions may break this intergenerational cycle by improving the family environments children form as adults. The present study investigates this hypothesis by examining follow-up data collected 18 years after the end of the childhood Fast Track intervention designed to prevent externalizing problems.

Psychometric Evaluation of the Affect Regulation Checklist: Clinical and Community Samples, Parent-Reports and Youth Self-Reports.

The Affect Regulation Checklist (ARC) was designed to capture affect dysregulation, suppression, and reflection. Importantly, affect dysregulation has been established as a transdiagnostic mechanism underpinning many forms of psychopathology. We tested the ARC psychometric properties across clinical and community samples and through both parent-report and youth self-report information.

Predictive Validity of Adolescent Callous-Unemotional Traits and Conduct Problems with Respect to Adult Outcomes: High- and Low-Risk Samples.

Current understanding of the predictive validity of callous-unemotional (CU) traits is limited by (a) the focus on externalizing psychopathology and antisocial behaviors, (b) a lack of long-term prospective longitudinal data, (c) samples comprised of high-risk or low-risk individuals. We tested whether adolescent CU traits and conduct problems were associated with theoretically relevant adult outcomes 12-18 years later. Participants were drawn from two studies: higher-risk Fast Track (FT; n = 754) and lower-risk Child Development Project (CDP; n = 585).

Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on substance use among adults without children, parents, and adolescents.

Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on alcohol and illicit substance use among adults without children, parents, and adolescents was investigated through two studies with five samples from independent ongoing U.S. longitudinal studies.

Validation and measurement invariance of the Inventory of Callous-Unemotional Traits in Chinese incarcerated and normative samples.

Objective: This study examined the factor structure and psychometric properties of the Inventory of Callous-Unemotional Traits (ICU) in a large sample of incarcerated Chinese male inmates and its measurement invariance with an independent normative sample of Chinese adults. We further investigated the external validity of the ICU in the incarcerated sample.

Hypotheses: We hypothesized that the short forms of ICU would (a) provide a better model fit and greater internal consistency than the original 24-item ICU, (b) demonstrate measurement invariance between incarcerated and normative samples, and (c) show satisfactory external validity with a variety of external criterion measures.

Developmental Precursors of Primary and Secondary Callous-Unemotional Traits in Youth.

There is growing evidence of diverse etiological pathways to the development of callous-unemotional (CU) traits, known as primary and secondary CU variants. The purpose of the present study was to extend previous cross-sectional research and examine theoretical predictors of CU variants prospectively from childhood to adolescence. Participants included high-risk control and normative samples from the Fast Track project (N = 754, male = 58%, Black = 46%).

Longitudinal Associations between Parental Warmth, Harsh Discipline, Child Emotion Regulation, and ODD Dimensions.

Research has yet to investigate the mediating role of emotion regulation in the relation between parental warmth and harsh discipline with oppositional defiant disorder (ODD). Further, few studies have investigated ODD as both a unitary construct and as three distinct dimensions (anger, defiance, spitefulness). Thus, the present study aimed to investigate child emotion regulation (grade 2) as a mediator of the relation between parental warmth and harsh discipline (kindergarten, grade 1, grade 2) and ODD and its dimensions (grade 3).

Examining the Directionality of the Relationship Between Maternal Warmth and Early School-Age Anxiety.

Maternal warmth has been identified as a contributing factor to the development of child anxiety; however, no studies to date have examined observed maternal warmth longitudinally in this relationship. The present study addressed this knowledge gap by examining the simultaneous development of maternal warmth and child anxiety over time (between-person effects using latent growth curve modeling) and the directionality of associations (within-person effects using autoregressive latent trajectory modeling). Participants included 753 mothers and children.

Patterns and Predictors of Different Youth Responses to Attachment-Based Parent Intervention.

Objective: Few studies have evaluated attachment-based parent interventions for pre-teens and teens, and in particular, differential adolescent trajectories of response. This study examined distinct patterns, and multi-level predictors, of intervention response among youth with serious behavioral and mental health problems whose parents participated in , an attachment- and trauma-informed parent program.

Method: Participants included 682 parents ( = 42.

Primary and secondary callous-unemotional traits in adolescence are associated with distinct maladaptive and adaptive outcomes in adulthood.

While phenotypically indistinguishable with respect to callousness, individuals with primary and secondary callous-unemotional (CU) traits may show different developmental outcomes. This research predominantly comprised cross-sectional studies of male participants with a focus on maladaptive correlates. Thus, the present study examined whether youth with primary and secondary CU traits identified in Grade 7 reported distinct maladaptive outcomes (internalizing, externalizing, and substance use problems; criminal offenses; and sexual and partner experiences) and adaptive outcomes (health and wellbeing, education, and employment) in adulthood at age 25.

Development of individuals' own and perceptions of peers' substance use from early adolescence to adulthood.

This study evaluated how individuals' own substance use and their perception of peers' substance use predict each other across development from early adolescence to middle adulthood. Participants were from two longitudinal studies: Fast Track (FT; N = 463) and Child Development Project (CDP; N = 585). Participants reported on their own and peers' substance use during early and middle adolescence and early adulthood, and their own substance use in middle adulthood.

Network Structure of Callous-Unemotional Traits and Conduct Disorder Symptoms Among At-Risk Youth: Multi-Informant Reports and Gender Differences.

Network analytic techniques examine how items used to measure underlying constructs are related to one another and identify core characteristics. While many studies have examined the covariance of callous-unemotional (CU) traits or features and conduct disorder (CD) symptoms, the inter-item relations of these constructs and the core characteristics of the CU construct are unclear. The present study aimed to examine the network connectivity of, and between, CU features and CD symptoms.

Moderators of Psychosocial Intervention Response for Children and Adolescents with Conduct Problems.

: The purpose of this Brief Report is to synthesize the current evidence base examining moderators of psychosocial intervention response for children and adolescents with conduct problems (CP). We also provide directions for future research. We focused on four categories of psychosocial interventions for the prevention and/or treatment of CP: (1) parent management training (PMT) for children, (2) other family-based interventions for adolescents, (3) youth skills training, and (4) multicomponent interventions (i.

The comparative and cumulative impact of different forms of violence exposure during childhood and adolescence on long-term adult outcomes.

Violence exposure during childhood and adolescence is associated with a range of negative psychosocial outcomes. Research examining the impact of violence exposure has been limited by the compartmentalization into separate bodies of research (e.g.