A community-based child health and parenting intervention to improve child HIV testing, health, and development in rural Lesotho (Early Morning Star): a cluster-randomised, controlled trial.

Background: When caregivers live in remote settings characterised by extreme poverty, poor access to health services, and high rates of HIV/AIDS, their caregiving ability and children's development might be compromised. We aimed to test the effectiveness of a community-based child health and parenting intervention to improve child HIV testing, health, and development in rural Lesotho.

Methods: We implemented a matched cluster-randomised, controlled trial in the Mokhotlong district in northeastern Lesotho with 34 community clusters randomly assigned to intervention or wait-list control groups within a pair.

Efficacy and moderators of short-term psychodynamic psychotherapy for depression: A systematic review and meta-analysis of individual participant data.

Background: Short-term psychodynamic psychotherapy (STPP) is frequently used to treat depression, but it is unclear which patients might benefit specifically. Individual participant data (IPD) meta-analyses can provide more precise effect estimates than conventional meta-analyses and identify patient-level moderators. This IPD meta-analysis examined the efficacy and moderators of STPP for depression compared to control conditions.

Parental Scaffolding during Book-Sharing Predicts Child General Intelligence.

While much variance in general intelligence or g is genetic, a substantial environmental component suggests a possible role for parent-child interaction. In particular, previous evidence suggests the importance of parental scaffolding, or provision of cognitive structure to shape child behaviour. A role for scaffolding is consistent with the proposal that, in adult cognition, a critical aspect of g is decomposition of complex problems into a structure of simpler parts.

Factors in childhood associated with lung function decline to adolescence in cystic fibrosis.

Background: Despite improvements in general health and life expectancy in people with cystic fibrosis (CF), lung function decline continues unabated during adolescence and early adult life.

Methods: We examined factors present at age 5-years that predicted lung function decline from childhood to adolescence in a longitudinal study of Australasian children with CF followed from 1999 to 2017.

Results: Lung function trajectories were calculated for 119 children with CF from childhood (median 5.

Dialogic Book-Sharing as a Privileged Intersubjective Space.

Parental reading to young children is well-established as being positively associated with child cognitive development, particularly their language development. Research indicates that a particular, "intersubjective," form of using books with children, "Dialogic Book-sharing" (DBS), is especially beneficial to infants and pre-school aged children, particularly when using picture books. The work on DBS to date has paid little attention to the theoretical and empirical underpinnings of the approach.

Book-Sharing for Parenting and Child Development in South Africa: A Randomized Controlled Trial.

This study evaluated the impact of a parenting intervention on children's cognitive and socioemotional development in a group of caregivers and their 21-to-28-month-old children in a low-income South African township. A randomized controlled trial compared an experimental group (n = 70) receiving training in dialogic book-sharing (8 weekly group sessions) with a wait-list control group (n = 70). They were assessed before the intervention, immediately following it, and at a six month follow-up.

First 1,000 days: enough for mothers but not for children? Long-term outcomes of an early intervention on maternal depressed mood and child cognitive development: follow-up of a randomised controlled trial.

Background: Child cognitive development is often compromised in contexts of poverty and adversity, and these deficits tend to endure and affect the child across the life course. In the conditions of poverty and violence that characterise many low- and middle-income countries (LMIC), the capacity of parents to provide the kind of care that promotes good child development may be severely compromised, especially where caregivers suffer from depression. One avenue of early intervention focuses on the quality of the early mother-infant relationship.

Improving mother-infant interaction during infant feeding: A randomised controlled trial in a low-income community in South Africa.

Background: Maternal-infant feeding interactions are a primary context for engagement between mothers and their infants, and constitute a unique space in which reciprocity, attunement and maternal sensitivity can be expressed. Increasingly, research demonstrates the importance of the psychological and social nature of the feeding context, and how it may be affected by maternal mental state, feeding skills and sensitivity. As such, feeding interactions may provide useful contexts for observations of maternal sensitivity, reflecting well on day-to-day maternal sensitivity.

Early markers of cystic fibrosis structural lung disease: follow-up of the ACFBAL cohort.

Little is known about early predictors of later cystic fibrosis (CF) structural lung disease. This study examined early predictors of progressive structural lung abnormalities in children who completed the Australasian CF Bronchoalveolar Lavage (ACFBAL) clinical trial at age 5-years and participated in an observational follow-up study (CF-FAB).Eight Australian and New Zealand CF centres participated in CF-FAB and provided follow-up chest computed-tomography (CT) scans for children who had completed the ACFBAL study with baseline scans at age 5-years.

The role of maternal anxiety disorder subtype, parenting and infant stable temperamental inhibition in child anxiety: a prospective longitudinal study.

Background: Social anxiety disorder (SAD) aggregates in families. To elucidate intergenerational transmission of risk, we examined whether childhood SAD and symptoms of anxiety were prospectively predicted by stable infant temperamental inhibition, maternal SAD, maternal generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and maternal parenting behaviours.

Methods: We conducted a longitudinal study beginning prenatally with follow-up at 4, 10, 14 and 58 months postnatally.

A randomised controlled trial of treatments of childhood anxiety disorder in the context of maternal anxiety disorder: clinical and cost-effectiveness outcomes.

Background: This study evaluated whether clinical and economic outcomes from CBT for child anxiety disorders in the context of maternal anxiety disorders are improved by adding treatment focused on (a) maternal anxiety disorders or (b) mother-child interactions.

Methods: Two hundred and eleven children (7-12 years, 85% White British, 52% female) with a primary anxiety disorder, whose mothers also had a current anxiety disorder, were randomised to receive (a) child-focused CBT with nonspecific control interventions (CCBT+Con), (b) CCBT with CBT for the maternal anxiety disorder (CCBT+MCBT), or (c) CCBT with an intervention targeting the mother-child interaction (CCBT+MCI). A cost-utility analysis from a societal perspective was conducted using mother/child combined quality-adjusted life years (QALYs).

The utility of the SCAS-C/P to detect specific anxiety disorders among clinically anxious children.

Questionnaire measures offer a time and cost-effective alternative to full diagnostic assessments for identifying and differentiating between potential anxiety disorders and are commonly used in clinical practice. Little is known, however, about the capacity of questionnaire measures to detect specific anxiety disorders in clinically anxious preadolescent children. This study aimed to establish the ability of the Spence Children's Anxiety Scale (SCAS) subscales to identify children with specific anxiety disorders in a large clinic-referred sample (N = 1,438) of children aged 7 to 12 years.

Shared Picture Book Reading Interventions for Child Language Development: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

Interventions that train parents to share picture books with children are seen as a strategy for supporting child language development. We conducted meta-analyses using robust variance estimation modeling on results from 19 RCTs (N  = 2,594; M  = 1-6 years). Overall, book-sharing interventions had a small sized effect on both expressive language (d = 0.

The impact of early-years provision in Children's Centres (EPICC) on child cognitive and socio-emotional development: study protocol for a randomised controlled trial.

Background: There are marked disparities between pre-school children in key skills affecting school readiness, disparities that commonly persist and influence children's later academic achievements, employment, and adjustment. Much of this disparity is linked to socio-economic disadvantage and its impact on the home learning environment. Children's Centres are an ideal context in which to implement and evaluate programmes to address this problem.

Mitigating the effect of persistent postnatal depression on child outcomes through an intervention to treat depression and improve parenting: a randomised controlled trial.

Background: Maternal postnatal depression occurs following 10-15% of births and is associated with a range of negative child outcomes. Risks to children are particularly increased when postnatal depression is persistent. We aimed to examine whether a parenting video-feedback therapy (VFT) intervention versus a control treatment of progressive muscle relaxation (PMR), both added to cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) for persistent postnatal depression, would lead to improved child outcomes at age 2 years.

Clinical outcomes and cost-effectiveness of brief guided parent-delivered cognitive behavioural therapy and solution-focused brief therapy for treatment of childhood anxiety disorders: a randomised controlled trial.

Background: Half of all lifetime anxiety disorders emerge before age 12 years; however, access to evidence-based psychological therapies for affected children is poor. We aimed to compare the clinical outcomes and cost-effectiveness of two brief psychological treatments for children with anxiety referred to routine child mental health settings. We hypothesised that brief guided parent-delivered cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) would be associated with better clinical outcomes than solution-focused brief therapy and would be cost-effective.

Poverty, early care, and stress reactivity in adolescence: Findings from a prospective, longitudinal study in South Africa.

A considerable body of evidence suggests that early caregiving may affect the short-term functioning and longer term development of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical axis. Despite this, most research to date has been cross-sectional in nature or restricted to relatively short-term longitudinal follow-ups. More important, there is a paucity of research on the role of caregiving in low- and middle-income countries, where the protective effects of high-quality care in buffering the child's developing stress regulation systems may be crucial.

The Benefits of Early Book Sharing (BEBS) for child cognitive and socio-emotional development in South Africa: study protocol for a randomised controlled trial.

Background: Children in low and middle-income countries (LMICs) are at risk for problems in their cognitive, social and behavioural development. Factors such as a lack of cognitive stimulation, harsh parenting practices, and severe and persistent aggression in early childhood are central to the genesis of these problems. Interventions that target the intersection between early childhood development, parenting, and early violence prevention are required in order to meaningfully address these problems.

Longitudinal Association between Child Emotion Regulation and Aggression, and the Role of Parenting: A Comparison of Three Cultures.

Background: The ability to regulate emotions is a key developmental achievement acquired during social interactions and associated with better behavioral and social outcomes. We examined the influence of culture on child emotion regulation (ER) and aggression and on early parenting practices, and the role of parenting in child ER.

Methods: We assessed 48 mother-infant dyads from three cultures (1 UK, 2 South African) at infant age of 3 months for maternal sensitivity during face-to-face interactions and responses to infant distress during daily life, and at 2 years for child ER strategies and maternally reported aggression.

The story of cystic fibrosis 1965-2015.

There have been dramatic changes in the care of children with cystic fibrosis (CF) from 1965 to 2015. The initial improvements were the result of incremental gains in medical knowledge and better use of available therapies. Some CF-specific drugs were developed (recombinant human DNase and purified tobramycin for inhalation), but these simply delayed the progression of the lung damage.

Randomized controlled trial of a book-sharing intervention in a deprived South African community: effects on carer-infant interactions, and their relation to infant cognitive and socioemotional outcome.

Background: Consistent with evidence from high-income countries (HICs), we previously showed that, in an informal peri-urban settlement in a low-middle income country, training parents in book sharing with their infants benefitted infant language and attention (Vally, Murray, Tomlinson, & Cooper, ). Here, we investigated whether these benefits were explained by improvements in carer-infant interactions in both book-sharing and non-book-sharing contexts. We also explored whether infant socioemotional development benefitted from book sharing.

Altered engagement of autobiographical memory networks in adult offspring of postnatally depressed mothers.

Maternal depression is associated with increased risk for offspring mood and anxiety disorders. One possible impact of maternal depression during offspring development is on the emotional autobiographical memory system. We investigated the neural mechanisms of emotional autobiographical memory in adult offspring of mothers with postnatal depression (N=16) compared to controls (N=21).

Treatment of childhood anxiety disorder in the context of maternal anxiety disorder: a randomised controlled trial and economic analysis.

Background: Cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) for childhood anxiety disorders is associated with modest outcomes in the context of parental anxiety disorder.

Objectives: This study evaluated whether or not the outcome of CBT for children with anxiety disorders in the context of maternal anxiety disorders is improved by the addition of (i) treatment of maternal anxiety disorders, or (ii) treatment focused on maternal responses. The incremental cost-effectiveness of the additional treatments was also evaluated.