The Role of Timing and Amount of Outdoor Play in Emotional Dysregulation in Preschool Children.

Background: Currently, the time children spend playing outdoors is at an all-time low. However, the existing literature suggests that outdoor play may have cognitive and emotional benefits for children.

Methods: The present study carried out a mediation analysis to explore whether amount and timing of outdoor play affects children's emotion regulation and whether working memory mediates these relations among 325 preschool children (M = 4.

Let it go, let it go: Stop measuring child maltreatment as a binary yes/no.

Numerous methods are used in the measurement of child maltreatment (CM) exposure. As a science, it is necessary that the field of CM research evaluate its measurement approaches periodically to ensure that the common approaches are the best approaches. A prominent method for measuring CM in research as a predictor variable is to conceptualize CM as a two-level, yes/no binary variable (e.

Caregiver Report of Children's Exposure to Adverse Life Events: Concordance Between Questionnaire and Interview Approaches.

Assessment practices for measuring adverse life events (ALEs) are often characterized by considerable variability, which is associated with inconsistency and reproducibility issues when conducting research on children with ALE exposure. One aspect of assessment variability for caregiver report of children's ALE history that has received minimal attention is assessment format. To address this issue, the current study evaluated concordance between two main ALE assessment formats: interviews and questionnaires.

The longitudinal association of adverse events and working memory among preschoolers: A random-intercept cross-lag analysis.

Objective: Past research examining the relation between adversity and working memory (WM) has found mixed results and has been limited by methodological issues (e.g., cross-sectional studies, limited measurement of adversity).

Maneuvering through Life with Positivity: Estimating the Effects of Foster Youth's Appraisal on Coping Styles.

Youth in foster care tend to experience a disproportional number of adverse life experiences and demonstrate high rates of emotional and behavioral difficulties. According to the transactional model of stress and coping, how youth appraise their experiences influences the type of coping strategies they use in response to adversity, and these relations are key components to understanding later adjustment. However, few studies have examined potential effects of appraisal on coping for youth in foster care.

A social network analysis of perpetrators of child maltreatment reported by youth in foster care.

Objective: Prior research on child maltreatment has focused on distinct features of maltreatment (type, severity, chronicity) important for youth outcomes, yet perpetrators of child maltreatment reported by youth have gone largely unstudied. The present study examines connections between perpetrators, the total number and type of perpetrators reported, and the frequency at which each type of perpetrator was reported across 24 relationship types to provide a foundation for future research seeking to provide comprehensive measurement of perpetrator profiles.

Methods: Data from 503 youth in foster care (8-21 years old) were collected through the Studying Pathways to Adjustment and Resilience in Kids (SPARK) Project.

Future Directions in Child Maltreatment Research.

Child maltreatment (or child abuse and neglect) is a common area of interest in clinical child psychology. Research has examined the causes and consequences as well as the myriad risk factors and interventions that are effective in supporting child maltreatment victims and families. Child maltreatment is unique, however, from the study of disorders and even other kinds of adversity in that the scientific interest is shared across many disciplines including but not limited to, social welfare, medicine, law, and biology.

Adversity's Impact on Adults' Self-Report and Physiological Difficulties with Emotion Regulation: Appraisal as a Moderating Mechanism.

Globally, there is a high prevalence of adversity exposure, and there is evidence indicating a linear association between adversity exposure, particularly childhood adversity, and adults' psychological distress. To better understand this association, researchers have examined the role of emotion regulation abilities, which are thought to impact and underlie one's psychological well-being. The present study examined the association between childhood versus adulthood adversity exposure and self-reported difficulties with emotion regulation and physiological indicators of emotion regulation (e.

Youth Reported Perpetrators of Victimization Within a Foster Care Sample.

Maltreatment type, severity, and chronicity are predictors of poor youth outcomes, yet youth reported perpetrators of abuse have gone largely unstudied. Little is known about variation in perpetration across youth characteristics (e.g.

Perceived social support: Measurement differences in youth residing in the community versus youth residing in foster care.

Background: Social support is commonly examined as a protective factor for children with a history of child maltreatment, and it has been measured by self-report via the Social Support Scale for Children (SSSC). Although the SSSC has established adequate reliability and validity in community and clinical samples, its psychometric properties have yet to be assessed in a sample of foster care youth.

Objective: This study provided a psychometric comparison of the SSSC in youth residing in foster care with youth residing in the community.

Trying to Fit a Square Peg in a Round Hole? Testing the Robustness of Maltreatment Measurement Models for Youth.

Research on maltreatment exposure often demonstrates mixed findings and a potential explanation for this may be the measurement of maltreatment. One approach for addressing measurement concerns, which also accounts for maltreatment's multidimensional nature, is the use of a measurement or latent model. However, there is minimal evidence on the generalizability of this approach across populations of youth.

Methodological inconsistencies confound understanding of language measurement in the child maltreatment population: A systematic review.

Background: While researchers have found a link between childhood maltreatment and language difficulties, the underlying mechanisms remain unclear and replication across the literature is inconsistent.

Objective: To conduct a systematic review examining the methodological inconsistencies related to studies' samples construction, maltreatment measurement, and language outcomes using a language acquisition theory-based approach.

Methods: Using the PRISMA framework, a literature search was conducted across five databases to identify studies that have investigated the effects of maltreatment on the language dimensions of vocabulary and grammar.

Adversity effects on nonword repetition skills: A proxy measure of language and reading ability.

Background: Children exposed to adversity are at increased risk for underachievement in reading; however, how early that risk appears and the mechanisms underlying that risk are unclear.

Objective: Identify whether individual variation in nonword repetition-a clinical indicator of language and reading ability-can be captured in early childhood (three- to five-years-old) and how various features of adversity exposure (e.g.

Individual and Social Risk and Protective Factors as Predictors of Trajectories of Post-traumatic Stress Symptoms in Adolescents.

The present study elucidates heterogeneity in post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) across adolescence in a sample of youth who have experienced myriad types and combinations of potentially traumatic events (PTEs), including substantiated physical abuse, sexual abuse, neglect and/or at least one other self-reported PTE. A machine learning technique was used to assess a multivariate set of variables (e.g.

Discrepancies in youth self-report and case file report of maltreatment and association with internalizing and externalizing symptoms.

Background: Childhood maltreatment is a potential risk factor for the later development of psychopathology (Jaffee, 2017). However, there is no gold standard for identifying victims of child maltreatment, and when multiple informants - such as case files and youth self-report - are used, these sources often disagree (Cooley & Jackson, 2022).

Objective: The current study aimed to explore discrepancies between youth self-report and case file report of maltreatment and examine how these discrepancies related to internalizing and externalizing symptoms.

Adversity Exposure, Syntax, and Specific Language Impairment: An Exploratory Study.

Purpose: Children exposed to adversity (e.g., chronic poverty, traumatic events, and maltreatment) are at increased risk for performing below age expectations on norm-referenced language assessments, but it is unknown whether the risk is higher for specific language impairment (SLI).

Adding fuel to the fire? Examining exposure to potentially stressful or traumatic events before and during the COVID-19 pandemic in low-income, Black families.

Objective: The COVID-19 pandemic has upended the lives of many individuals. While emerging evidence has begun to document health (e.g.

Effects of Parents' Adversity Exposure on General and Child-Specific Hostile Attribution Bias.

Hostile attribution bias (HAB), or the tendency to interpret others' intent as hostile, has been linked to a variety of maladaptive outcomes including aggression and harsh parenting practices. The current cross-sectional study examined the influence of parents' childhood and adulthood adversity exposure (i.e.

Linking Foster Family Characteristics and Mental Health Symptoms of Youth in Care.

Youth in foster care are disproportionately at risk for developing internalizing and externalizing problems (Lawrence et al., 2006); however, a history of maltreatment prior to foster care placement does not automatically result in poor mental health outcomes. Among non-foster care youth, the quality of family interactions has been related to adjustment outcomes, such that low family cohesion and high family conflict is associated with poor mental health symptoms (Caples & Barrera, 2006).

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.

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.

Academic Functioning of Youth in Foster Care: The Influence of Unique Sources of Social Support.

Youth in foster care often experience more difficulty in school compared to their non-foster care peers. Difficulties exist across domains of academic functioning, including both performance (e.g.

Adversity Interpreted: A Scoping Review of Adversity Appraisal Measurement.

Although evidence suggests that individuals' appraisals (i.e., subjective interpretations) of adverse or traumatic life events may serve as a mechanism accounting for differences in adversity exposure and psychological adjustment, understanding this mechanism is contingent on our ability to reliably and consistently measure appraisals.