Research has robustly demonstrated that children exposed to early ecological adversity are at risk for developing antisocial, externalizing behavior problems (rule breaking, aggression, disregard for others). Yet, studies have also demonstrated multifinality in developmental pathways unfolding in adversity’s aftermath, with many children showing remarkable resilience. Understanding sources of such resilience is critical, especially across different populations (Luthar et al., 2006, 2015). In Family Study (FS, 102 low-risk mothers, fathers, and infants) and Play Study (PS, 186 high-risk mother-toddler dyads), we test a model of parent–child attachment security, observed at 15 months in FS and 2.5 years in PS, as a moderator of effects of early family ecological adversity, assessed as a cumulative score of sociodemographic risks (graded for severity) at 7 months in FS and 2.5 years in PS, on children’s antisocial, externalizing problems, observed and parent-reported at 5.5 years in FS and 7 years in PS. We supported moderation for mother–child relationships in both studies: Higher early family adversity was associated with more antisocial outcomes five years later, but only for children with less secure attachments. We highlight the key role of early security as a protective factor and a source of resilience for children in families experiencing adversity.

This study examined whether childhood adversity, specifically threat-related adversity, was associated with within-person changes in the cortisol awakening response (CAR) and diurnal cortisol slope (DCS), and whether these changes predicted increased depressive symptoms during adolescence. We also explored sex differences. In total, 283 first-year secondary school students in Belgium (M = 12.48 years; SD = 0.39; 42.8% female) participated in six assessments over 2.5 years. Childhood adversity (psychological, physical, and sexual victimization) reported at the first three waves was averaged. CAR and DCS latent residual change scores were derived from salivary cortisol samples collected during waves 1 and 3. Depressive symptom changes were assessed in linear growth curve models using self-reports from waves 3 to 6. The childhood adversity × sex interaction significantly predicted CAR and DCS changes, indicating a blunted CAR across waves for victimized boys, and a blunted DCS for victimized girls. Childhood adversity predicted the depressive symptoms intercept. No other predictors were associated with the depressive symptoms intercept, and none were linked to the depressive symptoms slope. Thus, childhood adversity may be linked to changes in diurnal cortisol patterns that differ by sex. Evidence for diurnal cortisol changes as a pathway to increased depressive symptoms remains inconclusive.

Delayed reward discounting (DRD), the tendency to prefer smaller rewards available immediately relative to larger rewards available after a delay, is associated with numerous health outcomes across the lifespan. Emerging literature points to the central role of early environments, specifically factors reflecting harshness (including lack of resources) and unpredictability (exposure to instability and stressful events) in the development of DRD. Yet, existing research uses disparate indicators of environmental risk and often draws on small samples resulting in conflicting findings, making comparisons across studies challenging. The current systematic review examined environmental factors that may place youth at greatest risk for heightened DRD and subsequent negative health outcomes. Search results identified 28 articles reflecting 20 unique samples. Additionally, meta-analyses were conducted to examine overall effects for the two most commonly examined environmental predictors (family income and family history of substance use disorder). Results suggest small-to-medium associations of environmental risk with DRD, with smaller associations observed for more distal predictors of harshness (e.g., family income) and larger associations among more proximal indicators of environmental instability (e.g., harsh parenting and parental pathology). Findings highlight the role of environmental factors on DRD development and may inform future interventions.

Early identification of risk for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms can enable more timely interventions and improve long-term outcomes. While previous research has linked various maternal and perinatal factors to ADHD, few studies have examined these predictors collectively in a single comprehensive analysis. This study aimed to assess whether later ADHD symptoms can be predicted from information available at birth, specifically ethnicity, maternal metabolic markers, mental health, and socioeconomic status. It additionally aimed to identify the most influential predictors. Using data from the Born in Bradford (BiB) study, we applied multiple linear regression (LR) and machine learning techniques to predict ADHD symptoms as measured by the Hyperactivity/Inattention subscale of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). A 10-fold cross-validated LR model explained 6.97% of the variance in SDQ scores. In the random forest model, infant male sex and maternal smoking during pregnancy emerged as the top predictors. These findings provide proof of principle for early identification of children at risk of ADHD. Future models may benefit from incorporating additional perinatal data to improve predictive accuracy.

Parental mentalizing, or the parent’s capacity to think about the child as having an inner psychological world, has been shown to play an important role in sensitive parenting and child socioemotional development. Studies suggest that high levels of stress impair (parental) mentalizing, yet surprisingly few studies have experimentally investigated this. The present study aimed to address this gap by investigating the impact of child-focused stress on parental mentalizing measured using a newly developed self-report questionnaire, following an experimental design with a computer-controlled baby simulator in a sample of 29 community mothers. Both subjective arousal, measured by a self-report item, and biological arousal, assessed through galvanic skin response, were measured throughout the experiment. Attachment dimensions, childhood trauma, and borderline personality disorder (BPD) features were assessed at baseline. Results demonstrated that the induction of child-focused stress was associated with an increase in parental mentalizing difficulties. Increases in mentalizing difficulties were, in turn, associated with increases in subjective and biological arousal following the simulator task. Finally, attachment anxiety and childhood trauma were positively correlated with both arousal and parental mentalizing difficulties in the simulator task, whereas attachment avoidance and BPD features were not. The implications of these findings for early intervention are discussed.

Methylation alterations of the glucocorticoid receptor gene (NR3C1) may help explain why not all individuals experiencing insensitive parenting develop behavior problems, yet evidence from human cohorts remains limited. This longitudinal study examined associations among NR3C1 methylation, caregiver parenting, and child internalizing and externalizing behaviors. A total of 224 Han Chinese preschoolers (Mage = 47.33 ± 9.60 months; 42.5% girls) were recruited from Jinan, China, in 2021 (T1). Parenting quality and child behavior problems were reported by both parents, and NR3C1 methylation across 46 cytosine–phosphate–guanine sites in the exon 1F promoter region was sequenced from buccal cells. Follow-up assessments were conducted 1.5 years later among 113 children who stayed in the same kindergarten (Mage = 63.60 ± 7.68 months; 45.7% girls). NR3C1 methylation at baseline moderated the association between parenting and baseline, but not follow-up, behavior problems, consistent with differential susceptibility. Children with lower methylation exhibited more behavior problems under low-quality parenting but fewer under high-quality parenting. This interaction did not vary between parental and child sex, or NR3C1 BclI (rs41423247) and Tth111I (rs10052957) polymorphisms. Findings highlight the dynamic nature of Epigenome × Environment interactions and suggest that lower NR3C1 methylation may act as a plasticity factor in preschool children.

Economic hardship is known to shape children’s self-regulation, yet little is understood about how fluctuations in hardship unfold over time and whether different patterns of unpredictability carry unique developmental consequences. Using a socioeconomically diverse sample, we tracked families’ subjective economic hardship across 15–36 monthly assessments and applied an environmental statistics framework to quantify four indices of unpredictability: changepoints in mean, changepoints in variance, coefficient of variation, and noise. PCA identified two distinct forms of economic unpredictability: one marked by frequent, unpredictable hardship, and another by infrequent but abrupt hardship. Economic unpredictability was disproportionately experienced by racially minoritized and lower-income families in our sample, reinforcing structural inequities in economic resources. Relations between these indices and caregiver-reported measures of family routines and day-to-day unpredictability were weak, suggesting wide heterogeneity in the ways families adapt to economic unpredictability. Leveraging propensity score methods, we isolated the effects of unpredictability from hardship severity, finding that both were associated with greater self-regulation challenges in early childhood, with the strongest effects for hardship severity. These findings underscore the importance of capturing economic hardship as a dynamic and multidimensional experience, with implications for policy efforts aimed at promoting stability in families’ access to resources over time.

Supportive parenting experiences link to secure attachment development, and secure attachment in turn links to children’s emotional well-being. However, little is known whether child-factors, like their environmental sensitivity, moderate these associations for better or for worse. We used longitudinal data (three data waves spanning two years) from 614 children (Wave 1: Mage = 10.28; SDage = 0.58; 44% boys). At all waves, attachment was operationalized as children’s knowledge of the Secure Base Script with a coded narrative task. Children filled out questionnaires on supportive parenting, their environmental sensitivity and their depressive symptoms. Parents filled out questionnaires on children’s internalizing problems. Results: environmental sensitivity moderated the link between supportive parenting and attachment. More sensitive children that perceived their parents as less supportive less likely developed SBS knowledge. Further, environmental sensitivity moderated the link between SBS knowledge and the development of internalizing problems. More sensitive children with less SBS knowledge developed more internalizing problems. The findings support the importance of accounting for environmental sensitivity in attachment research.

Early deprivation holds far-reaching implications for academic performance in adolescence. Yet, the implicated cascading mechanisms remain under-delineated, and little is known about why children may display diverse patterns of cognitive development. To address such gaps, we leveraged long-term longitudinal data derived from the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study (n = 2,085). Results indicated that early deprivation (age 3, caregivers’ reports and observers’ ratings; controlling for early threat and unpredictability) was negatively associated with adolescent academic performance (age 15, adolescents’ reports) indirectly through a negative association with cognitive ability in middle childhood (age 9, standardized tests). Furthermore, such an indirect effect was less pronounced among children with higher (versus lower) negative emotionality (age 1, mothers’ ratings), given that the negative link between early deprivation and subsequent cognitive ability was weaker among children with higher (versus lower) negative emotionality. Breaking down cognitive ability into sub-components (i.e., working memory, language ability, reading comprehension, and problem-solving), both language ability and applied problem-solving were involved in the deprivation-emotionality interaction. These findings highlight the critical role of cognitive ability in accounting for the long-term academic consequences of early deprivation and the key role of negative emotionality in shaping heterogeneity in such pathways.

Traditionally, early life adversity research has focused on negative outcomes. Contrastingly, the hidden talents framework asserts that many individuals develop specialized abilities as a direct result of their adversity exposure. This framework serves as the foundation for the current study, which systematically reviews extant empirical studies investigating hidden talents or stress-adapted skills in individuals who have experienced early adversity. Synthesizing data through a developmental lens, this review examines how these skills manifest at different stages of development. Guided by the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses, we searched four databases and identified 45 eligible studies. Data on country of origin, sample size, predictor and outcome themes, and participant characteristics were extracted. Categorized into cognitive, social, and physiological domains, findings reveal that early adversity was associated with adaptive skills aligned with environmental demands (e.g., heightened emotional awareness, intuitive decision-making, empathy). While cognitive adaptations were the most studied, social and physiological adaptations remain underexplored. Some studies also reported null effects. Future directions include calls for examination of developmental pathways, longitudinal designs, diverse sampling, and culturally responsive approaches to better understand hidden talents and inform strength-based interventions.

Callous-unemotional (CU) traits, characterized by lack of empathy, guilt, and deficient affect, are linked to facial emotion recognition (FER) deficits in children. While anxiety is also associated with FER anomalies, these relationships are often examined in isolation despite co-occurrence. This study aims to concurrently investigate unique contributions of CU traits and anxiety on children’s FER patterns. We recruited 107 children aged 6 to 11 from community settings, assessing CU traits through caregiver reports and anxiety via caregiver and child reports. FER performance was evaluated using a computer-based task. Results indicate that CU traits negatively impact overall FER accuracy, particularly when controlling for parent-reported anxiety. CU traits were inversely related to total FER accuracy for children self-reporting high anxiety levels. These findings enhance our understanding of how CU traits and anxiety interact to influence FER deficits, suggesting that interventions targeting CU traits should consider anxiety symptoms as a critical factor in emotional processing challenges among children.

Research finds genetic predisposition for depression is associated with increases in depression across adolescence and adulthood. In turn, depressive symptoms in adolescence are associated with substance use. However, there has been modest examination of genetic predisposition for depression, growth in depressive symptoms, and substance use from late childhood through adolescence, and mostly in White samples. Also, psychosocial interventions can attenuate associations between genetic predisposition and psychopathology, a genotype by intervention (GxI) effect. We examined associations among polygenic risk for depression, growth in depressive symptoms from age 7 to 16, and substance use at age 16, as well as moderation by a family-based preventive intervention. Participants were African-ancestry (n = 154) and European-ancestry (n = 219) youth from the Early Steps Multisite Study, half of whom participated in the Family Check-Up intervention. A small polygenic by intervention effect was found on reductions in depressive symptoms for African-ancestry youth, and growth in depressive symptoms was positively associated with substance use at age 16. In sensitivity analyses, a small GxI effect was detected in European-ancestry youth on reductions in depressive symptom slopes from age 10 to 16. These findings highlight how early intervention can buffer genetic effects on depressive symptoms over time.

Theoretical perspectives propose that positive childhood experiences (PCEs) are associated with adult mental health symptoms. The aim of the current study was to conduct a meta-analysis to evaluate the correlations between PCEs and adult mental health symptoms. 41 unique studies (N = 74,492) were included. Significant, negative, medium-to-large, effects were observed between PCEs and each mental health symptom (medium-to-large for overall mental health: r = −.268; and depression: r = −.273; for anxiety: r = −.246; and PTSD: r = −.243), indicating that higher levels of PCEs are linked to fewer mental health difficulties in adulthood. Meta-regression analyses identified current age at the time of mental health assessment and adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) as significant moderators. Specifically, the promotive effects of PCEs were stronger among younger adults and weakened with higher ACEs exposure, particularly in relation to overall adult mental health symptoms, depression, PTSD, and anxiety. In contrast, no significant moderation effects were found for sex or the type of PCEs measurement tool used. Integrated prevention frameworks that combine ACEs prevention with PCEs promotion can enhance mental health across the lifespan by addressing both risk and promotive pathways and providing developmentally tailored support.

Child maltreatment increases the risk of emotional and behavioral problems, yet many children demonstrate resilience, functioning better than expected given their level of maltreatment exposure. Although resilience is a dynamic process shaped by children’s social support, including friendships, how different patterns of resilience and friendship support unfold together across development remains unclear. To better understand this process, we examined how patterns of emotional resilience, behavioral resilience, and friendship support co-develop across childhood and adolescence. We used group-based multi-trajectory modeling with data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (N = 6, 518, 51% female) to identify distinct patterns of emotional and behavioral resilience (doing better-than-expected given their level of maltreatment exposure) and friendship support, across five timepoints from ages 6 to 17 years. We identified five trajectory groups. Nearly half the sample maintained high emotional and behavioral resilience and friendship support across development. While resilience trajectories varied, friendship support was generally high across groups. Most children followed trajectories of high resilience and perceived friendship support. Even among children with lower emotional and/or behavioral resilience trajectories, friendship support remained high, an encouraging finding. Future research should examine how children’s other relationships (e.g., with parents and siblings) unfold alongside resilience.

Posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTS) have been observed in children exposed to family violence. Although functioning improves for many children after cessation of violence, pathways to recovery are poorly understood. This study tests the mediating pathways between changes in family violence and children’s PTS through children’s emotional security, parental stress, and parents’ PTS. We used longitudinal data of 562 children and their parents who were referred to child protection service. Data included three waves over a one and a half years period. Questionnaire data of both children and parents were analyzed in R Lavaan with Random Intercept Cross Lagged Panel Models to examine intrafamilial associations. Child-reported, but not parent-reported, decreases in family violence predicted decreases in child PTS from the first to the second wave. Changes in parental stress, parent PTS, and emotional security did not mediate the associations between change in family violence and child PTS. We found in exploratory analyses that decreases in parental stress predicted decreases in parent-reported family violence. The results emphasize the importance of reducing family violence for children to recover from PTS. Parental stress may be a factor in restoring safety.

Empirical literature on the trajectory of task performance in children is currently scarce. Therefore, this study investigates both the developmental trajectory of flanker task performance in children and the association with the development of teacher-reported problem behavior. Five waves of flanker performance and behavioral and emotional problems were drawn from a large longitudinal sample of elementary school children in the Netherlands (1424 children, ages 7 to 12 years). Latent growth curve modeling (LGM) identified a piecewise decrease in flanker response time: the steepest decline was found from 7 to 9 years old. Boys had lower levels of response time at age 7 than girls. Children showed a linear decrease in behavioral and emotional problems over time. Parallel LGMs revealed that lower levels of initial flanker response time were associated with a stronger decrease in anxiety problems and oppositional defiant-related behavior. A faster decline in response time was associated with a faster decline in depression problems, attention deficit hyperactivity-, and oppositional defiant-related behavior. Results offer insight into the normative development of performance monitoring in childhood and the link between behavioral measures of performance monitoring and behavioral and emotional problems. Future research should focus on the directionality of the association between performance monitoring and psychopathology.

While empathy is often seen as a resilience factor, emotional resonance with others’ suffering may increase psychological vulnerability during mass trauma exposure, particularly in youth. Since the role of early empathy as a prospective risk factor remains understudied, we used a decade-long longitudinal design to examine whether empathic reactions in childhood predicted early adolescents’ internalizing (depression and anxiety) symptoms following the October 7th attack and the Israel–Hamas war. Empathic distress was assessed at age 1.5 years and age 3 years through observational tasks. Emotional empathy and internalizing symptoms were self-reported at age 11 years, before the war, and reported again after its outbreak. Findings showed substantial internalizing symptoms during the war, with 31% of participants exceeding the clinical cutoff for anxiety and 23% for depression. Non of the empathy measures predicted internalizing symptoms before the war. However, during the war, empathic distress at age 1.5 and emotional empathy at age 11 predicted internalizing symptoms, controlling for negative emotionality and prior internalizing symptoms. Path analysis also linked empathic distress at age 3 to internalizing symptoms during war. Findings suggest that early empathic reactions may increase vulnerability to internalizing symptoms during mass trauma but not in non-traumatic contexts, aligning with a diathesis-stress model. Understanding empathy’s role in risk and resilience can inform interventions for youth exposed to war.

Fathers have a unique and critical role in children’s development, but limited empirical studies have examined prenatal predictors of fathers’ parenting behaviors. Exposure to early life stressors may alter adult brain white matter fibers, especially in fibers supporting optimal cognitive and emotional functioning. As such, men with experiences of early life stressors, such as risky family environments, may enter parenthood with neurobiological differences that impact their ability to provide optimal parenting. Few studies focus on early life stressors on men’s prenatal neurobiology and subsequent parenting outcomes. This study of first-time fathers (n = 41; Mage = 31.81 years; 32% Hispanic; 32% White; 24% Asian American; 7% Black; 5% Multiracial) investigated whether risky family environments would be associated with prenatal white matter organization and postpartum parenting (infants’ Mage = 6.96 months). White matter organization was quantified through fractional anisotropy (FA), a measure of the directionality of the fibers within the tissue. Fathers reporting riskier family environments exhibited lower FA in white matter tracts like fornix and cingulum, which support connections between brain areas underlying memory and emotion regulation. Lower FA in these regions predicted less effective parenting postpartum. Findings provide insight into intergenerational transmission of family risk.