Early-life stress, such as maltreatment, institutionalization, and exposure to violence, is associated with accelerated telomere shortening. Telomere shortening may thus represent a biomarker of early adversity. Previous studies have suggested that responsive parenting may protect children from the negative biological and behavioral consequences of early adversity. This study examined the role of parental responsiveness in buffering children from telomere shortening following experiences of early-life stress. We found that high-risk children had significantly shorter telomeres than low-risk children, controlling for household income, birth weight, gender, and minority status. Further, parental responsiveness moderated the association between risk and telomere length, with more responsive parenting associated with longer telomeres only among high-risk children. These findings suggest that responsive parenting may have protective benefits on telomere shortening for young children exposed to early-life stress. Therefore, this study has important implications for early parenting interventions.

Preliminary work indicates that cognitive vulnerability to depression may be associated with variants of the serotonin transporter promoter polymorphism (5-HTTLPR) and the valine to methionine at position 66 (val66met) polymorphism of the brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) gene; however, existing reports come from small samples. The present study sought to replicate and extend this research in a sample of 375 community-dwelling children and their parents. Following a negative mood induction, children completed a self-referent encoding task tapping memory for positive and negative self-descriptive traits. Consistent with previous work, we found that children with at least one short variant of the 5-HTTLPR had enhanced memory for negative self-descriptive traits. The BDNF val66met polymorphism had no main effect but was moderated by maternal depression, such that children with a BDNF methionine allele had a heightened memory for negative self-descriptive traits when mothers had experienced depression during children's lifetimes; in contrast, children with a methionine allele had low recall of negative traits when mothers had no depression history. The findings provide further support for the notion that the 5-HTTLPR is associated with cognitive markers of depression vulnerability and that the BDNF methionine allele moderates children's sensitivity to contextual factors.

Child maltreatment, peer victimization, and a polymorphism of the serotonin transporter gene (5-HTTLPR) were examined as predictors of depressive symptomatology. Children (M age = 11.26, SD = 1.65), including 156 maltreated and 145 nonmaltreated children from comparable low socioeconomic backgrounds, provided DNA samples and self-reports of relational peer victimization, overt peer victimization, and depressive symptoms. Path analysis showed that relational and overt victimization mediated the association between child maltreatment and depressive symptoms. Bootstrapping procedures were used to test moderated mediation and demonstrated that genotype moderated the indirect effects of relational and overt victimization on child depressive symptoms, such that victimized children with the long/long variation were at an increased risk for depressive symptoms compared to victimized children carrying a short allele. Results highlight the utility of examining process models that incorporate biological and psychological factors contributing to the development of depressive symptomatology and provide direction toward understanding and promoting resilience among high-risk youth from a multiple levels of analysis approach.

Although relations between political violence and child adjustment are well documented, longitudinal research is needed to adequately address the many questions remaining about the contexts and developmental trajectories underlying the effects on children in areas of political violence. The study examined the relations between sectarian and nonsectarian community violence and adolescent adjustment problems over 4 consecutive years. Participants included 999 mother–child dyads (482 boys, 517 girls), M ages = 12.18 (SD = 1.82), 13.24 (SD = 1.83), 13.61 (SD = 1.99), and 14.66 (SD = 1.96) years, respectively, living in socially deprived neighborhoods in Belfast, Northern Ireland, a context of historical and ongoing political violence. In examining trajectories of adjustment problems, including youth experience with both sectarian and nonsectarian antisocial behaviors, sectarian antisocial behavior significantly predicted more adjustment problems across the 4 years of the study. Experiencing sectarian antisocial behavior was related to increased adolescent adjustment problems, and this relationship was accentuated in neighborhoods characterized by higher crime rates. The discussion considers the implications for further validating the distinction between sectarian and nonsectarian violence, including consideration of neighborhood crime levels, from the child's perspective in a setting of political violence.

Alterations in hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis functioning have been associated with major depression disorder (MDD) and some anxiety disorders. Few researchers have tested the possibility that high levels of recent life stress or elevations in negative emotion may partially account for the HPA axis alterations observed in these disorders. In a sample of 300 adolescents from the Youth Emotion Project, we examined associations between MDD and anxiety disorders, dimensional measures of internalizing symptomatology, life stress, mood on the days of cortisol testing, and HPA axis functioning. Adolescents with a past MDD episode and those with a recent MDD episode comorbid with an anxiety disorder had flatter diurnal cortisol slopes than adolescents without a history of internalizing disorders. Higher reports of general distress, a dimension of internalizing symptomatology, were also associated with flatter slopes. Negative emotion, specifically sadness and loneliness, was associated with flatter slopes and partially accounted for the associations between comorbid MDD and anxiety disorders and cortisol. The associations between past MDD and cortisol slopes were not accounted for by negative emotion, dimensional variation in internalizing symptomatology, or levels of life stress, indicating that flatter cortisol slopes may also be a “scar” marker of past experiences of MDD.

Although circumscribed interests are pathognomonic with autism, much about these interests remains unknown. Using the Interests Scale (IS), this study compares interests between 76 neurotypical (NT) individuals and 109 individuals with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder (HF-ASD) matched groupwise on age, IQ, and gender ratio. Participants and their parents/caregivers completed diagnostic measures (the Autism Diagnostic Interview—Revised and the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule; HF-ASD only), cognitive tests (Wechsler IQ Scales), and questionnaires (the Repetitive Behavior Scale—Revised, the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function, and the Social Responsiveness Scale), in addition to the IS. Consistent with previous research, HF-ASD and NT individuals did not differ in number of interest areas, but the types of interests and intensity of those interests differed considerably. Using only the IS intensity score, 81% of individuals were correctly classified (NT or HF-ASD) in a logistic regression analysis. Among individuals with HF-ASD, Interests Scale scores were significantly related to Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule, Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function, Repetitive Behavior Scale—Revised, and Social Responsiveness Scale scores, but they were not related to Autism Diagnostic Interview—Revised scores, IQ, gender, age, or psychotropic medication use. The type and intensity, but not the number, of interests distinguish high-functioning individuals with ASD from NT individuals.

The additive and interactive relations of parenting styles (authoritative and authoritarian parenting) and child temperament (anger/frustration, sadness, and effortful control) to children's internalizing problems were examined in a 3.8-year longitudinal study of 425 Chinese children (aged 6–9 years) from Beijing. At Wave 1, parents self-reported on their parenting styles, and parents and teachers rated child temperament. At Wave 2, parents, teachers, and children rated children's internalizing problems. Structural equation modeling indicated that the main effect of authoritative parenting and the interactions of Authoritarian Parenting × Effortful Control and Authoritative Parenting × Anger/Frustration (parents' reports only) prospectively and uniquely predicted internalizing problems. The above results did not vary by child sex and remained significant after controlling for co-occurring externalizing problems. These findings suggest that (a) children with low effortful control may be particularly susceptible to the adverse effect of authoritarian parenting and (b) the benefit of authoritative parenting may be especially important for children with high anger/frustration.

Developmental psychopathology researchers and practitioners commonly conduct behavioral assessments using multiple informants' reports (e.g., parents, teachers, practitioners, children, and laboratory observers). These assessments often yield inconsistent conclusions about important questions in developmental psychopathology research, depending on the informant (e.g., psychiatric diagnoses and risk factors of disorder). Researchers have theorized why informant discrepancies exist and advanced methodological models of informant discrepancies. However, over 50 years of empirical data has uncovered little knowledge about these discrepancies beyond that they exist, complicate interpretations of research findings and assessment outcomes in practice, and correlate with some characteristics of the informants providing reports (e.g., demographics and mood levels). Further, recent studies often yield take-home messages about the importance of taking a multi-informant approach to clinical and developmental assessments. Researchers draw these conclusions from their work, despite multi-informant approaches to assessment long being a part of best practices in clinical and developmental assessments. Consequently, developmental psychopathology researchers and practitioners are in dire need of a focused set of research priorities with the key goal of rapidly advancing knowledge about informant discrepancies. In this paper, I discuss these research priorities, review work indicating the feasibility of conducting research addressing these priorities, and specify what researchers and practitioners would gain from studies advancing knowledge about informant discrepancies in developmental psychopathology research.

Symptoms of anxiety and depression are prevalent among adolescents and associated with impairment in multiple domains of functioning. Moreover, anxiety and depression frequently co-occur, with estimated comorbidity rates as high as 75%. Whereas previous research has shown that anxiety symptoms predict increased depressive symptoms over time, the relation between depressive symptoms and later anxiety symptoms has been inconsistent. The present study examined dynamic relations between anxiety and depressive symptoms across adolescence and explored whether these longitudinal relations were moderated by maternal history of anxiety, family relationship quality, or children's attributional style. Participants included 240 children (M age = 11.86 years; 53.9% female) and their mothers, who were assessed annually for 6 years. Children reported on their depressive symptoms and mothers reported on their child's anxiety symptoms. Dynamic latent change score models indicated that anxiety symptoms predicted subsequent elevations in depressive symptoms over time. Depressive symptoms predicted subsequent elevations in anxiety symptoms among children who had mothers with a history of anxiety, reported low family relationship quality, or had high levels of negative attributions. Thus, whereas anxiety symptoms were a robust predictor of later depressive symptoms during adolescence, contextual and individual factors may be important to consider when examining relations between depressive symptoms and subsequent change in anxiety symptoms.

The biological sensitivity to context hypothesis posits that high physiological reactivity (i.e., increases in arousal from baseline) constitutes heightened sensitivity to environmental influences, for better or worse. To test this hypothesis, we examined the interactive effects of family cohesion and heart rate reactivity to a public speaking task on aggressive/rule-breaking and prosocial behavior in a large sample of adolescents (N = 679; M age = 16.14). Multivariate analyses revealed small- to medium-sized main effects of lower family cohesion and lower heart rate reactivity on higher levels of aggressive/rule-breaking and lower levels of prosocial behavior. Although there was some evidence of three-way interactions among family cohesion, heart rate reactivity, and sex in predicting these outcome variables, these interactions were not in the direction predicted by the biological sensitivity to context hypothesis. Instead, heightened reactivity appeared to operate as a protective factor against family adversity, rather than as a susceptibility factor. The results of the present study raise the possibility that stress reactivity may no longer operate as a mechanism of differential susceptibility in adolescence.

We studied the developmental trends of temperament and character in a longitudinal population-based sample of Finnish men and women aged 20–45 years using the Temperament and Character Inventory model of personality. Personality was assessed in 1997, 2001, and 2007 (n = 2,104, 2,095, and 2,056, respectively). Mean-level changes demonstrated qualitatively distinct developmental patterns for character (self-directedness, cooperativeness, and self-transcendence) and temperament (novelty seeking, harm avoidance, reward dependence, and persistence). Character developed toward greater maturity, although self-transcendence decreased with age. However, self-transcendence was the strongest predictor of overall personality change. Cohort effects indicated lower level of self-transcendence and higher level of self-directedness and cooperativeness in younger birth cohorts. Regarding temperament, novelty seeking decreased and persistence increased slightly with age. Both high novelty seeking and high persistence predicted overall personality change. These findings suggest that temperament and character traits follow different kinds of developmental trajectories.

This study tested a theoretical model of continuity in anxious emotion and its links to academic achievement in disaster-exposed youth. An urban school based sample of youths (n = 191; Grades 4–8) exposed to Hurricane Katrina were assessed at 24 months (Time 1) and then again at 30 months (Time 2) postdisaster. Academic achievement was assessed through end of the school year standardized test scores (~31 months after Katrina). The results suggest that the association of traumatic stress to academic achievement was indirect via linkages from earlier (Time 1) posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms that predicted later (Time 2) test anxiety. Time 2 test anxiety was then negatively associated with academic achievement. Age and gender invariance testing suggested strong consistency across gender and minor developmental variation in the age range examined. The model presented advances the developmental understanding of the expression of anxious emotion and its links to student achievement among disaster-exposed urban school children. The findings highlight the importance of identifying heterotypic continuity in anxiety and suggest potential applied and policy directions for disaster-exposed youth. Avenues for future theoretical refinement are also discussed.

Researchers studying longitudinal relationships among multiple problem behaviors sometimes characterize autoregressive relationships across constructs as indicating “protective” or “launch” factors or as “developmental snares.” These terms are used to indicate that initial or intermediary states of one problem behavior subsequently inhibit or promote some other problem behavior. Such models are contrasted with models of “general deviance” over time in which all problem behaviors are viewed as indicators of a common linear trajectory. When fit of the “general deviance” model is poor and fit of one or more autoregressive models is good, this is taken as support for the inhibitory or enhancing effect of one construct on another. In this paper, we argue that researchers consider competing models of growth before comparing deviance and time-bound models. Specifically, we propose use of the free curve slope intercept (FCSI) growth model (Meredith & Tisak, 1990) as a general model to typify change in a construct over time. The FCSI model includes, as nested special cases, several statistical models often used for prospective data, such as linear slope intercept models, repeated measures multivariate analysis of variance, various one-factor models, and hierarchical linear models. When considering models involving multiple constructs, we argue the construct of “general deviance” can be expressed as a single-trait multimethod model, permitting a characterization of the deviance construct over time without requiring restrictive assumptions about the form of growth over time. As an example, prospective assessments of problem behaviors from the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study (Silva & Stanton, 1996) are considered and contrasted with earlier analyses of Hussong, Curran, Moffitt, and Caspi (2008), which supported launch and snare hypotheses. For antisocial behavior, the FCSI model fit better than other models, including the linear chronometric growth curve model used by Hussong et al. For models including multiple constructs, a general deviance model involving a single trait and multimethod factors (or a corresponding hierarchical factor model) fit the data better than either the “snares” alternatives or the general deviance model previously considered by Hussong et al. Taken together, the analyses support the view that linkages and turning points cannot be contrasted with general deviance models absent additional experimental intervention or control.

Research on ethnic-minority youths' mental health has rarely examined developmental trajectories for the same ethnic group in contexts where they are a minority versus where they are the majority or mechanisms accounting for differences in trajectories across such contexts. This study examines Puerto Rican youth residing in two contexts, one in which they are in their home culture of Puerto Rico and one in which they are a minority group, in New York. We explore the relationship among social context, minority status, risk, resilience, and trajectories of internalizing symptoms after adjusting for factors related to migration. We found that youths' reports of internalizing symptoms declined over time. Youths in New York had higher levels of internalizing symptoms than did youths in Puerto Rico, but they had similar trajectories. Differences in internalizing symptoms across the two social contexts were accounted for by experiences of discrimination and exposure to violence. Parental monitoring was associated with fewer internalizing symptoms across the two sites, although this effect diminished over time. Contrary to what was expected, family religiosity was associated with higher levels of internalizing symptoms. This association was stronger in New York than in the Puerto Rico site.

Restricted and repetitive behaviors (RRBs) are hallmark symptoms of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs); however, it has proven difficult to understand the mechanisms underlying these behaviors. One hypothesis suggests that RRBs are the result of a core deficit in attention. Alternatively, abnormalities of the motor system may constitute the central mechanism underlying RRBs, given motor deficits observed in ASDs. In this experiment, we investigated the etiology of RRBs and the relationship between attention and motor deficits. Movement impairments (a) may be indirectly related to attention deficits, (b) may result from a shared compromised process, or (c) may be independent. Twenty-two adolescents with ASD and 20 typically developing participants performed a spatial attention task. Movement impairments were assessed with a rhythmic tapping task. Attentional orienting and motor control were found to be related and supported the hypothesis that these impairments in ASD arise from a shared process. In contrast, measures of attention switching and motor control were found to be independent. Stereotyped behaviors, as assessed by parental ratings, were related more to the degree of motor impairment than to deficits of attention. These results suggest that both attentional orienting deficits and stereotyped RRBs are related to a compromised motor system.

The purpose of the present study is to identify child and adult correlates that differentiate (a) individuals with persistent alcohol dependence from individuals with developmentally limited alcohol dependence and (b) individuals with adult-onset alcohol dependence from individuals who never diagnose. There are 1,037 members of the Dunedin Longitudinal Study, which is a birth cohort followed prospectively from birth until age 32. Past-year DSM-IV alcohol dependence diagnoses are ascertained with structured diagnostic interviews at ages 18, 21, 26, and 32. Individuals are classified as developmentally limited, persistent, or adult-onset subtypes based on their time-ordered pattern of diagnoses. The persistent subtype generally exhibits the worst scores on all correlates, including family psychiatric history, adolescent and adult externalizing and internalizing problems, adolescent and adult substance use, adult quality of life, and coping strategies. The prospective predictors that distinguished them from the developmentally limited subtype involved family liability, adolescent negative affectivity, daily alcohol use, and frequent marijuana use. Furthermore, young people who develop the persistent subtype of alcohol dependence are distinguished from the developmentally limited subtype by an inability to reduce drinking and by continued use despite problems by age 18. The adult-onset group members are virtually indistinguishable from ordinary cohort members as children or adolescents; however, in adulthood, adult-onset cases are distinguished by problems with depression, substance use, stress, and strategies for coping with stress. Information about age of onset and developmental course is fundamental for identifying subtypes of alcohol dependence. Subtype-specific etiologies point to targeted prevention and intervention efforts based on the characteristics of each subtype.

A secondary analysis of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development was conducted to test the mechanisms by which relational aggression in third grade was associated both directly and indirectly with relational victimization in sixth grade. A large sample (N = 1,035; 522 girls; M = 8.3 years old; SD = 0.23) and multiple informants (teacher, child, and parent report) and methods were used to test several theoretically driven hypotheses. Our path analysis model suggested evidence for both direct and indirect pathways consistent with the sequential social process model of peer harassment. Relational aggression was significantly associated with future relational victimization even after controlling for physical aggression and gender. Loneliness mediated the direct association between relational aggression and peer victimization. A second model testing the reverse direction of effect revealed that relational victimization in third grade predicted relational aggression in sixth grade and was associated with loneliness and depressive symptoms in fifth grade, but there was no evidence for any of the indirect pathways.

The purpose of this study was to determine whether five subcomponents of children's externalizing behavior showed distinctive patterns of long-term growth and predictive correlates. We examined growth in teachers' ratings of overt aggression, covert aggression, oppositional defiance, impulsivity/inattention, and emotion dysregulation across three developmental periods spanning kindergarten through Grade 8 (ages 5–13 years). We also determined whether three salient background characteristics, family socioeconomic status, child ethnicity, and child gender, differentially predicted growth in discrete categories of child externalizing symptoms across development. Participants were 543 kindergarten-age children (52% male, 81% European American, 17% African American) whose problem behaviors were rated by teachers each successive year of development through Grade 8. Latent growth curve analyses were performed for each component scale, contrasting with overall externalizing, in a piecewise fashion encompassing three developmental periods: kindergarten–Grade 2, Grades 3–5, and Grades 6–8. We found that most subconstructs of externalizing behavior increased significantly across the early school age period relative to middle childhood and early adolescence. However, overt aggression did not show early positive growth, and emotion dysregulation significantly increased across middle childhood. Advantages of using subscales were most clear in relation to illustrating different growth functions between the discrete developmental periods. Moreover, growth in some discrete subcomponents was differentially associated with variations in family socioeconomic status and ethnicity. Our findings strongly affirmed the necessity of adopting a developmental approach to the analysis of growth in children's externalizing behavior and provided unique data concerning similarities and differences in growth between subconstructs of child and adolescent externalizing behavior.

This study tests a model of young adult romantic quality as a moderator of the effects of early caregiving on anxious–depressed symptoms over a 9-year period in adulthood. Participants (n = 93) were a subsample from a longitudinal study of risk and adaptation. Quality of early caregiving was measured using observational data collected at five points in the first 4 years of life. Young adult romantic relationship quality was assessed from interviews with participants at age 23. Self-report anxious–depressed symptoms were measured at ages 23, 26, and 32. The results indicated that romantic quality moderated early caregiving to predict symptom levels across this period, with evidence for inoculation, amplification, and compensation effects. A discriminant analysis examining young adult work competence as a moderator provided further evidence for the distinctiveness of romantic relationships in changing the association between early caregiving and adult internalizing symptoms.

Two independent prospective longitudinal studies that cumulatively spanned the age interval from 4 years to 14 years used multiwave designs to investigate developmental associations between language and behavioral adjustment (internalizing and externalizing behavior problems). Altogether 224 children, their mothers, and teachers provided data. Series of nested path analysis models were used to determine the most parsimonious and plausible paths among the three constructs over and above stability in each across age and their covariation at each age. In both studies, children with poorer language skills in early childhood had more internalizing behavior problems in later childhood and in early adolescence. These developmental paths between language and behavioral adjustment held after taking into consideration children's nonverbal intellectual functioning, maternal verbal intelligence, education, parenting knowledge, and social desirability bias, as well as family socioeconomic status, and they applied equally to girls and boys.