Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology最新文献

Parent-child behavioral synchrony-the dyad's moment-to-moment coordination of behavior and emotion-supports children's socioemotional development, yet most evidence comes from cross-sectional community samples using global indices, limiting clinical insight for heterogeneous conduct problems (CP). This prospective study tested baseline differences and treatment-related change in discrete synchrony facets among clinic-referred children with CP, comparing CP-only, primary callous-unemotional (CU; CU without internalizing problems), and secondary CU (CU with internalizing problems) variants. Mother-child and father-child dyads of N = 234 children aged 2-7 years (74% boys) completed standardized play tasks that were coded into four Mutually Responsive Orientation dimensions (Coordinated Routines, Mutual Cooperation, Harmonious Communication, Emotional Ambience); parents completed questionnaires assessing child CP, CU traits, and internalizing symptoms. A subsample (n = 142) received parent training and was re-assessed post-treatment and at three-month follow-up. At baseline, mother-child Harmonious Communication and Emotional Ambience were significantly lower in secondary CU than in primary CU and CP-only groups. Parent training significantly improved synchrony across dyads from baseline to post-treatment, with maintenance for mothers. However, despite overall gains, synchrony remained lower for secondary CU than primary CU variants at follow-up (mothers), and father-child Harmonious Communication deteriorated from post-treatment to follow-up in secondary CU relative to improvement in primary CU. Findings indicate variant-specific synchrony deficits, especially affective facets, in secondary CU and attenuated normalization following parent training, refining etiological accounts and highlighting the need to tailor synchrony-focused treatment targets for CP subgroups.

Mental health in late childhood and early adolescence reflects both low psychopathology and strong positive resources. This study examined within-person links among subjective well-being (SWB), hope, and depressive symptoms across five annual waves as students progressed from grades 4 to 8 in China (N = 1,128; T1 M_age = 10.35, SD = 0.48; 51.5% were boys and 48.5% were girls; ethnicity was not assessed). Using a random-intercept cross-lagged panel model, we separated stable between-person differences from within-person fluctuations and estimated cross-lagged effects. Results supported an asymmetric cascade: higher SWB predicted subsequent increases in hope, and higher hope predicted later reductions in depressive symptoms; reverse paths were generally non-significant. Two grade-specific exceptions (grade 4 to 5: depression negatively predicted hope; grade 7 to 8: hope predicted SWB) suggested developmental and contextual moderation. Overall, SWB appears to initiate a process that cultivates hope, which then buffers future depressive symptoms, highlighting school-relevant interventions that enhance SWB and build hope in late childhood.

We examined the longitudinal associations between relational victimization, depressive symptoms, and e-cigarette use intentions among adolescents in Guam, a U.S.-Affiliated Pacific Island in the Western Pacific region. We also explored potential gender differences in these associations. Data were drawn from three waves of surveys that were administered to public middle school students (N = 528; M = 12.66, SD = 0.89). In a parallel process growth curve model, our results indicated that, at the intercept level, higher levels of relational victimization were associated with greater levels of depressive symptoms, which were, in turn, related to stronger intentions to use e-cigarettes. However, relational victimization was not directly associated with e-cigarette use intentions. Girls experienced more relational victimization and showed more depressive symptoms than boys, but not e-cigarette use intentions. Furthermore, at the slope level, changes in relational victimization were associated with changes in e-cigarette use intentions. Although the changes in relational victimization covaried with changes in depressive symptoms, there was no mediation effect. The overall mediation model did not differ between boys and girls. In the context of the Pacific Islands, we discussed clinical and developmental implications, as well as directions for future research.

This study tested children's self-efficacy as a moderator of the associations among temperamental indices of impulsivity and inhibition and their subsequent internalizing and externalizing behaviors two years later. Participants included 243 families, including mothers and preschool children (M age = 4.60 years; 56% girls; 54% Black or multi-racial, 19% Latinx; median annual income = $36,000). The current study utilized a multi-method, multi-informant longitudinal design with two measurement occasions spaced two years apart. Findings from the structural equation modeling analyses indicated that the latent interaction between children's behavioral inhibition and self-efficacy selectively predicted residualized change in their internalizing symptoms over a two-year period, β = -.22, p = .02. In contrast, the latent interaction between children's impulsivity and self-efficacy specifically predicted residualized change in their externalizing symptoms across the two-year timespan, β = -.18, p = .03. Follow up analyses of the two interactions supported the hypothesis that self-efficacy buffered children from the specific risks associated with exhibiting high levels of impulsivity and behavioral inhibition.

The Family Stress Model (FSM) is a key framework explaining the relationship between family income and child mental health. However, most studies examining the FSM are cross-sectional and do not clearly distinguish within- from between-person effects, which limits robust inferences about how family income affects child mental health at the within-person level. This study addressed this gap by applying a Random Intercept Cross-Lagged Panel Model to data from the nationally representative UK Millennium Cohort Study, focusing on children aged 3, 5, 7, 11, and 14 (N = 11,845; ~49.9% female). Findings revealed that within-person decreases in family income were associated with subsequent increases in internalizing problems for boys from ages 3 to 5 and for girls from ages 7 to 11. Further, income was associated with externalizing problems indirectly but only among girls and only through maternal, not paternal, distress. Together, these findings suggest that within-person FSM processes operate in gender- and outcome-specific ways within families. Interventions may benefit from considering both child and parent gender, with maternal mental health as a particularly relevant target during economic hardship.

Although offspring of mothers with major depressive disorder (MDD) are at heightened risk for the disorder, most never develop depression, highlighting the need to identify moderators of risk. Co-rumination, the tendency to frequently and passively discuss problems with a peer without any active problem-solving, is a known risk factor in youth and may help to identify which offspring of mothers with MDD are at greatest risk. We tested this hypothesis using data from a multi-wave longitudinal study, examining prospective changes in youths' depressive symptoms and risk for MDD onset during the two-year follow-up. Participants were 214 children (ages 8-14 at baseline) of mothers with (n = 106) or without (n = 108) a history of MDD. At baseline, mothers completed a diagnostic interview, and children completed a self-report measure of co-rumination. Follow up assessments, completed every 6 months for 2 years, were used to assess depressive symptoms and the onset of MDD episodes in children. Supporting our hypothesis, among offspring of mothers with MDD, but not among offspring of never depressed mothers, higher levels of co-rumination at the baseline assessment predicted higher levels of depressive symptoms in offspring at baseline the assessment that were maintained through the end of the follow-up period, as well as increased risk for the onset of MDD across the follow-up. These results highlight the role of co-rumination, which is a modifiable risk factor that may be targeted in prevention and early intervention programs to reduce risk for the intergenerational transmission of depression.

Heightened error-related negativity (ERN), a neural marker of error sensitivity and trait defensive reactivity, and maladaptive appraisals of interpersonal events have each been linked to adolescent internalizing symptoms. Few studies have evaluated a developmental mechanistic model to test whether enhanced ERN might prospectively predict more negative perceptions of peer and family events, and if through this pathway, internalizing symptoms increase. The present study tested this hypothesis in a sample of 79 female adolescents (ages 11-16 years old), of whom 36 adolescents had mothers with histories of internalizing disorders. At baseline, the participants' ERN was measured through electroencephalogram recordings while completing a computerized flanker task. At baseline and 6-month follow-up, participants completed self-report measures of adolescent perceptions of family and peer events and internalizing symptoms. Analyses were conducted within a structural equation modeling framework to capitalize on the full dataset. Three competing models (correlated outcomes, negative perceptions of interpersonal events mediation, reverse internalizing symptoms mediation) were tested and relative model fit comparisons were made to determine which model fit the data better. We found partial support for our hypotheses. For the family events models, there was stronger evidence that baseline ERN predicted increases in internalizing symptoms via increases in negative perceptions of family events. However, for the peer events models, there was stronger evidence that internalizing symptoms mediated the prospective associations between baseline ERN and increases in negative perceptions of peer events. Future research should consider reciprocal effects among these pathways and how these processes could be targeted by preventive interventions.

Cyber aggression is a developmental concern during adolescence. Grounded in the General Aggression Model, this three-wave longitudinal study examined whether violence exposure was longitudinally associated with cyber aggression and whether positive rumination buffered these associations among Chinese adolescents. Participants included 3,108 students from 16 middle schools in Jiangxi Province, China, at bLongitudinal Moderating Role of Positive Rumination Across Genderaseline (54.9% girls; mean age = 14.41 years), of whom 2,904 completed all three waves across 6-month intervals. Latent growth models with full information maximum likelihood estimation were used to estimate changes in violence exposure, positive rumination, cyber relational aggression (CRA), and cyber overt aggression (COA). Violence exposure was positively associated with both the initial levels and slopes of CRA (β = 0.28 and 0.20) and COA (β = 0.23 and 0.16). Positive rumination exhibited a selective buffering effect: for CRA, both the intercept-level and slope-level interactions were negative (β = -0.13 and - 0.09), whereas for COA, only the intercept-level interaction was significant (β = -0.10). Girls exhibited stronger associations between violence exposure and CRA, and evidence of a slope-level buffering effect of positive rumination was clearer within the CRA model for girls. In contrast, boys showed a stronger association between violence exposure and the initial level of COA. Overall, violence exposure was longitudinally linked to cyber aggression, and positive rumination may serve as a partial protective factor, particularly for relational forms of cyber aggression. However, given the observational design, these findings should be interpreted as longitudinal associations rather than definitive causal effects.

Adolescence is characterized by increased risk-related decision-making, yet how depressive symptoms relate to adolescents' adaptation to uncertain environments remains unclear. The present study examined how depressive symptoms, risk level, and task stage were associated with performance on the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART) in junior high school students aged 12 to 13 years (N = 214). Across groups, adolescents demonstrated sensitivity to the risk level, showing higher pumping, fewer explosions, and greater accumulated rewards in low-risk relative to moderate- and high-risk conditions. Participants also exhibited improved performance from early to later trials. Depressive symptoms were not associated with overt risk-taking behavior, as indexed by pumping frequency or explosion rates. However, adolescents with elevated depressive symptoms consistently earned lower permanent scores and showed less differentiation between moderate- and high-risk conditions, suggesting reduced efficiency in adapting to task demands. These findings suggest that depressive symptoms in adolescence may be associated with reduced decision efficiency rather than global differences in risk-taking. More broadly, the results support a multi-process account of adolescent decision-making, in which emotional vulnerability interacts with task structure and learning processes to shape behavioral outcomes.

Internalizing problems rise during adolescence, yet the stable underlying dimensions remain unclear. Using two longitudinal samples (Sample A: [Formula: see text], 43% girls at birth, adopted children, ages 7-16; Sample B: [Formula: see text], 50% girls at birth, biological children from low-income families, ages 7-17), we examined dimensions of internalizing symptoms (excluding somatic complaints) on the Child Behavior Checklist using exploratory structural equation modeling (ESEM) and confirmatory factor analyses. In Sample A, three dimensions emerged: low self-worth/depression (LSW/Dep), social/general anxiety (S/GA), and depression/withdrawal (Dep/With). In Sample B, S/GA and Dep/With combined into the social anxiety/withdrawal (SA/With) factor, alongside LSW. Both solutions were largely stable across age and sex. Factor trajectory analyses revealed that levels of all dimensions increased from childhood to early adolescence, for both sexes. Trajectories subsequently diverged: LSW/Dep became more pronounced in girls only, S/GA increased in girls and declined in boys, and Dep/With showed the steepest increase for both sexes. Dimensions showed strong homotypic but weak heterotypic continuity. Findings highlight distinct developmental and sex-specific pathways of internalizing vulnerability detectable in middle childhood, supporting earlier and more targeted identification and intervention.