Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology最新文献

Autism is characterized by marked heterogeneity in behavioral presentation and high rates of co-occurring psychiatric symptoms, which hinder diagnostic precision, personalized intervention, and long-term quality of life. Approach and withdrawal behaviors—subserved by core motivational systems underlying action and emotion—may serve as transdiagnostic processes linking autism with common co-occurring conditions in childhood. Guided by this framework, we examined how autism-related approach–withdrawal behaviors interrelate and connect to internalizing and externalizing symptoms. Using data from 280 autistic children aged 6 to 11 years enrolled in the Autism Biomarkers Consortium for Clinical Trials, we constructed a Gaussian graphical model of approach–withdrawal behaviors. Core behaviors were identified using expected influence centrality. Autism, when conceptualized as a system of interconnected approach–withdrawal behaviors, was positively associated with common co-occurring psychiatric conditions, with strongest associations observed for anxiety and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Affect regulation–related nodes were most relevant to internalizing symptoms, whereas arousal regulation and sensory nodes were uniquely related to externalizing symptoms. These findings integrate transdiagnostic theories of approach-withdrawal motivation with network analysis and highlight clinically relevant targets for diagnostic refinement and intervention.

Strong evidence ties early language difficulties to later adjustment challenges. Little is known, however, about factors that exacerbate these associations. The present study tests the hypothesis that unsupervised, solitary screen time amplifies longitudinal associations from low language skills to heightened socioemotional difficulties. The participants were 546 (264 girls, 282 boys) 4–5-year-olds attending 24 population-based childcare centers in 13 municipalities across Denmark. Teachers twice completed assessments of child adjustment difficulties (i.e., conduct problems and emotional problems), approximately six months apart. At the outset, teachers assayed child language abilities (i.e., communication skills and productive vocabulary) and parents reported solitary screen time (i.e., the amount of time children spent alone viewing handheld devices or television). Results indicated that solitary screen time and low communication skills predicted increases in subsequent emotional problems. Moderated associations emerged for conduct problems, such that solitary screen time exacerbated longitudinal associations from oral language problems to later adjustment difficulties. Specifically, among those with above (but not below) average levels of solitary screen time, low initial productive vocabulary and low initial communication skills predicted increases in conduct problems across the course of six months within a single school year.

Children with social anxiety disorder (SAD) often perceive their social performance more negatively than external observers, reinforcing negative self-appraisals. Cognitive models suggest a vicious cycle between such distortions and heightened anxiety. This study tested whether repeated exposure to a social-evaluative task, paired with brief, ecologically valid support strategies, improves self-appraisal in children with SAD compared to baseline without support. Participants were 76 children (SAD: n = 33, Mage = 11.73, SD = 1.46, 64% female; healthy controls [HC]: n = 43, Mage = 11.40, SD = 1.45, 62% female), recruited from an urban setting in Germany. In two sessions one week apart, children delivered a 5-min speech to a peer video audience. In Session 1, they performed without support; in Session 2, they received either brief parental support or a self-instruction during preparation. After each speech, children rated their performance. Observer-rated performance was assessed by three independent, trained coders blind to group, session, and condition. Self-rated performance improved across sessions in both groups, but children with SAD consistently rated themselves more negatively than HC peers. Observer-rated performance did not differ between groups or across sessions. No differential effects emerged between support types. Negative self-appraisal is a core, though partially modifiable, feature of childhood SAD. Repeated exposure to social stress paired with brief support may modestly improve self-perception, though effects may reflect exposure rather than specific support. Targeting distorted self-appraisals remains a key clinical focus.

Multicultural adolescents experience higher levels of depressive symptoms than their non-multicultural counterparts. Although depressive symptoms vary by sex, few studies have examined sex-specific trajectories and their protective predictors, particularly among multicultural youth. Using nine annual waves of nationally representative longitudinal data from multicultural adolescents in South Korea (N = 1,500; 50.67% girls; M_age = 10.98, SD = 0.37), this study identified the sex-specific depressive symptom trajectories and their early intrapersonal and interpersonal predictors. Latent class growth models identified four trajectories for girls: low stable (30.43%), low increasing (36.12%), high-increasing then plateauing (19.29%), and high decreasing (14.16%). Three trajectories emerged for boys: low stable (46.76%), moderate increasing (43.21%), and high-increasing then plateauing (10.03%). After adjusting for age and socioeconomic status, multinomial logistic regression analyses showed that higher self-esteem significantly distinguished the resilient low stable group from the low increasing and high decreasing trajectories for girls, as well as the high-increasing then plateauing trajectory for boys. Furthermore, perceived family and friend support were associated with a lower likelihood of the high-increasing then plateauing trajectory in girls. For boys, teacher support predicted a lower risk of the moderate increasing trajectory. The findings underscore the importance of considering sex differences in understanding the progression of depressive symptoms and the key protective factors among multicultural adolescents, providing valuable insights for prevention and intervention efforts.

Although emotion regulation (ER) has been conceptualized as a multicomponent process requiring multi-method assessments, few empirical studies have utilized multiple indicators of ER in one study to assess regulatory processes in early childhood. Therefore, we aimed to provide a more comprehensive understanding of ER in early childhood from a person-centered approach by including multiple components (i.e., negative emotional reactivity, cognitive control) and contexts of ER (i.e., mother report, behavioral task, interactive task). In addition, we explored child and family risk correlates of ER and associations with concurrent and longitudinal adjustment outcomes across development. Participants were 238 children (113 girls) and their mothers. Data were collected at 3, 6, and 10 years of the child age, using multiple methods and informants. Results of the latent profile analysis identified three profiles of ER: Well-Regulated, Cognitively Disinhibited (e.g., lower scores on the measures of cognitive system), and Underregulated (e.g., higher scores on the measures of negative emotional reactivity, lower scores on measures of cognitive control). Relative to children in the other two groups, children in the Well-Regulated group had significantly higher IQs. Furthermore, children in the Cognitively Disinhibited group had lower academic achievement and higher levels of relational aggression at age 10 compared to well-regulated children. Our findings advance the understanding of ER during the preschool period and provide useful information on early intervention targeting ER difficulties as a transdiagnostic risk factor for long-term adjustment outcomes.

Adolescents with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are at a higher risk for developing depression than their peers. One potential explanation for this increased risk is that adolescents with ADHD often have impaired social skills, which may interfere with successful social interactions and connections, and subsequently lead to low self-worth and depression. We hypothesized that global social skills and social skill factors most related to friendships (communication, cooperation, engagement, and empathy) would mediate the positive relation between ADHD symptom severity and depression. Additionally, we investigated whether global social skills would mediate the relations between ADHD symptom severity and four facets of depression (negative self-evaluation, anhedonia, dysphoric mood, and somatic complaints). Our sample included 335 adolescents with ADHD in grades 6–11 who participated in an intervention study. Parent-reported ADHD symptoms were measured at or before baseline, parent-reported social skills (global and several subscales) were measured one year later, and self-reported depression was measured 1.5 years after baseline. Global social skills mediated (1) the relation between ADHD and depression and (2) the relation between ADHD and negative self-evaluation. Cooperation, communication, empathy, and responsibility individually mediated the relation between ADHD and depression, and assertion, self-control, and engagement did not.

Delay discounting, or the propensity to devalue rewards as the time to reward receipt increases, is a robust predictor of psychiatric and neurodevelopmental outcomes across the life course. However, less is known about environmental antecedents that may be associated with delay discounting tendencies during adolescence, a developmental period during which delay discounting behaviors are still developing. Here, we examined the relation between delay discounting and the exposome—multi-level environmental exposures experienced from conception onwards. Participants included 9,848 children (Mage = 10.94 years, SD = 0.64; 53.2% female; 72% White) from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study who completed the Adjusting Delay Discounting Task at the 1-year follow-up. Predictors included six exposome factors that captured aspects of proximal and distal environments including: positive day-to-day experiences, family values, household adversity, neighborhood poverty, birth/pregnancy complications, and state-level conservatism/rurality. Greater household adversity, lower positive day-to-day experiences, and greater birth/pregnancy complications were associated with greater delay discounting, after adjusting for age, sex, race, household income and parent education. These findings highlight potential intervention and policy targets aimed at modifying delay discounting preferences in adolescence and reducing risk for negative sequelae across development.

This study examined the long-term outcomes of the Future Centre's Early Intensive Behavioural Intervention (FC-EIBI) for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in a conflict-affected, low-resource setting in Syria. Sixty-six participants were assessed at baseline (2008), post-treatment (2010), early follow-up (2013), and long-term follow-up (2019) using the Childhood Autism Rating Scale (CARS), the Autism Behaviour Checklist-Arabic (ABC), and the Adaptive Behaviour Scale-Arabic (ABS-Arabic). Longitudinal change was examined using nonparametric repeated-measures analyses, with additional analyses of subdomains across six ABS-Arabic domains. Significant improvements were observed across all measures from baseline to post-treatment and early follow-up (all ps < 0.001), indicating substantial reductions in autism symptom severity and marked gains in adaptive functioning. By 2019, small but significant attenuation of earlier gains was detected; however, outcomes remained significantly improved relative to baseline. Improvements in adaptive functioning were most pronounced between 2008 and 2013, particularly in Social Interaction and Communication/Language, whereas later declines were most evident in Communication/Language and Personal-Emotional Adaptation. Overall, FC-EIBI was associated with considerable and durable developmental benefits over more than a decade, despite prolonged sociopolitical instability and service disruptions. These findings underscore the feasibility of sustaining meaningful developmental outcomes for children with ASD in conflict-affected, low-resource contexts.

Despite the pervasive inclusion of children with autism in early intensive behavioral intervention (EIBI), there is limited research on the long-term outcomes in this population. A previous prospective study tested predictors of developmental outcome after 12 months of community-based EIBI in 71, preschool-aged autistic children. We conducted a 10-year follow up of the children enrolled in this EIBI study, as well as a comparison group of age-matched children who received community treatment as usual (CTAU). In total, 62 participants (34 EIBI and 28 CTAU) participated in a cross-sectional, follow-up assessment. Data were collected on diagnosis, cognitive functioning, adaptive skills, educational and language achievement, social functioning, and an overall global assessment of functioning. For the follow-up cohort, group differences favored CTAU on measures of cognitive, adaptive, and language functioning, as well as overall clinical severity. Group differences were no longer significant when controlling for baseline IQ score. Both variables identified in the original study predicted outcome; social engagement predicted higher cognitive/ adaptive skills and lower autism symptomatology/ clinical severity, and sensorimotor predicted lower cognitive/ adaptive skills and higher autism symptomatology/ clinical severity. Findings are contextualized in light of our evolving understanding of autism, neurodiversity, and the perspective of lived experience.

Conventional assessment and treatment approaches targeting justice-involved youth have typically yielded low engagement and modest long-term impact on recidivism and psychosocial functioning. Technologies such as virtual reality, smartphone applications, and wearable devices, offer promising opportunities to address such limitations by providing scalable, engaging and ecologically valid approaches that align well with the often complex needs of this population. The contributions in the special issue aim to showcase some of the potential of these technologies. The special issue originated from a 5-day international Lorentz workshop that brought together researchers and professionals working in clinical practice to explore opportunities, needs, and barriers related to technology implementation in this context. The included contributions comprise empirical case studies illustrating efficiency gains through technological support of existing practices; papers detailing innovative methods that leverage unique capabilities of specific technologies, such as enhanced accessibility and immersive experiences; state-of-the-art reviews; and a viewpoint paper addressing ethical considerations. Collectively, the contributions highlight the promise of technology as well as the need for methodologically robust research to ensure effective and ethical implementation.