Prior studies have suggested, but not fully established, that language ability is important for regulating attention and behavior. Language ability may have implications for understanding attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and conduct disorders, as well as subclinical problems. This article reports findings from two longitudinal studies to test (a) whether language ability has an independent effect on behavior problems, and (b) the direction of effect between language ability and behavior problems. In Study 1 (N = 585), language ability was measured annually from ages 7 to 13 years by language subtests of standardized academic achievement tests administered at the children’s schools. Inattentive-hyperactive (I-H) and externalizing (EXT) problems were reported annually by teachers and mothers. In Study 2 (N = 11,506), language ability (receptive vocabulary) and mother-rated I-H and EXT problems were measured biannually from ages 4 to 12 years. Analyses in both studies showed that language ability predicted within-individual variability in the development of I-H and EXT problems over and above the effects of sex, ethnicity, socioeconomic status (SES), and performance in other academic and intellectual domains (e.g., math, reading comprehension, reading recognition, and short-term memory [STM]). Even after controls for prior levels of behavior problems, language ability predicted later behavior problems more strongly than behavior problems predicted later language ability, suggesting that the direction of effect may be from language ability to behavior problems. The findings suggest that language ability may be a useful target for the prevention or even treatment of attention deficits and EXT problems in children.

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Identifying childhood precursors for depression has been challenging and yet important for understanding the rapid increase in the rate of depression among adolescent girls. This study examined the prospective relations of preadolescent girls' emotion regulation and parenting style with depressive symptoms. Participants were 225 children and their biological mothers recruited from a larger longitudinal community study. Girls' observed positive and negative emotion during a conflict resolution task with mothers, their ability to regulate sadness and anger, and their perception of parental acceptance and psychological control were assessed at age 9. Depressive symptoms were assessed by self-report at ages 9 and 10. The results indicated interactions between child emotion characteristics and parenting in predicting later depression. Specifically, low levels of positive emotion expression predicted higher levels of depressive symptoms in the context of moderate to high parental psychological control. Low levels of sadness regulation were predictive of high levels of depressive symptoms in the context of low to moderate parental acceptance. Findings from this study support the hypothesis that the prospective association between vulnerabilities in emotion regulation and depression are moderated by the caregiving environment. Keywords depression; emotion regulation; emotion expression; parenting; preadolescent girls It has been consistently reported that the rate of depression increases rapidly among girls during adolescence (see review by Keenan & Hipwell, 2005), resulting in a prevalence rate of depressive disorders that is twice as high in adult females compared to adult males (Lewinsohn, Clark, Seeley, & Rhode, 1994;Nolen-Hoeksema, 1994). Children and adolescents who experience depression are likely to encounter severe, recurrent depression later in life (Costello, Angold, & Keeler, 1999;Kovacs, Gatsonis, Paulauskas, & Richards, 1989;Pine, Cohen, Gurley, Brook, & Ma, 1998; see Weissman, Wolk, Wickramaratne, Goldstein, Adams, et al., 1999 for exception). Kovacs and colleagues (Kovacs, Obrosky, & Sherrill, 2003) have shown that childhood onset depression is likely to recur in adolescence in 40% to 60% of clinicallyreferred cases. Early-onset depression also has serious consequences for psychosocial functioning (Lewinsohn, Rohde, Seeley, Klein, & Gotlib, 2003 e.g., Cole, Peeke, Martin, Truglio, & Seroczynski, 1998;Nolen-Hoeksema, Girgus, & Seligman, 1992) and predictive of depressive disorders (Keenan, Hipwell, Feng, Babinski, Hinze et al., in press). Thus, identifying preadolescent precursors that predict emerging depressive symptoms in girls is of great importance in understanding the phenomenology of depression in females, as well as for timely prevention and intervention.Dysregulated emotion has been hypothesized to precede the onset of psychological disorders such as depressive disorders (Chaplin, Cole, & Zahn-waxler, 2005;Cole et al., 2003). The importance of studying emotion regulation lies in the f...

Background-Diagnostic validity of oppositional defiant and conduct disorders (ODD and CD) for preschoolers has been questioned based on concerns regarding the ability to differentiate normative, transient disruptive behavior from clinical symptoms. Data on concurrent validity has

Context Previous epidemiological, animal, and human cognitive neuroscience research suggests that maternal smoking during pregnancy causes increased risk of offspring substance use/problems. Objective To determine the extent to which the association between SDP and offspring substance use/problems depends on confounded familial background factors by using a quasi-experimental design. Design We used two separate samples, from the United States and from Sweden, respectively. The analyses prospectively predicted multiple indices of substance use and problems while controlling for statistical covariates and comparing differentially exposed siblings to minimize confounding. Setting Sample 1: Offspring of a representative sample of women in the United States. Sample 2: The total Swedish population born over 13 years. Patients or Other Participants Sample 1: Adolescent offspring of the women in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (n=6,094). Sample 2: All offspring born in Sweden from 1983 through 1995 (n=1,187,360). Main Outcome Measures Sample 1: Self-reported adolescent alcohol, cigarette, and marijuana use, and early onset (before age 14 years) of each substance. Sample 2: Substance-related convictions and hospitalizations for an alcohol- or drug-related problem. Results The same pattern emerged for each index of substance use/problems across the two samples. At the population level maternal smoking during pregnancy predicted every measure of offspring substance use/problems in both samples, ranging from adolescent alcohol use (HRmoderate=1.32, CI=1.22–1.43; HRhigh=1.33, CI=1.17=1.53) to a narcotic convictions (HRmoderate=2.23, CI=2.14–2.31; HRhigh=2.97, CI=2.86–3.09). When comparing differentially exposed siblings to minimize genetic and environmental confounds, however, the association between SDP and each measure of substance use/problems was minimal and not statistically significant. Conclusions The association between maternal smoking during pregnancy and offspring substance use/problems was likely due to familial background factors, not a causal influence, because siblings had similar rates of substance use and problems regardless of their specific exposure to smoking during pregnancy.