In obtaining a consensus measure, the issue is not determining how many informants are needed but choosing the right set of informants.

No abstract

No abstract

o w a n , and C a r o l y n P . C o w a n In a prospective, longitudinal study we examined the psychometric properties of the self-perception scales of the Berkeley Puppet Interview (BPI). A total sample of 97 young children were assessed with the BPI at 3 time points: preschool, kindergarten, and first grade. The BPI assesses young children's self-perceptions of their school adjustment in 6 domains: academic competence, achievement motivation, social competence, peer acceptance, depression-anxiety, and aggression-hostility. Results showed that 4%-to 71/z-year-olds possess a multidimensional self-concept that can be reliably measured and that the BPI is sensitive to normative changes and individual differences in young boys' and girls' views of themselves. Support for the method's validity was derived from consistent and meaningful patterns of convergence between children's self-perceptions and ratings by adult informants-mothers, fathers, and teachers-as well as standardized test scores. In fact, in this study, the concordance between young children's self-reports and parallel ratings by teachers or mothers were consistently as strong as if not stronger than the concordance between mothers' and teachers' ratings.

This study and four others of very young twins show that genetic risks contribute strongly to population variation in antisocial behaviour that emerges in early childhood. In contrast, genetic risk is known to be relatively modest for adolescent antisocial behaviour, suggesting that the early-childhood form has a distinct etiology, particularly if it is pervasive across situations.

Despite growing interest in conceptualizing ADHD as involving disrupted emotion regulation, few studies have examined the physiological mechanisms related to emotion regulation in children with this disorder. This study examined parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system reactivity via measures of respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) and cardiac pre-ejection period (PEP) in children with ADHD (n=32) and typically developing controls (n=34), using a novel emotion task with four conditions: negative induction, negative suppression, positive induction, and positive suppression of affect. Both groups showed strong task-response effects in RSA. However, typically developing children showed systematic variation in parasympathetic activity (RSA) depending on both emotion valence (more activation for negative emotion, reduced activation for positive emotion) and task demand (more activation for suppression than induction). In contrast, children with ADHD displayed a stable pattern of elevated parasympathetic activity (RSA) across all task conditions compared to baseline. No group differences in sympathetic activity (PEP) were observed. It is concluded ADHD in childhood is associated with abnormal parasympathetic mechanisms involved in emotion regulation.

This study investigated depression-related differences in primiparous mothers' neural response to their own infant's distress cues. Mothers diagnosed with major depressive disorder (n = 11) and comparison mothers with no diagnosable psychopathology (n = 11) were exposed to their own 18-months-old infant's cry sound, as well as unfamiliar infant's cry and control sound, during functional neuroimaging. Depressed mothers' response to own infant cry greater than other sounds was compared to non-depressed mothers' response in the whole brain [false discovery rate (FDR) corrected]. A continuous measure of self-reported depressive symptoms (CESD) was also tested as a predictor of maternal response. Non-depressed mothers activated to their own infant's cry greater than control sound in a distributed network of para/limbic and prefrontal regions, whereas depressed mothers as a group failed to show activation. Non-depressed compared to depressed mothers showed significantly greater striatal (caudate, nucleus accumbens) and medial thalamic activation. Additionally, mothers with lower depressive symptoms activated more strongly in left orbitofrontal, dorsal anterior cingulate and medial superior frontal regions. Non-depressed compared to depressed mothers activated uniquely to own infant greater than other infant cry in occipital fusiform areas. Disturbance of these neural networks involved in emotional response and regulation may help to explain parenting deficits in depressed mothers.

We investigated the effects of timing and the course of maternal perinatal depressive symptoms on mother-infant hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) response profiles during an attachment stressor, as well as on within-dyad synchrony of stress profiles: coordination of HPA and sympathetic nervous system and infant-mother HPA attunement. Mothers (n = 86) completed the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale during pregnancy (Time 1 [T1]) and at 5 months (T2) and 18 months (T3) postnatal. At T3 mother-infant dyads completed the Strange Situation, and four saliva samples collected from both mothers and infants were assayed for cortisol and α-amylase. Hierarchical linear modeling was used to predict mother-infant cortisol response trajectories and within-dyad synchronies by main and interactive effects of T1-T3 Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale scores. Main effects of earlier (T1, T2) depressive symptoms predicted mothers' cortisol trajectories and coordination, and interactions of T1 with postnatal (T2 and T3) symptoms predicted infants' cortisol trajectories, coordination, and attunement. Decomposition of interactions revealed more marked effects on infant cortisol trajectories when the mother shifted from higher to lower depressive symptoms (or vice versa) across the perinatal period. Shifts from lower to higher symptoms also predicted inverse coordination of cortisol with salivary α-amylase and greater attunement of infant with mother cortisol. Implications for the development and transmission of stress dysregulation are discussed.