This paper reports the results from a randomized clinical trial evaluating an adaptation of the Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies curriculum (PATHS) for preschool-age children in Head Start. PATHS is a universal, teacher-taught social-emotional curriculum that is designed to improve children's social competence and reduce problem behavior. Twenty classrooms in two Pennsylvania communities participated in the study. Teachers in the 10 intervention classrooms implemented weekly lessons and extension activities across a 9-month period. Child assessments and teacher and parent reports of child behavior assessments were collected at the beginning and end of the school year. Analysis of covariance was used to control for baseline differences between the groups and pretest scores on each of the outcome measures. The results suggest that after exposure to PATHS, intervention children had higher emotion knowledge skills and were rated by parents and teachers as more socially competent compared to peers. Further, teachers rated intervention children as less socially withdrawn at the end of the school year compared to controls.

This study tested the hypothesis that the effects of income and cumulative risk on the development of effortful control during preschool would be mediated by parenting. The study utilized a community sample of 306 children (36–40 months) representing the full range of family income, with 29 percent at or near poverty and 28 percent lower income. Two dimensions of effortful control (executive control and delay ability) were assessed at four time points, each separated by nine months, and growth trajectories were examined. Maternal warmth, negativity, limit setting, scaffolding, and responsiveness were observed. Above the effects of child cognitive ability, income, and cumulative risk, scaffolding predicted higher initial levels of executive control that remained higher across the study, and limit setting predicted greater gains in executive control. Parenting did not predict changes in delay ability. Significant indirect effects indicated that scaffolding mediated the effects of income and cumulative risk on growth in executive control. The findings suggest that parenting behaviors can promote effortful control in young children and could be targets of prevention programs in low‐income families.

This study examined heterogeneity in change in reading test scores and attention problems during middle childhood and whether heterogeneity in change in these variables predicted later problem behavior. Our sample consisted of 783 students recruited from 10 Pacific Northwest schools. For both reading scores and teacher report of attention problems, latent growth curve models of annual data from Grades 3 to 6 showed statistically significant heterogeneity in initial level and change. Level and change factors for both variables were statistically significant predictors of problem behavior in 7th grade. In a combined model that included growth factors for both reading and attention problems, only level of attention problems had a unique and statistically significant association with problem behavior.

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Maternal depression has been implicated in the development of adolescent substance use. Conceptualizing depression as a continuum, the aims of this study were to (a) understand the relationship between maternal depressed mood and risk factors associated with adolescent substance use; (b) understand the relationship between maternal depressed mood and level and growth in adolescent alcohol, cigarette, and marijuana use assessed at multiple time points during adolescence; and (c) examine the unique and relative contribution of maternal depressed mood after taking into account contextual risk factors related to adolescent substance use. Participants were 792 children and their mothers. Latent growth modeling was used with adolescent alcohol, cigarette, and marijuana use treated as ordinal variables. Child depressive phenomena and child antisocial behavior partially explained the relationship between maternal depressed mood and adolescent alcohol and cigarette use. Mothers' own substance use did not contribute to level or change in adolescent substance use after other risk factors were considered. KeywordsAdolescent substance use; maternal depressed mood Maternal depression has been linked to poor developmental outcomes, including depression, conduct problems, and substance use, in children (Beardslee, Versage, & Gladstone, 1998;Downey & Coyne, 1990;Lewinsohn, Olino, & Klein, 2005). Among these problems, adolescent substance use is of special interest because most adolescents try alcohol, marijuana, or cigarettes during their high school years and because the potential long-term mental health consequences of substance use are severe (Brook, Brook, Zhang, Cohen, & Whiteman, 2002). We examine the relationship between exposure to maternal depressed mood during middle childhood and level and growth of alcohol, marijuana, and cigarette use during adolescence. Using a multiple risk factor model (Greenberg et al., 1999), we also examine the extent to which the relationship between maternal depressed mood and adolescent substance use is accounted for by parental substance use, child depressive phenomena, and childhood antisocial behavior.Research has shown that numerous risk and protective factors explain variance in adolescent substance use (Hawkins, Catalano, & Miller, 1992). This is consistent with the concept of equifinality, the notion of multiple pathways leading to one outcome (Cicchetti & Rogosch, Correspondence regarding this article and requests for reprints should be directed to Rebecca C. Cortes, University of Washington, Department of Psychology, Box 351525, Seattle, WA 98195-1525; e-mail: rcortes@u.washington.edu; phone: 206-616-1236; fax: 206-685-3157. cnbflem@u.washington.edu, wamason@u.washington.edu, catalano@u.washington 1996), and also underscores the challenge for researchers and practitioners concerned with the development and prevention of adolescent substance use. In early and middle childhood, parenting factors are particularly important, as parents are the primary socializing agents f...

These findings suggest additional associations that are not currently specified in the SDM and underscore the importance of re-examining hypotheses from constituent theories when integrating developmental models of antisocial behaviour.

This study examined the longitudinal relationship of early elementary predictors to adolescent depression 7 years later. The sample consisted of 938 students who have been part of a larger longitudinal study that started in 1993. Data collected from parents, teachers, and youth self-reports on early risk factors when students were in 1st and 2nd grade were compared to adolescent self-reported depression 7 years later. Regression analyses were conducted with each risk factor separately and combined, while also examining gender and the gender × risk factor interaction. Results showed that the risk factors predominately in the individual characteristic group (depression, anxiety, and antisocial behavior) were predictive of depression 7 years later. Gender differences among the longitudinal risk factors were also found in relation to adolescent depression. Discussion of the results focuses on the practice of children's mental health assessment and implications for the development of prevention and intervention programs for depression.

This study tested child characteristics (temperamental executive control and negative reactivity) and maternal characteristics (parenting behaviors and maternal depressive symptoms) as predictors of a mother's emotion-related socialization behaviors (ERSBs). Further, parenting behaviors and ERSBs were examined as predictors of children's emotion knowledge, social competence, and adjustment problems. ERSBs and children's emotion knowledge were tested as mediators of the effects of child and parent characteristics on adjustment. A community sample (N ϭ 306) of mothers and children (36 -40 months at T1) were assessed 4 times, once every 9 months, and assessments included maternal reports of depressive symptoms, observed temperament, observational ratings of general parenting at T1, maternal report of ERSBs at T1 & T2, behavioral measures of emotion knowledge at T3, and teacher ratings of children's adjustment at T4. There were no predictors of ERSBs above prior levels. Higher executive control and lower maternal depressive symptoms predicted greater child emotion knowledge, highlighting the roles of maternal and child contributors to emotion knowledge. Greater emotion knowledge and positive affective quality in parenting predicted children's adjustment, with emotion knowledge mediating the effects of executive control on children's adjustment. In addition, lower levels of maternal supportive ERSBs predicted greater adjustment problems. This study highlights the roles of key variables in Eisenberg, Cumberland, and Spinrad's (1998) heuristic model of emotion socialization and the importance of emotion socialization and emotion knowledge in children's adjustment.