Adopted children and adolescents are at an increased risk of experiencing emotional, behavioural and relational difficulties compared to their non-adopted peers. This systematic review aimed to establish the effectiveness of interventions with adoptive parents on adopted children and adolescents' psychological well-being, behavioural functioning and parent-child relationship. A systematic search was performed adhering to Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA), including studies that assessed the effects of interventions with adoptive parents on adopted child and adolescent outcomes. Electronic databases, key journals, grey literature sources, reference and citation lists were searched and published authors in the field were contacted; 19 papers describing 15 interventions were included. The findings from this review provide preliminary support for the use of interventions with adoptive parents for improving adopted children's emotional and behavioural outcomes. However, overall, the studies were found to have a high risk of bias, and the significant heterogeneity across the studies limits the conclusions that can be drawn. Further research is required to provide conclusive recommendations regarding the effectiveness of interventions with adoptive parents on the outcomes of adopted children.

The current study investigated 4- to 8-year-olds' (N = 81) understanding of embarrassment and their ability to integrate temporal and mental state information to predict and explain emotions. Participants heard stories describing characters commit trivial social transgressions, and then the next day, characters found themselves in the same situation that led to the previous transgression. For some story endings, participants were asked to predict and explain how the character felt, and for others, participants were told the character started to feel embarrassed and they were asked to explain why. Participants' responses were coded and analysed using nonparametric statistical tests. Kruskal-Wallis analyses revealed significant developments occur between 6 and 8 years in children's understanding of embarrassment and their ability to explain individual's emotion as caused by anticipating the reoccurrence of a previous embarrassing event. Younger children demonstrated a basic knowledge of embarrassment but failed to demonstrate more advanced understanding of the emotion. Findings from the current study indicate children reach a more mature understanding of embarrassment and the implications of committing social transgressions between 7 and 8 years. Finally, the current study contributes to the literature on children's ability to infer mental states and temporally connect experiences.

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