Aggressive behavior during toddlerhood: Interrelated effects of prenatal risk factors, negative affect, and cognition

Abstract

Prenatal risk, temperamental negative affect, and specific cognitive abilities have all individually been identified as predictors of behavior problems during early childhood, but less is known about their interplay in relation to aggression during toddlerhood. This study examined the main and interaction effects of prenatal risk, negative affect, inhibitory control, attention, and vocabulary in the prediction of aggression in 150 children (75 boys). During pregnancy, a cumulative risk index was calculated based on the presence of 10 well-established maternal risk factors, such as prenatal substance use, maternal psychiatric disorder, and financial problems. Negative affect was measured at 6 and 20 months using maternal report. Child cognition was examined at 30 months using laboratory tasks for inhibitory control and attention, and a questionnaire was administered to assess vocabulary. In addition, mothers reported on their children's aggressive behavior at 30 months. Higher prenatal risk and negative affect at 20 months and, to a lesser extent, at 6 months were related to more aggression at 30 months. Poorer inhibitory control and, to a lesser extent, vocabulary at 30 months also predicted higher levels of aggressive behavior. Two-way interaction effects were found for cumulative risk and inhibitory control, negative affect (at 20 months) and inhibitory control, and negative affect (at 6 months) and vocabulary: aggressive behavior was most pronounced when combinations of high prenatal risk, high negative affect, and poor cognition were present. These results suggest that the impact of prenatal risk and child temperament depends in part on child's cognitive development during toddlerhood.

The Bidirectional Relationship Between Head Injuries and Conduct Problems: Longitudinal Modelling of a Population-Based Birth Cohort Study

“…In line with existing literature, child, mother, and household demographic risks all had direct and indirect effects for increased conduct problems over the course of development (from 3 to 17 years) [22,[25][26][27]. However and surprisingly, the mother and household risks were found to play no direct role in promoting head injuries during childhood (from age 9 months).…”

“…Child level risk factors were taken from the parent interview at T1 and included male sex [2,22], low birth weight (<2.5 kg) and premature birth (<=252 days gestation) [23,24], and (due to biological effects on the child) whether the child’s biological mother smoked or drank alcohol during pregnancy [25,26].…”

“…Mother level risk factors were also from the parent interview at T1 and included pregnancy before 18 years [22,27], no high-school qualification [25-28], current unemployment [25,26], low attachment with child (<= 22 on Condon Maternal Attachment Scale) [29,30], and psychological distress (>4 on Rutter Malaise Inventory) [22,31].…”

Integrative Multi-omics Analysis of Childhood Aggressive Behavior

“…That our models selected no CpGs overlapping with these studies was unsurprising, since it was previously shown that the top CpGs from these studies were not associated with aggressive behavior in the buccal DNA methylation data in the NTR and LUMC-Curium cohorts (van Dongen et al 2021 ). Trait enrichment of the CpGs selected by the single- and multi-omics models reported enrichment of known aggression risk factors, such as socioeconomic status (Miller and Tolan 2019 ; Bellair et al 2019 ; Hendriks et al 2020 ), childhood malnutrition (Liu 2004 ; Vaughn et al 2016 ), and pre- and perinatal risk factors (Van Adrichem et al 2020 ). Moreover, we observed trait enrichment for several syndromes, e.g., Down syndrome, that are characterized by intellectual disability, developmental delay, and sometimes by aggressive behaviors among affected individuals.…”

Integrative multi-omics analysis of childhood aggressive behavior

“…That our models selected no CpGs overlapping with these studies was unsurprising, since it was previously shown that the top CpGs from these studies were not associated with aggressive behavior in the buccal DNA methylation data in the NTR and LUMC-Curium cohorts (van Dongen et al 2021). Trait enrichment of the CpGs selected by the single- and multi-omics models reported enrichment of known aggression risk factors, such as socioeconomic status (Miller and Tolan 2019; Bellair et al 2019; Hendriks et al 2020), childhood malnutrition (Liu 2004; Vaughn et al 2016), and pre-and perinatal risk factors (Van Adrichem et al 2020). Moreover, we observed trait enrichment for several syndromes, e.g., Down syndrome, that are characterized by intellectual disability, developmental delay, and sometimes by aggressive behaviors among affected individuals.…”