Early adversity, stress, and neurobehavioral development

Gunnar, Megan R.

doi:10.1017/s0954579420001649

Cited by 24 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 70 publications

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“…Skew values (−1.66 to 1.09) and kurtosis values (−0.43 to 3.26) were slightly skewed but within accepted ranges for normally distributed variables (Kline, 2016). The analyses for the proposed study were conducted in Mplus version 8.1 (e.g., Muthén & Muthén, 1998-2020 (Hu & Bentler, 1999).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Parents may serve as both a source of risk and protection and have direct as well as indirect influences on the HPA axis and developing children’s stress systems (see Gunnar, 2020 ). As parenting is related to children’s adjustment across developmental transitions such as beginning formal schooling (e.g., Olson et al, 2011 ), parenting may similarly play a critical role in influencing young children’s adaptation and adjustment to the challenges and transitions associated with COVID-19.…”

Section: Parenting and Stress On Child Adjustmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Parenting and Adjustment Problems among Preschoolers during COVID-19

et al. 2022

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A critical area of developmental science explores factors that confer risk or protection as young children and their families experience stressful circumstances related to sociohistorical events. This study contributes to this important area by assessing relations between family context and child adjustment as children transitioned from preschool to home learning during COVID-19, and whether children higher in stress levels, indexed by morning basal cortisol, were more strongly affected. Parents of 74 children ( M age = 53.56 months, SD age = 3.68 months) completed reports spanning the home learning transition; children’s pre-COVID-19 transition salivary cortisol levels were assessed. Path analyses were used to test the preregistered study aims. Significant interactions were decomposed using simple slopes and Preacher’s Regions of Significance (ROS) method. Across the COVID-19 transition to home-based school, children with higher morning basal cortisol experienced the sharpest increase in anger when exposed to harsh/inconsistent parenting contexts. Importantly, these effects held when controlling for household chaos, socioeconomic resources, and supportive parenting. Parallel models with supportive parenting were also tested and are discussed. This study is one of the first to test and provide support for biological sensitivity to context theory within the context of a natural experiment like COVID-19.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Parenting and Stress On Child Adjustmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Parenting and Adjustment Problems among Preschoolers during COVID-19

et al. 2022

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“…This effective video tool can be easily employed in home, school, or online settings to introduce children to deep breathing as a self‐regulation technique. We hope this work is just the beginning of a new wave of psychophysiological research that goes beyond understanding how experiences “get under the skin” (Lupien et al., 2001) and has clear, practical implication for supporting child development (Gunnar, 2020; Obradović & Armstrong‐Carter, 2020).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Taking a few deep breaths significantly reduces children's physiological arousal in everyday settings: Results of a preregistered video intervention

Obradović

Sulik

Armstrong‐Carter

2021

Developmental Psychobiology

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This preregistered, randomized field experiment tested the effectiveness of a brief deep breathing intervention on children's concurrent physiological arousal in naturalistic settings (N = 342; M age = 7.48 years; 46% female; 53% Asian, 26% White; 21% other race/ethnicity). The treatment consisted of an animated video that introduced deep breathing as a self-regulation strategy and scaffolded the child in taking a few slow-paced breaths, while the control group watched an informational video featuring similar animated images. Respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) and heart rate (HR) were measured while children were sitting still (baseline) and subsequently while watching 1-min videos. Relative to baseline arousal, RSA increased and HR decreased only in response to the deep-breathing treatment video. Effects were larger in the second 30-s epoch of the video, which included most of the deep breathing practice. RSA fully mediated the intervention's effects on HR. By analyzing all children exposed to intervention video regardless of their engagement in the deep breathing practice (intention-to-treat design) and by using easily scalable treatment videos, the study identifies an effective and pragmatic approach to reducing children's physiological arousal in everyday, group settings. Implications for advancing applied developmental psychophysiological research are discussed.

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“…Further, unpredictability could be a property of deprivation or threat, defined as stochastic variations in either dimension when it pertains to caregiving (Ellis et al, in press). Or is caregiver unpredictability not reducible to more commonly studied dimensions of adversity (Gunnar, 2020)? This question is even more complex when considering that caregiver unpredictability and its impact on development might vary as a function of the particular caregiver inputs and the valence of such inputs.…”

Section: Issue #2 Dimensionality and Specificity Of Unpredictabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing Unpredictability in Caregiver-Child Relationships: Insights from Theoretical and Empirical Perspectives

Ugarte¹,

Hastings²

2022

Preprint

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There has been significant interest and progress in understanding the role of caregiver-child unpredictability on brain maturation, cognitive and socioemotional development, and psychopathology. Theoretical consensus has emerged about its unique influence in shaping children’s experience, distinct from other adverse exposures or features of stress exposure. Nonetheless, the field still lacks theoretical and empirical common ground due to difficulties in accurately operationalizing and measuring unpredictability. In this paper, we first provide a historical overview of unpredictability and present four issues that are currently under-discussed but are crucial to the field. Focusing on how moment-to-moment and day-to-day dynamics are at the heart of caregiver unpredictability, we review three approaches aiming to address some of these nuances: dynamic systems, environmental statistics, and entropy. Lastly, we conclude with a broad summary and suggest future research directions. Systematic progress in this field can inform interventions and policies aiming to increase stability in the lives of children.

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Early adversity, stress, and neurobehavioral development

Cited by 24 publications

References 70 publications

Parenting and Adjustment Problems among Preschoolers during COVID-19

Parenting and Adjustment Problems among Preschoolers during COVID-19

Taking a few deep breaths significantly reduces children's physiological arousal in everyday settings: Results of a preregistered video intervention

Assessing Unpredictability in Caregiver-Child Relationships: Insights from Theoretical and Empirical Perspectives

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