Maltreated children in foster care are at high risk for dysregulated hypothalamus–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis functioning and educational difficulties. The present study examined the effects of a short-term school readiness intervention on HPA axis functioning in response to the start of kindergarten, a critical transition marking entry to formal schooling, and whether altered HPA axis functioning influenced children's school adjustment. Compared to a foster care comparison group, children in the intervention group showed a steeper diurnal cortisol slope on the first day of school, a pattern previously observed among nonmaltreated children. A steeper first day of school diurnal cortisol slope predicted teacher ratings of better school adjustment (i.e., academic performance, appropriate classroom behaviors, and engagement in learning) in the fall of kindergarten. Furthermore, the children's HPA axis response to the start of school mediated the effect of the intervention on school adjustment. These findings support the potential for ameliorative effects of interventions targeting critical transitional periods, such as the transition of formal schooling. This school readiness intervention appears to influence stress neurobiology, which in turn facilitates positive engagement with the school environment and better school adjustment in children who have experienced significant early adversity.

Although it is well known that parental depression is transmitted within families across generations, the etiology of this transmission remains unclear. Our goal was to develop a novel study design capable of explicitly examining the etiologic sources of intergenerational transmission. We specifically leveraged naturally-occurring variations in genetic relatedness between parents and their adolescent children in the 720 families participating in the Nonshared Environment in Adolescent Development (NEAD) study, 58.5% of which included a rearing stepparent (nearly always a stepfather). Results pointed squarely to the environmental transmission of psychopathology between fathers and children. Paternal depression was associated with adolescent depression and adolescent behavior problems (i.e., antisocial behavior, headstrong behavior, and attention problems) regardless of whether or not fathers and their children were genetically related. Moreover, these associations persisted to a subset of “blended” families in which the father was biologically related to one participating child but not to the other, and appeared to be mediated via father–child conflict. Such findings are not only fully consistent with the environmental transmission of psychopathology across generations, but also add to extant evidence that parent–child conflict is a robust and at least partially environmental predictor of adolescent psychopathology.

Adolescent risk for self-injurious thoughts and behaviors (STBs) involves disturbance across multiple systems (e.g., affective valence, arousal regulatory, cognitive and social processes). However, research integrating information across these systems is lacking. Utilizing a multiple-levels-of-analysis approach, this person-centered study identified psychobiological stress response profiles and linked them to cognitive processes, interpersonal behaviors, and STBs. At baseline, adolescent girls (N = 241, Mage = 14.68 years, Range = 12–17) at risk for STBs completed the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST), questionnaires, and STB interviews. Positive affect (PA), negative affect (NA), and salivary cortisol (SC) were assessed before and after the TSST. STBs were assessed again during 3, 6, and 9 month follow-up interviews. Multitrajectory modeling of girls’ PA, NA, and SC revealed four profiles, which were compared on cognitive and behavioral correlates as well as STB outcomes. Relative to normative, girls in the affective distress, hyperresponsive, and hyporesponsive subgroups were more likely to report negative cognitive style (all three groups) and excessive reassurance seeking (hyporesponsive only) at baseline, as well as nonsuicidal self-injury (all three groups) and suicidal ideation and attempt (hyporesponsive only) at follow-up. Girls’ close friendship characteristics moderated several profile–STB links. A synthesis of the findings is presented alongside implications for person-centered tailoring of intervention efforts.

To understand how exposure to victimization during adolescence and the presence of comorbid psychological conditions influence substance use treatment entry and substance use disorder diagnosis from 14 to 25 years old among serious juvenile offenders, this study included 1,354 serious juvenile offenders who were prospectively followed over 7 years. Growth mixture modeling was used to assess profiles of early victimization during adolescence (14–17 years). Discrete time survival mixture analysis was used to assess time to treatment entry and substance use disorder diagnosis. Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and major depressive disorder (MDD) were used as predictors of survival time. Mixture models revealed three profiles of victimization: sustained poly-victimization, moderate/decreasing victimization, and low victimization. Youth in the sustained poly-victimization class were more likely to enter treatment earlier and have a substance use diagnosis earlier than other classes. PTSD was a significant predictor of treatment entry for youth in the sustained poly-victimization class, and MDD was a significant predictor of substance use disorder diagnosis for youth in the moderate/decreasing victimization class. Therefore, substance use prevention programming targeted at youth experiencing poly-victimization in early adolescence—especially those who have PTSD or MDD—is needed.

The impact of maltreatment spreads across many developmental domains and extends across the entire life span. Identifying unidirectional or bidirectional drivers of developmental cascades of the effects of maltreatment experiences is critical to efficiently employing interventions to promote resilient development in maltreated children. This 1-year longitudinal study utilized a multiple-levels approach, investigating “bottom-up” and “top-down” cascades using structural equation modeling between cortisol regulation, externalizing behavior, and peer aggression. Neither a bottom-up model driven by cortisol regulation nor a top-down model driven by peer aggression fit the data well. Instead, lower rates of externalizing behavior at Year 1 most strongly predicted improvements at all levels of analysis (reduced cortisol, externalizing behavior, and peer aggression) at Year 2. These results provide initial indication of a mechanism through which interventions for maltreated children may be most effective and result in the most substantial positive changes across developmental domains.

The present study examined high-risk personality traits and associations with psychopathology across multiple levels of a hierarchical-dimensional model of psychopathology in a large adolescent, general population sample. Confirmatory factor analyses were run using data from two randomized controlled trials of Australian adolescents (N = 8,654, mean age = 13.01 years, 52% female). A higher-order model – comprised of general psychopathology, fear, distress, alcohol use/harms, and conduct/inattention dimensions – was selected based on model fit, reliability, and replicability. Indirect-effects models were estimated to examine the unique associations between high-risk personality traits (anxiety sensitivity, negative thinking, impulsivity, and sensation seeking) and general and specific dimensions and symptoms of psychopathology. All personality traits were positively associated with general psychopathology. After accounting for general psychopathology, anxiety sensitivity was positively associated with fear; negative thinking was positively associated with distress; impulsivity was positively associated with conduct/inattention; and sensation seeking was positively associated with alcohol use/harms and conduct/inattention, and negatively associated with fear. Several significant associations between personality traits and individual symptoms remained after accounting for general and specific psychopathology. These findings contribute to our understanding of the underlying structure of psychopathology among adolescents and have implications for the development of personality-based prevention and early intervention programs.

Families have been suffering from huge financial loss and psychological distress due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Most existing studies investigated the protective factors for anxiety at the individual level, while understandings from the perspective of family dyadic level were left unknown. Considering that social support could serve as a protective factor to reduce anxiety both at individual level and at dyadic level, the present study adopted dyadic data analysis approach to tackle this puzzle. In total, 2512 Chinese parent–adolescent dyads completed a survey with scales of anxiety, social support, and perceived family resilience on July 31 and August 1 of 2021. Results showed that: (1) adolescents’ perceived social support had significant actor and partner effects on their own and parents’ anxiety, whereas parents’ perceived social support only had a significant actor effect on their own anxiety and (2) the actor mediating effects of social support on anxiety via one’s own perceived family resilience were found in both adolescents and parents, and a partner mediating effect of adolescents’ social support was significantly associated with parents’ anxiety through parents’ perceived family resilience. Findings emphasize that interventions aiming at increasing adolescents’ support resources could generate a significant effect on reducing anxiety.

Current evidence suggests that multiple pathways of “early-starting” conduct problems exist, including persisting and declining trajectories. Since relatively little is known about the early onset-declining pathway, this study examined the long-term outcomes of different childhood conduct problem trajectories in a disproportionately high-risk sample (N = 754). Parents reported on children's conduct problems at six time points (kindergarten to grade 7). At age 25, psychosocial outcomes were assessed across five domains (psychopathology, substance use, risky sexual behavior, antisocial behavior, and adaptive outcomes). Four childhood conduct problem trajectories were identified: extremely high increasing (EHI; 3.7%), high stable (HS; 22.0%), moderate decreasing (MD; 38.8%), and low decreasing (LD; 35.5%). The EHI and HS groups displayed the poorest psychosocial functioning at age 25, whereas the LD group exhibited the most positive adjustment. Although individuals in the MD group displayed relatively positive adjustment on some outcomes, they displayed more psychopathology and lower well-being in adulthood than the LD group. These findings suggest that there are diverse pathways of early-starting conduct problems, and that all early starters are at risk for later maladjustment. However, the degree and type of risk is related to the severity of conduct problems throughout childhood.

In an upper-middle class setting, we explored associations between students’ peer reputation in Grades 6 and 7 with adjustment at Grade 12. With a sample of 209 students, a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) of peer reputation dimensions supported a 4-factor model (i.e., popular, prosocial, aggressive, isolated). Structural equation models were used to examine prospective links between middle school peer reputation and diverse Grade 12 adjustment indices, including academic achievement (Scholastic Aptitude Test scores and grade point average), internalizing and externalizing symptoms, and use of cigarettes, alcohol, and marijuana. Prosocial reputation was connected to higher academic achievement levels and fewer externalizing symptoms. Both prosocial and isolated reputations were negatively associated with dimensions of substance use, whereas popularity was positively associated. Implications for future research and interventions are discussed.

Positive health endpoints are not the opposite of negative endpoints. Previous studies examining posttraumatic stress disorders (PTSD) and posttraumatic growth (PTG) trajectories have overlooked the co-existence of PTSD and PTG, making it difficult to accurately distinguish individuals with various posttraumatic presentations, causing the effects of targeted interventions to be discounted. To fill this gap, the current study sought to examine joint PTSD and PTG trajectories in children and adolescents. Eight hundred and seventy-six Chinese children and adolescents were recruited to complete self-report questionnaires 6, 12, and 18 months after the Ya'an earthquake. Multiple-process growth mixture modeling analysis was used to test the study proposal. Five distinct joint PTSD and PTG trajectory types were found: recovery, growth, struggling, resistant, and delayed symptoms. Female students and students who felt trapped or fearful were more likely to be in the struggling group, and students who experienced injury to themselves or family members were more likely to belong to the delayed symptom group. These findings suggest that postdisaster psychological services should be provided to relieve delayed symptoms in individuals who experience injury to themselves or their family members, and individuals in the struggling group should be supported to achieve growth.

Adolescents often experience heightened socioemotional sensitivity warranting their use of regulatory strategies. Yet, little is known about how key socializing agents help regulate teens’ negative emotions in daily life and implications for long-term adjustment. We examined adolescent girls’ interpersonal emotion regulation (IER) with parents and peers in response to negative social interactions, defined as parent and peer involvement in the teen’s enactment of emotion regulation strategies. We also tested associations between rates of daily parental and peer IER and depressive symptoms, concurrently and one year later. Adolescent girls (N = 112; Mage = 12.39) at temperamental risk for depressive disorders completed a 16-day ecological momentary assessment protocol measuring reactivity to negative social interactions, parental and peer IER, and current negative affect. Results indicated that adolescents used more adaptive strategies with peers and more maladaptive strategies with parents in daily life. Both parental and peer IER down-regulated negative affect, reflected by girls’ decreased likelihood of experiencing continued negative affect. Higher proportions of parental adaptive IER predicted reduced depressive symptoms one year later. Findings suggest that both parents and peers effectively help adolescent girls down-regulate everyday negative emotions; however, parents may offer more enduring benefits for long-term adjustment.

The slogan, “words can hit as hard as fists,” has brought home to many Americans the importance of combating psychological maltreatment of children. Most everyone agrees that psychological maltreatment is a problem worth understanding and eliminating. Despite this consensus, relatively little research has been done on psychological maltreatment, at least not under that rubric. Why should such an important topic evade rigorous and intense study? One reason may be that researchers have been hampered by the lack of a generally accepted definition. According to Hart, Germain, and Brassard (1987), “Sufficiently rigorous operational definitions do not presently exist and they therefore deserve first priority in psychological maltreatment work” (p. 16).

Despite growing attention to resilience following childhood maltreatment, it remains unclear how the development of resilience unfolds over time among child welfare-involved adolescents. Further, little is known about the immediate and enduring effects of two important attachments in children’s lives, namely caregiver–child relationship and deviant peer affiliation, on resilience development over time. This study sought to examine the ways in which caregiver–child relationships and deviant peer affiliation shape developmental trajectories of resilience among child welfare-involved youth. Data were drawn from the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being. Latent growth curve modeling was conducted on a sample of 711 adolescents. The results revealed that adolescents’ resilience increased across a 36-month period since initial contact with Child Protective Services. Better caregiver–child relationships were associated with a higher initial level of resilience among adolescents, whereas higher deviant peer affiliation was associated with a lower initial level of resilience. Significant lagged effects were also found; caregiver–child relationship quality and deviant peer affiliation at baseline were associated with resilience at 18 months after. The findings suggest that interventions that aim to promote positive caregiver–child relationships and prevent deviant peer relationships may help foster resilience among adolescents who have experienced child maltreatment.

There is evidence that individuals with Williams syndrome (WS) show an attention bias toward positive social-perceptual (happy) faces. Research has not yet considered whether this attention bias extends beyond social-perceptual stimuli to perceptually neutral stimuli that are paired with positive (trustworthy) biographical information. Fourteen participants with WS (mean age = 21 years, 1 month) learned to associate perceptually neutral faces with trustworthy (positive), neutral, or untrustworthy (negative) biographical information, before completing a dot-probe task where the same biographical faces were presented. The performance of the WS group was compared to two typically developing control groups, individually matched to the WS individuals on chronological age and mental age, respectively. No between-group bias toward untrustworthy characters was observed. The WS group displayed a selective attention bias toward trustworthy characters compared to both control groups (who did not show such a bias). Results support previous findings that indicate WS individuals show a preference for positive social-perceptual stimuli (happy faces) at the neurological, physiological, and attentional levels. The current findings extend this work to include a “top-down” positive bias. The implications of a positive bias that extends beyond social-perceptual stimuli (or “bottom-up” processes) in this syndrome are discussed.

Alcohol use and depressive feelings are often related among early adolescents. However, the nature and underlying mechanisms of this association are not yet clear. The aim of this study was to investigate the co-development of alcohol use and depressive feelings over time and to examine the effects of the mu-opioid receptor (OPRM1) A118G genotype on such co-development. Data from a five-wave longitudinal, genetically informed survey study, with intervals of 4 months among a group of 739 normative early adolescents (12–13 years of age at baseline), were analyzed using a dual latent growth curve approach. OPRM1 status was evaluated from saliva-derived DNA samples. The results indicated a positive association between alcohol use and depressive feelings both at the initial levels and over time, indicating co-development in early adolescence. Compared to OPRM1 118G carriers, homozygous 118A carriers showed a greater increase in frequency of alcohol use and higher levels of depressive feelings over time. Evidence for co-development was only found within the group of homozygous 118A carriers, whereas in OPRM1 118G carriers the development of alcohol use and depressive feelings over time were not significantly associated. These results highlight the potential of OPRM1 as a common etiological factor for the development of alcohol use and depressive feelings in early adolescence.

Substance use increases throughout adolescence, and earlier substance use may increase risk for poorer health. However, limited research has examined whether stress responses relate to adolescent substance use, especially among adolescents from ethnic minority and high-adversity backgrounds. The present study assessed whether blunted emotional and cortisol responses to stress at age 14 related to substance use by ages 14 and 16, and whether associations varied by poverty status and sex. A sample of 277 Mexican-origin youth (53.19% female; 68.35% below the poverty line) completed a social-evaluative stress task, which was culturally adapted for this population, and provided saliva samples and rated their anger, sadness, and happiness throughout the task. They also reported whether they had ever used alcohol, marijuana, cigarettes, and vaping of nicotine at age 14 and again at age 16. Multilevel models suggested that blunted cortisol reactivity to stress was associated with alcohol use by age 14 and vaping nicotine by age 16 among youth above the poverty line. Also, blunted sadness and happiness reactivity to stress was associated with use of marijuana and alcohol among female adolescents. Blunted stress responses may be a risk factor for substance use among youth above the poverty line and female adolescents.

Sports participation, physical activity, and friendship quality are theorized to have protective effects on the developmental emergence of substance use and self-harm behavior in adolescence, but existing research has been mixed. This ambiguity could reflect, in part, the potential for confounding of observed associations by genetic and environmental factors, which previous research has been unable to rigorously rule out. We used data from the prospective, population-based Child and Adolescent Twin Study in Sweden (n = 18,234 born 1994–2001) and applied a co-twin control design to account for potential genetic and environmental confounding of sports participation, physical activity, and friendship quality (assessed at age 15) as presumed protective factors for adolescent substance use and self-harm behavior (assessed at age 18). While confidence intervals widened to include the null in numerous co-twin control analyses adjusting for childhood psychopathology, parent-reported sports participation and twin-reported positive friendship quality were associated with increased odds of alcohol problems and nicotine use. However, parent-reported sports participation, twin-reported physical activity, and twin-reported friendship quality were associated with decreased odds of self-harm behavior. The findings provide a more nuanced understanding of the risks and benefits of putative protective factors for risky behaviors that emerge during adolescence.

Children with aggressive behavior problems may aggress for different reasons, requiring tailored assessment and treatment. The aim of this study was to test whether it is possible to detect distinct social information processing (SIP) profiles among boys with aggressive behavior problems. We therefore conducted Latent Profile Analyses on boys’ SIP patterns assessed in interactive virtual reality. Additionally, we examined the discriminant validity of these SIP profiles by comparing them on theoretically relevant child characteristics (i.e., temperament, executive functioning, aggressive belief systems, punishment insensitivity, sensation seeking). We presented boys (N = 181; ages 7–13) with a virtual classroom where they could play games with virtual peers. They reported on their SIP in four virtual reality scenarios, designed to assess reactive and proactive aggressive SIP. Results revealed four distinct SIP profiles: a general reactive SIP profile, a situation-specific reactive SIP profile, a mixed reactive-proactive SIP profile, and a nonaggressive SIP profile. Planned contrasts revealed that boys with these SIP profiles differed in temperament, aggressive belief systems, and punishment insensitivity, but not in executive functioning and sensation seeking. Overall, findings suggest that boys differ in the exact SIP patterns underlying their aggressive behavior, providing inroads to tailor interventions to children’s individual needs.

In an effort to elucidate new factors that may contribute to developmental psychopathology, the current study examined whether accelerated epigenetic aging at birth related to children's differential susceptibility to the effects of aversive parenting on early emerging mental health risk. Using data from a multiethnic birth cohort, the interaction between Horvath's methylation age in umbilical cord blood and hostile parenting behaviors was examined in relation to perceptions of infant's temperament at 6 months and to children's psychological symptoms at 3 years in 154 families. Results broadly revealed that children with higher levels of accelerated methylation aging evinced more unpredictable temperaments and more psychological symptoms if their mothers reported more hostile parenting, but showed fewer difficulties if mothers engaged in less hostile parenting; children with lower levels of accelerated methylation age did not show associations between hostility and temperament or psychological symptoms. Effects were not accounted for by gestational age at birth, demographic factors, or the distribution of cell subtypes. These findings suggest that accelerated epigenetic age may function as a form of differential susceptibility, signaling increased risk for psychopathology in more aversive contexts but decreased risk in less aversive early environments. Taken together, they point to a novel biological process to consider within risk for psychopathology.