Although adolescents’ prosocial behavior is related to various positive outcomes, longitudinal research on its development and predictors is still sparse. This 6-wave longitudinal study investigated ...the development of prosocial behavior across adolescence, and examined longitudinal associations with perspective taking and empathic concern. Participants were 497 adolescents (
M
age t1 =
13.03 years, 43% girls) who reported on their prosocial behaviors, empathic concern, and perspective taking. The results revealed marked gender differences in the development of prosocial behavior. For boys, levels of prosocial behavior were stable until age 14, followed by an increase until age 17, and a slight decrease thereafter. For girls, prosocial behavior increased until age 16 years and then slightly decreased. Regarding longitudinal associations, empathic concern was consistently related to subsequent prosocial behavior. However, perspective taking was only indirectly related to prosocial behavior, via its effect on empathic concern. Tests of the direction of effects showed support for the notion that earlier prosocial behavior predicts subsequent empathy-related traits, but only for girls. The findings support cognitive-developmental and moral socialization theories of prosocial development and the primary role of moral emotions in predicting prosocial behaviors. Our findings inform strategies to foster prosocial behaviors by emphasizing moral
emotions
rather than moral
cognitions
during adolescence.
The quality of children’s life is important both as an investment in the future of our society and because children constitute an important group of themselves and deserve to experience well-being ...presently. Quality of life (QOL) has been conceptualized and studied in children for several decades, but with disparate approaches that have rarely been discussed jointly with application to children in general. Here we describe and critically examine the three main approaches to children’s QOL: health-related QOL (HRQOL), social indicators, and subjective well-being (SWB). Although this is not a review of instruments per se, we illustrate these approaches by describing their most prominent measures. Issues and opportunities in research on children’s QOL are then discussed related to conceptual clarity, content specification, range of experience, subjective and objective perspectives, development in childhood, reporting source, and malleability of QOL. Finally, directions for advancing children’s QOL are considered. We highlight the benefits of focusing on social indicators and SWB, rather than HRQOL, when representing this concept for children in general, the need for applying more sophisticated research strategies, and using QOL as a universal indicator of success whenever we intend to advance the well-being of children through intervention, programs, and policy.
•Children deserve to experience a good quality of life (QOL).•We examine three main approaches for understanding children’s QOL.•Issues and opportunities in research on children’s QOL are discussed.•We conclude social indicators and subjective well-being best capture children’s QOL.•QOL should be a universal indicator when we intend to advance well-being of children.
The purpose of this study was to examine reciprocal associations between identity processes (commitment, indepth exploration, and reconsideration of commitment) and dimensions (support, negative ...interaction, and power) of maternal, paternal, and sibling relationships. A total of 497 Dutch families including 14-years-old adolescents (56.9% males), their fathers, mothers, and siblings, for a total of 1,988 respondents, participated in a five-wave longitudinal study. Cross-lagged analyses indicated that commitment and in-depth exploration predicted improvements in family relationships (unidirectional effects), whereas reconsideration of commitment was predicted by low levels of maternal support and worsened the quality of the paternal relationship (reciprocal effects). These results were not moderated by adolescents' gender and sibling characteristics. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
To examine differences by sex in the timing of identification of individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), survey data were collected in the Netherlands from 2,275 males and females with ...autistic disorder, Asperger’s syndrome and PDD-NOS. Among participants <18 years of age, females with Asperger’s syndrome were identified later than males. Among participants ≥18 years of age, females with autistic disorder were identified later than males. In more recent years, girls with Asperger’s syndrome are diagnosed later than boys, confirming earlier findings. In adults, the delayed timing of diagnosis in females with autistic disorder may be related to changing practices in diagnosis over time. Strategies for changing clinician behaviour to improve recognition of ASD in females are needed.
Symptoms of depression and anxiety are highly prevalent in adolescence and they are the cause of considerable suffering. Even so, adolescents are not inclined to seek professional help for emotional ...problems. Internet-based preventive interventions have been suggested as a feasible method of providing appropriate care to adolescents with internalizing symptoms. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of preventive Internet-based (guided) self-help problem-solving therapy (PST) for adolescents reporting mild to moderate symptoms of depression and/or anxiety as compared to a waiting list control group (WL).
A total of 45 participants were randomized to the 2 conditions. PST consisted of 5 weekly lessons. Participants were supported by e-mail. Self-report measures of depression and anxiety were filled in at baseline and after 3 weeks, 5 weeks, and 4 months. Of the 45 participants, 28 (62.2%) completed questionnaires after 3 weeks, 28 (62.2%) after 5 weeks, and 27 (60%) after 4 months. Hierarchical linear modeling analyses revealed overall improvement over time for both groups on depressive and anxiety symptoms. However, no significant group x time interactions were found. No differences were found between completers and non-completers.
Results show that depressive and anxiety symptoms declined in both groups. No support was found, however, for the assumption that Internet-based PST was efficacious in reducing depression and anxiety in comparison to the waiting list control group. This finding could represent lack of power.
Netherlands Trial Register NTR1322.
While stress is a common experience for parents caring for a child with a developmental disability, current measures fail to distinguish between general stress in parents and the demands of parenting ...and perceptions of parenting skills (parenting stress). This study examined differences in ‘parenting stress’ reported by parents of children with autism and typically developing children. This study examined the role of child characteristics (age, autism severity, child quality of life and problem behaviour) on parenting stress in 150 parents of cognitively able children and adolescents with autism. The results revealed that child hyperactivity was the only factor significantly related to parenting stress in parents of children with autism, overruling measures of autism severity and child quality of life. This finding indicates the significant influence of problematic behaviours on parenting demands and perceptions of parenting skills in parents of children with autism, over other child characteristics conceived as within the parent’s control. Study implications for future research are discussed.
The Millennium Developmental Goals ensured a significant reduction in childhood mortality. However, this reduction simultaneously raised concerns about the long-term outcomes of survivors of early ...childhood insults. This systematic review focuses on the long-term neurocognitive and mental health outcomes of neonatal insults (NNI) survivors who are six years or older.
Two independent reviewers conducted a comprehensive search for empirical literature by combining index and free terms from the inception of the databases until 10th October 2019. We also searched for additional relevant literature from grey literature and using reference tracking. Studies were included if they: were empirical studies conducted in humans; the study participants were followed at six years of age or longer; have an explicit diagnosis of NNI, and explicitly define the outcome and impairment. Medians and interquartile range (IQR) of the proportions of survivors of the different NNI with any impairment were calculated. A random-effect model was used to explore the estimates accounted for by each impairment domain.
Fifty-two studies with 94,978 participants who survived NNI were included in this systematic review. The overall prevalence of impairment in the survivors of NNI was 10.0% (95% CI 9.8-10.2). The highest prevalence of impairment was accounted for by congenital rubella (38.8%: 95% CI 18.8-60.9), congenital cytomegalovirus (23.6%: 95% CI 9.5-41.5), and hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (23.3%: 95% CI 14.7-33.1) while neonatal jaundice has the lowest proportion (8.6%: 95% CI 2.7-17.3). The most affected domain was the neurodevelopmental domain (16.6%: 95% CI 13.6-19.8). The frequency of impairment was highest for neurodevelopmental impairment 22.0% (IQR = 9.2-24.8) and least for school problems 0.0% (IQR = 0.0-0.00) in any of the conditions.
The long-term impact of NNI is also experienced in survivors of NNI who are 6 years or older, with impairments mostly experienced in the neurodevelopmental domain. However, there are limited studies on long-term outcomes of NNI in sub-Saharan Africa despite the high burden of NNI in the region.
Registration number: CRD42018082119.
This article describes the average and group-based developmental trajectories of aggression, opposition, property violations, and status violations using parent reports of externalizing behaviors on ...a longitudinal multiple birth cohort study of 2,076 children aged 4 to 18 years. Trajectories were estimated from multilevel growth curve analyses and semiparametric mixture models. Overall, males showed higher levels of externalizing behavior than did females. Aggression, opposition, and property violations decreased on average, whereas status violations increased over time. Group-based trajectories followed the shape of the average curves at different levels and were similar for males and females. The trajectories found in this study provide a basis against which deviations from the expected developmental course can be identified and classified as deviant or nondeviant.
Abstract The aims of the present study were to identify discrete classes of adolescents based on their reporting of emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional neglect, and physical ...neglect of several levels of severity using a person-centered analytic approach (i.e., latent class analysis), and to compare the latent classes on 17 dimensions of personality pathology. It was hypothesized that based on types of maltreatment and severity levels within each type there would be discrete latent classes, and that classes of adolescents exposed to a larger number of maltreatment types with higher severity (i.e., moderate–severe) would report higher levels of personality pathology than adolescents in classes exposed to less types with less severity, after controlling for age and gender. Participants were 702 adolescents from Jammu, India (13–17 years, 41.5% females). The latent classes were based on three levels of severity for each type of maltreatment assessed via the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire ( Bernstein et al., 2003 ). Four distinct classes of adolescents, namely, Moderate–severe abuse and physical neglect (Class 1), Low to moderate–severe abuse (Class 2), Moderate–severe neglect (Class 3), and Minimal abuse or neglect (Class 4) were found. Classes with higher percentages of adolescents reporting abuse and neglect with higher severity (Classes 1 and 2) reported higher levels of personality pathology than the other classes. There are distinct classes of adolescents’ identifiable based on levels of severity and types of abuse and neglect, which are differentially associated with specific dimensions of personality pathology. Implications for research and practice are discussed.
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