Young children who have experienced early adversity are at risk for developing disorganized attachments. The efficacy of Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up (ABC), an intervention targeting ...nurturing care among parents identified as being at risk for neglecting their young children, was evaluated through a randomized clinical trial. Attachment quality was assessed in the Strange Situation for 120 children between 11.7 and 31.9 months of age (M = 19.1, SD = 5.5). Children in the ABC intervention showed significantly lower rates of disorganized attachment (32%) and higher rates of secure attachment (52%) relative to the control intervention (57% and 33%, respectively). These results support the efficacy of the ABC intervention in enhancing attachment quality among parents at high risk for maltreatment.
Abstract Young children who experience early adversity are at risk for problems regulating emotions, behavior, and physiology, which in turn place them at risk for later psychopathology, school ...problems, and peer relation difficulties. Therefore, early parenting interventions are critical in helping this vulnerable population develop adequate self-regulatory capabilities. Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up (ABC) is an intervention developed to help parents learn to behave in ways that enhance young children's self-regulatory capabilities. In the present study, we found that preschool-aged foster children who had received the ABC intervention showed stronger cognitive flexibility and theory of mind skills, relative to foster children who had received a control intervention. Foster children who had received the ABC intervention showed capabilities in these areas that were not significantly different from a comparison group of children who were never in foster care. These findings are promising in suggesting that the ABC intervention enhances the development of foster children's self-regulatory capabilities.
Insecure attachment and behavioral inhibition (BI) increase risk for internalizing problems, but few longitudinal studies have examined their interaction in predicting adolescent anxiety. This study ...included 165 adolescents (ages 14–17 years) selected based on their reactivity to novelty at 4 months. Infant attachment was assessed with the Strange Situation. Multimethod BI assessments were conducted across childhood. Adolescents and their parents independently reported on anxiety. The interaction of attachment and BI significantly predicted adolescent anxiety symptoms, such that BI and anxiety were only associated among adolescents with histories of insecure attachment. Exploratory analyses revealed that this effect was driven by insecureresistant attachment and that the association between BI and social anxiety was significant only for insecure males. Clinical implications are discussed.
Preschoolers with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are at increased risk for the development of comorbid conduct disorder (CD) and depression. Early predictors of serious adverse ...outcomes within this population include parenting characterized by high levels of negativity and low levels of positivity, maternal depression, and child emotion regulation (ER) difficulties. Parent–child interaction therapy (PCIT) is an evidence-based treatment for oppositional defiant disorder and CD that has also been shown to improve comorbid child internalizing symptoms and maternal depression by enhancing parenting and improving the parent–child relationship. PCIT-emotion development (PCIT-ED) is an adaptation for depressed preschoolers, grounded in developmental literature, which teaches parents to become “emotion coaches” for their children, in an effort to build child ER skills. In this paper, we describe the iterative process by which we implemented and adapted PCIT-ED based on our experiences treating nine children with ADHD. We present three case examples that exemplify our process in adapting the PCIT-ED manual. This work suggests that PCIT with parent emotion coaching (PCIT-ECo) may be a promising treatment approach for young children with ADHD. Future research will need to examine this adaptation relative to standard PCIT to determine whether our integration of parent emotion coaching results in added improvement in child ER, internalizing and externalizing problems, and functional impairment.
•Preschool ADHD is prevalent and associated with negative long-term outcomes.•Parenting, poor emotion regulation, and maternal depression increase comorbidity risk.•Adding parent emotion coaching to parent training may decrease risk for comorbidity.•PCIT-ECo is an adaptation of PCIT with an emotion coaching component.•PCIT-ECo results in improved parenting, child emotion regulation, and behavior.
Behavioral inhibition (BI) and maternal over-control are early risk factors for later childhood internalizing problems, particularly social anxiety disorder (SAD). Consistently high BI across ...childhood appears to confer risk for the onset of SAD by adolescence. However, no prior studies have prospectively examined observed maternal over-control as a risk factor for adolescent social anxiety (SA) among children initially selected for BI. The present prospective longitudinal study examines the direct and indirect relations between these early risk factors and adolescent SA symptoms and SAD, using a multi-method approach. The sample consisted of 176 participants initially recruited as infants and assessed for temperamental reactivity to novel stimuli at age 4 months. BI was measured via observations and parent-report across multiple assessments between the ages of 14 months and 7 years. Maternal over-control was assessed observationally during parent–child interaction tasks at 7 years. Adolescents (ages 14–17 years) and parents provided independent reports of adolescent SA symptoms. Results indicated that higher maternal over-control at 7 years predicted higher SA symptoms and lifetime rates of SAD during adolescence. Additionally, there was a significant interaction between consistently high BI and maternal over-control, such that patterns of consistently high BI predicted higher adolescent SA symptoms in the presence of high maternal over-control. High BI across childhood was not significantly associated with adolescent SA symptoms when children experienced low maternal over-control. These findings have the potential to inform prevention and early intervention programs by indentifying particularly at-risk youth and specific targets of treatment.
The present longitudinal study examined diurnal cortisol patterning over time among 65 children, 41 children with histories of foster care and 24 comparison children, in relation to social-cognitive ...and behavior regulation outcomes. Diurnal cortisol patterns were assessed via assay of wake-up and bedtime saliva samples collected over 2-3 consecutive days at two developmental timepoints: infancy/toddlerhood (Time 1) and early school age (Time 2). Social-cognitive and behavior regulation outcomes were assessed at Time 2. Structural equation models of latent difference scores revealed that adopted and comparison children's wake-up cortisol values did not differ at Time 1 or 2, but adopted children showed less of a decrease in cortisol across the day at Time 1 relative to comparison children. Participation in an early intervention program, attachment disorganization, and foster care placement instability were also examined as predictors of diurnal cortisol patterns. With regard to social-cognitive outcomes, steeper diurnal change in cortisol at Time 2 was associated with higher cognitive flexibility and theory of mind abilities, when controlling for several demographic variables. These results could inform early intervention programs by providing a better understanding of risk factors that predict flatter diurnal cortisol patterns, and the specific outcomes associated with flatter diurnal cortisol patterns.
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