The Adolescent Brain Cognitive DevelopmentSM (ABCD) Study® has significant potential to reveal the nature, causes, context, and consequences of pubertal development in diverse American youth. Optimal use of the data requires thoughtful consideration of puberty: how it is likely to affect psychological and neural development, and its measurement. We examined how ABCD puberty data have been used, and the relative advantages of two measures derived from the Pubertal Development Scale: the categorical measure provided in data releases and a continuous measure widely used outside ABCD.
First, we conducted a review of published studies using ABCD puberty data through December 2024, following PRISMA guidelines. Two independent raters coded the studies for key features. Second, we used data from ABCD baseline and the Year 1 follow-up to empirically compare the categorical and continuous measures in descriptives, reliability, sex differences, twin similarities, and examine correspondence.
Systematic review results from 190 reports showed that more studies considered puberty as a covariate (72%) than a variable of interest (28%), with 44% using the categorical measure from data releases and another 28% providing insufficient information to determine measurement. When puberty was a focus, there was variability in the use of youth versus parent-report and approach to missing data, and little attention to sex differences. Results from the empirical comparison showed advantages of the continuous over the categorical measure in data availability, developmental distributions, and reliability; they also confirmed the limited utility of youth-report in early puberty.
Results have crucial implications for the use of ABCD puberty data, especially early assessments. They highlight the complexity of studying pubertal influences on adolescent development and emphasize measurement. Attention to these issues will maximize the potential of ABCD to rigorously delineate the role of puberty in brain and behavioral development and to ultimately promote youth well-being.
Background: Autistic youth in the United States face many challenges accessing services as they transition to adulthood. Improving parents' ability to advocate for services is a promising way to improve service access. The current study tested whether participation in an intervention to improve parents' ability to advocate for adult services (called Advocating for Supports to Improve Service Transitions or ASSIST) led to increased service access for their transition-aged autistic youth.
Methods: Using a multisite, single-blind parallel-group design, we randomized 185 parents of transition-aged autistic youth to either a treatment condition that received the ASSIST intervention, or a control condition that received comprehensive written information about adult services. Primary outcomes for this report - number of government programs that fund services and direct services received by the youth - were collected via parental interview at baseline, six, and 12 months after intervention.
Results: Primary analyses found no significant treatment effects on service access. Subgroup analyses, however, detected treatment effects for families of youth who had exited high school prior to their families taking ASSIST. Among those families, youth from the treatment group were receiving more government programs that fund services at 6 months after intervention compared with youth from the control group.
Conclusions: We cannot conclude from our findings that ASSIST improved access to services, though there was some evidence to suggest increased access to government programs that fund services for families of autistic youth who had exited high school. Future research should investigate which families can translate written information about adult services (i.e. the control condition) into improved service access, and which families need more individualized support beyond a group-based class to see improvements in service access.
Emotions that mothers express about their offspring are associated with offspring mental health during childhood, but little research has explored whether this extends into adolescence. We investigated associations between maternal warmth and negativity towards twin offspring at age 10, and subsequent mental health outcomes in early and late adolescence.
The Environmental Risk (E-Risk) Longitudinal Twin Study is a population-based cohort of 2,232 same-sex twins born in 1994–1995 across England and Wales. Maternal warmth and negativity were assessed from Five-Minute Speech Samples obtained when twins were aged 10. Continuous mental health outcomes were assessed in interviews with twins at ages 12 (depression, anxiety, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and conduct disorder) and 18 (general psychopathology, internalising, externalising and thought disorder). Linear regressions were conducted on 1906 participants with available data and adjusted for sex, family socioeconomic status, and age-5 emotional and behavioural problems. We then conducted a monozygotic twin-difference analysis to control for unmeasured shared environmental and genetic factors.
Lower maternal warmth and higher maternal negativity were associated with worse mental health outcomes at ages 12 and 18. For example, when comparing differences in mothers' expressed emotions and mental health outcomes within monozygotic twin pairs, higher negativity remained associated with externalising symptoms (b = 1.77, 95% CI = 0.68 to 2.86, β = .14) and poorer general psychopathology (b = 1.82, 95% CI = 0.63 to 3.01, β = .13), and lower warmth with externalising symptoms (b = −1.96, 95% CI = −3.54 to −0.37, β = −.11). These associations remained after adjusting for twin-differences in age-5 emotional and behavioural problems and birth weight. Null findings were more frequently observed for maternal warmth and internalising outcomes.
Using a genetically sensitive design to approach causal inference, we found evidence for associations between maternal warmth/negativity and adolescent mental health outcomes. Maternal expressed emotion ratings might provide an early opportunity to identify families who would benefit from interventions and mental health disorder prevention programmes.
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