Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology最新文献

Callous-unemotional (CU) traits (i.e., low empathy, restricted guilt, limited prosociality) are associated with severe conduct problems (CP) across development. However, there is heterogeneity in how CP and CU traits manifest at different ages, between boys and girls, in different countries, and different measures. The current study investigated this heterogeneity by applying network analysis to two large mixed-gender samples from the United States (US) and Spain assessed at different ages, with parent ratings of CP, conduct disorder (CD) symptoms, and CU traits. Data were from the ABCD baseline study (US, N = 11,874, age M = 9.48, SD = 0.51, 47.8% girls) and social development sub-study (US, N = 2,426, age M = 11.52, SD = 0.73, 47.4% girls), as well as two waves of the ELISA study (Spain, N = 1,342, age M = 10.24, SD = 1.07, 50.2% girls; N = 1,259, age M = 10.92, SD = 1.01, 50% girls). There were similar rates of CP risk across countries and genders, with the exception that boys younger than age 12 had higher CP risk rates than girls in US. Boys also had higher CU traits than girls in both countries. Network analysis revealed stronger connectivity between items assessing CU traits than CP symptoms, which was consistent across measures and countries. Disobedience and deceitfulness were central symptoms across all samples. Relational aggression was more central among girls, and property destruction and theft were more central in the US. Results highlight the need for personalized interventions that target specific symptoms of CP and CU traits, which can help reduce the burden of antisocial conduct across the lifespan.

Peri-adolescence, the developmental window surrounding pubertal onset, is a critical period for the emergence and escalation of anxiety symptoms, making accurate assessment essential. While parent-reports are typically prioritized in childhood and youth self-reports in later adolescence, these perspectives often diverge during peri-adolescence, and such discrepancies are inconsistently linked to age. This study tested whether pubertal stage, rather than chronological age, accounts for differences between parent- and youth-reported anxiety, aiming to clarify how anxiety is experienced and perceived during this sensitive developmental transition. Two-hundred peri-adolescents (ages 10-13) and their parents completed clinical interviews, anxiety rating scales, and the Pubertal Development Scale. Mixed-effects models tested whether discrepancies varied as a function of pubertal stage, controlling for age. We also explored the utility of Principal Components Analysis (PCA) to extract shared variance across informants into a single multi-informant anxiety score. More advanced pubertal stage was associated with greater discrepancies in anxiety reports, driven by higher youth self-reports and stable parent ratings-especially among clinically anxious youth (n = 94). PCA identified a single cross-informant factor that captured shared variance and improved prediction of clinical severity and functioning. Puberty, rather than age, plays a key role in how caregivers and adolescents report on anxiety symptoms. These findings underscore the need to account for pubertal stage in peri-adolescent assessment and support the utility of dimensional, developmentally sensitive approaches for integrating multi-informant data.

Adolescence is an important social development period that is also marked by increased rates of depression. Positive social interactions are crucial for cultivating social skills and functioning, also known as social competence, and lower social competence has been related to greater depressive symptoms. Still, little is known about factors that impact why some adolescents with low self-perceptions of social competence develop depression while others do not. The present study addressed this gap by examining neural processing of social rewards as a potential moderator of the association between self-perceptions of social competence and depressive symptoms in adolescents. Data from 165 adolescents were collected using electroencephalography during a perceived peer interaction task, eliciting the reward positivity (RewP) event-related potential component in response to social acceptance versus rejection feedback. We identified a moderating effect of social RewP (b = 0.52, p = .039), such that the negative relation between self-perceived social competence and depressive symptoms was strongest for adolescents with a blunted social RewP. These results provide further evidence for the importance of social reward responsiveness in moderating the relation between risk factors and depressive symptoms in adolescents and highlight the utility of multi-method approaches to examining social processes in depression.

Children of depressed mothers are at significantly high risk (HR) for developing major depressive disorder (MDD) compared to their low risk (LR) counterparts. Evidence shows that HR youth exhibit a reduced late positive potential (LPP), an electroencephalogram (EEG) marker of emotional reactivity, in response to social-emotional stimuli. However, it remains unknown how emotion regulation (ER) styles may impact LPP responses in HR and LR offspring. The current study sought to examine the interplay of ER strategies (i.e., rumination, cognitive reappraisal, and suppression) and maternal history of MDD in association with LPP responses to emotional stimuli among youth. Participants included 112 mother-child dyads (child age range 9-16 years) participating in a larger study on the intergenerational transmission of depression. Mothers either had a history of MDD (n = 67) or no history of psychopathology (n = 45). Youth completed an emotional face matching task while EEG was recorded to measure the LPP. Participants completed self-report measures of ER strategies and depressive symptoms. Results revealed an interactive effect of maternal MDD history and youth rumination on child's LPP response. Specifically, a more blunted LPP response to emotional faces and shapes was observed among HR youth who engaged in more frequent rumination. Results revealed no main or interactive effects of youth's use of cognitive reappraisal or suppression strategies in shaping youth's LPP response. Findings suggest that certain characteristics among HR offspring (e.g., reporting more frequent use of rumination) may place them at higher risk for exhibiting attenuated emotional reactivity at the neural level.

This 3-wave longitudinal study examined the bidirectional associations between adolescents' and mothers' perceptions of the mother-adolescent relationship quality (i.e., warmth and hostility) and internalizing symptoms (i.e., depressive symptoms and loneliness). The focus was on the direction of effects between internalizing symptoms and both the levels of and discrepancies in mothers' and adolescents' perceptions of mother-adolescent relationship quality and potential differential associations with depressive symptoms and loneliness over time. A total of 622 early adolescents (55% girls, M_{age T1} = 10.77 years, SD_{age T1} = 0.48, 90.3% Belgian nationality) and 489 mothers (M_{age T1} = 40.96, SD_{age T1} = 3.55) participated in the study. Latent Congruence Models (LCMs) revealed that higher levels of perceived parental hostility in the mother-adolescent relationship were a shared risk factor for both depressive symptoms and loneliness over time. Furthermore, both depressive symptoms and loneliness predicted larger discrepancies in reports of parental hostility over time. In contrast, depressive symptoms were linked to lower levels of perceived parental warmth and larger discrepancies in reports of parental warmth over time, whereas no significant associations between loneliness and warmth were found. Overall, these results revealed consistent patterns of findings across both internalizing symptoms for hostility, whereas depressive symptoms were uniquely associated with both levels and discrepancies in warmth.

Despite autism being defined as an exclusion criterion for selective mutism (SM) in the European diagnostic manual, many studies have revealed a significant overlap between these conditions (Keville et al., 2023; Muris & Ollendick, 2021; Sharkey & McNicholas, 2012; Suzuki et al., 2020). The purpose of this study was to examine selective mutism in Norway using data from the Norwegian Patient Register (NPR), with a specific focus on quantifying its co-occurrence with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). We have identified a sample (n = 1,682), aged from 3 years to 18 years in Norway, who during the period from January 1, 2008, to April 30, 2023, have had at least one documented episode where the diagnosis of selective mutism was registered. Many individuals show a clear overlap between selective mutism and autism, at 11.7%. The Norwegian gender ratio in this SM group was 2.13 girls for every boy (M/F 1:2.13). The exclusion of autism as a co-occurring diagnosis with selective mutism in ICD-10/11 may lead to delayed or incorrect diagnoses, preventing early intervention and tailored support. This particularly affects children who experience both conditions but initially present with SM as the dominant clinical feature.

One in seven adolescents has a mental disorder, accounting for 15% of the disease burden in this group. Identifying factors that are associated with adolescent help-seeking is essential for designing effective and sustainable mental healthcare. Family dynamics-particularly parental roles-are key determinants; however, these associations may evolve as adolescents become more independent. The present study aimed to identify family predictors of adolescents' use of specialized mental health services and to examine potential age effects. We addressed these aims by analyzing four waves of biennially collected data (ages 12-18) from two birth cohorts in Trondheim, Norway (n = 822), utilizing clinical interviews and questionnaires, and accounting for potential confounders. The results of an autoregressive cross-lagged panel model revealed that, across ages 12-18, adolescents' use of specialized mental health services at one time point consistently predicted continued use two years later. However, family functioning, parents' perception of social support, and interparental conflict did not predict service use when controlling for multiple potential confounders (including prior service use, gender, parental occupation, cohabitation status, parental depression and anxiety, perceived need for help, indicators of adolescents' emotional and behavioral problems, impairment, and stressful life events). The present findings indicate no evidence of a prospective association between these family factors and adolescents' receipt of mental-health services. Future research should investigate which specific factors drive help-seeking and how these interact within different service systems to support more sustainable and equitable access to mental health care.

Substance use (SU) problems are critical public health concerns. This study investigated how childhood risk factors and cannabis age of onset (CAO) in adolescence predict later SU problems, using data from the two cohorts of the Quebec Longitudinal Study of Child Development (N = 306; 57% female; N = 1489; 54% female), followed from birth to age 23. A direct association between early CAO and increased cannabis use problems was found in males (cohort 1: β = -0.47; cohort 2: β = -0.22), but not in females. In both sexes, CAO was indirectly associated with later cannabis use problems via increased adolescent cannabis use frequency (cohort 1: ab = -0.41; cohort 2: ab = -0.35). Similar indirect associations were observed between CAO and other SU problems (including tobacco and alcohol), via adolescent cannabis use frequency (cohort 1: ab = -2.63). Parental cannabis use, adverse childhood experiences, and childhood externalizing behaviors (i.e., physical aggression and ADHD symptoms) were associated with early CAO and subsequent CU problems. These findings support developmental models linking early risk exposures to maladaptive substance use pathways and underscore the importance of prevention strategies targeting early cannabis initiation and modifiable early-life risk factors to reduce long-term SU-related problems.