Without preventative intervention, youth with a history of foster care (FC) involvement have a high likelihood of developing depression and anxiety (DA) symptoms. The current study used integrative data analysis to harmonize data across four foster and kinship parent-mediated interventions (and seven randomized control trials) designed to reduce…

Anger is a central characteristic of negative affect and is relatively stable from infancy onward. Absolute levels of anger typically peak in early childhood and diminish as children become socialized and better able to regulate emotions. From infancy to school age, however, there are also individual differences in rank-order levels of anger. For…

This study examines interactions of heritable influences, prenatal substance use, and postnatal parental warmth and hostility on the development of conduct problems in middle childhood for boys and girls. Participants are 561 linked families, collected in 2 cohorts, including birth parents, adoptive parents, and adopted children. Heritable…

Understanding the role of negative emotionality in the development of executive functioning (EF) and language skills can help identify developmental windows that may provide promising opportunities for intervention. In addition, because EF and language skills are, in part, genetically influenced, intergenerational transmission patterns are…

This study used a prospective adoption design to investigate effects of prenatal and postnatal parent depressive symptom exposure on child hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) activity and associated internalizing symptoms. Birth mother prenatal symptoms and adoptive mother/father postnatal (9-month, 27-month) symptoms were assessed with the Beck…

This study demonstrates the unique contributions of perinatal risk and genetic and environmental influences on child behavior using data from 561 domestic US adoption triads (birth mothers, adopted child, and adoptive parents). Findings show distinct patterns of associations among genetic (birth mother psychopathology), prenatal (six maternal…

Child hypothalamic pituitary adrenal (HPA) activity was investigated as a moderator of parental depressive symptom effects on child behavior in an adoption sample ("n" = 210 families). Adoptive parents' depressive symptoms and child internalizing and externalizing were assessed at 18, 27, and 54 months, and child morning and evening HPA…

Socially disruptive behavior during peer interactions in early childhood is detrimental to children's social, emotional, and academic development. Few studies have investigated the developmental underpinnings of children's socially disruptive behavior using genetically sensitive research designs that allow examination of parent-on-child and…

The current longitudinal study examined trajectories of child negative emotionality, parenting efficacy, and overreactive parenting among 382 adoptive families during infancy and toddlerhood. Data were collected from adoptive parents when the children were 9-, 18-, and 27-month-old. Latent growth curve modeling indicated age-related increases in…

Objective: The authors conduct a within intervention group analysis to test whether caregiver engagement (e.g., participation, homework completion, openness to ideas, apparent satisfaction) in a group-based intervention moderates risk factors for foster child outcomes in a state-supported randomized trial of caregiver parent training. Methods: The…

Objective: Little is known about how parenting might offset genetic risk to prevent the onset of child problems during toddlerhood. We used a prospective adoption design to separate genetic and environmental influences and test whether associations between structured parenting and toddler behavior problems were conditioned by genetic risk for…

Studies whether parental monitoring differs across two-parent biological families, stepmother families, and stepfather families. Two-parent biological families were hypothesized to have higher levels of monitoring than stepparent families. Controlling for demographic differences, two-parent biological families showed higher levels of monitoring…

Used behavioral genetic methods and environmental assessment techniques to assess maladaptive behavior in 6- to 11-year-old twin pairs. Found that genetic variation accounts for majority of variance in parent-reported child maladaptive behavior; in contrast, observational coding and global impressions of parent-twin interactive behavior suggest…