Background: International literature has underlined the complex interplay between genetic and environmental variables in shaping children's emotional-behavioral functioning. Objective: This study aimed to explore the dynamic relationship between children's Dopamine Transporter (DAT1) genotype and methylation, and maternal and paternal affective…

Individual differences in emotional reactivity emerge early in development and predict important child outcomes. Unfortunately, methods used to assess these often fail to tap dynamic changes in emotion, obscuring nuanced relationships between maladaptive emotional reactivity and early internalizing psychopathology. We therefore explored the…

Exposure to intimate partner violence (IPV) is associated with children's internalizing and externalizing problems. IPV is thought to impair mothers' ability to scaffold young children's emotion regulation through coregulated interactions. Mother-child language style matching (LSM) is an index of coregulation that has yet to be examined in…

Objective: This study examined the prospective relationship from student inattention symptoms to changes in their psychological need satisfaction (PNS) during their transition to secondary school. In doing so, it has explored whether this temporal association was moderated by teachers' involvement (TI). Method: A sample of 688 students (46% male;…

This longitudinal study examined the moderating roles of language use and gender in the relations between maternal depressive symptoms and child internalizing behaviour problems in 242 preschool children (48% girls) enrolled in Head Start centres. Teachers and parents completed the "Child Behavior Checklist for Ages 1 1/2-5." Mothers…

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…

Sexual abuse and peer victimization often co-occur and generate similar repercussions. The current study aimed to determine the extent to which child sexual abuse is associated to peer victimization. The unique contribution of these two distinct forms of victimization to the prediction of behavior problems was also investigated in a sample of 532…

An extensive literature links language problems with behavioral difficulties and academic underachievement. Although less extensive, emerging literature suggests that temperament, Positive Affectivity (PA) in particular, contributes to language development. Thus, the present study was focused on PA related temperament dimensions in infancy as…

Introduction: Studies have shown that parents of children with pervasive developmental disorders (PDD) exhibit higher levels of stress than parents of typically developing children or children with other types of developmental delays (DD). This relationship appears to be mediated by elevated levels of behavior problems observed in children with…

Background: Social withdrawal is a core neuropsychiatric phenomenon in developmental psychopathology. Its presence predicts psychopathology across many domains, including depression, psychosis, autism, anxiety, and suicide. Withdrawn behavior is highly heritable, persistent, and characteristically worsens without intervention. To date, few studies…

The current investigation addressed several questions in the burgeoning area of child personality assessment. Specifically, the present study examined overlapping and nonoverlapping variance in two prominent measures of child personality assessment, followed by tests of convergent and divergent validity with child temperament and psychopathology.…

Physical child abuse is a predictor of antisocial behavior in adolescence and adulthood. Few studies have investigated factors that moderate the risk of physical child abuse for later occurring outcomes, including antisocial behavior. This analysis uses data from the Lehigh Longitudinal Study to investigate the prediction of antisocial behavior…

Evidence points to associations between the socioeconomic composition of neighborhoods and children's and adolescents' development. A minimal amount of research, however, examines how timing of exposure to neighborhood socioeconomic conditions matters. This study used longitudinal data from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development…

Two studies tested hypotheses about the distinctive psychological consequences of children's patterns of responding to interparental conflict. In Study 1, 174 preschool children (M = 4.0 years) and their mothers participated in a cross-sectional design. In Study 2, 243 preschool children (M = 4.6 years) and their parents participated in 2 annual…

Objective: To design and test a rapid assessment tool for predicting dysfunctional behavior of children who live in homes where their mother reports recent physical or sexual partner abuse. Methods: A cohort analysis was completed. 300 abused mothers accessing services for partner abuse were interviewed to determine risk factors for dysfunctional…