Coping Skills and Parent Support Mediate the Association Between Childhood Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder and Adolescent Cigarette Use

To examine mediators of the association between childhood attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and adolescent cigarette use

Longitudinal Impact of Childhood Adversity on Early Adolescent Mental Health During the COVID-19 Pandemic in the ABCD Study Cohort: Does Race or Ethnicity Moderate Findings?

Background During the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, mental health among youth has been negatively affected. Youth with a history of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), as well as youth from minoritized racial-ethnic backgrounds, may be especially vulnerable to experiencing COVID-19–related distress. The aims of this study are to examine whether exposure to pre-pandemic ACEs predicts mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic in youth and whether racial-ethnic background moderates these effects. Methods From May to August 2020, 7983 youths (mean age, 12.5 years; range, 10.6–14.6 years) in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study completed at least one of three online surveys measuring the impact of the pandemic on their mental health. Data were evaluated in relation to youths\u27 pre-pandemic mental health and ACEs. Results Pre-pandemic ACE history significantly predicted poorer mental health across all outcomes and greater COVID-19–related stress and impact of fears on well-being. Youths reported improved mental health during the pandemic (from May to August 2020). While reporting similar levels of mental health, youths from minoritized racial-ethnic backgrounds had elevated COVID-19–related worry, stress, and impact on well-being. Race and ethnicity generally did not moderate ACE effects. Older youths, girls, and those with greater pre-pandemic internalizing symptoms also reported greater mental health symptoms. Conclusions Youths who experienced greater childhood adversity reported greater negative affect and COVID-19–related distress during the pandemic. Although they reported generally better mood, Asian American, Black, and multiracial youths reported greater COVID-19–related distress and experienced COVID-19–related discrimination compared with non-Hispanic White youths, highlighting potential health disparities

The James Webb Space Telescope Mission

Twenty-six years ago a small committee report, building on earlier studies, expounded a compelling and poetic vision for the future of astronomy, calling for an infrared-optimized space telescope with an aperture of at least $4m$. With the support of their governments in the US, Europe, and Canada, 20,000 people realized that vision as the $6.5m$ James Webb Space Telescope. A generation of astronomers will celebrate their accomplishments for the life of the mission, potentially as long as 20 years, and beyond. This report and the scientific discoveries that follow are extended thank-you notes to the 20,000 team members. The telescope is working perfectly, with much better image quality than expected. In this and accompanying papers, we give a brief history, describe the observatory, outline its objectives and current observing program, and discuss the inventions and people who made it possible. We cite detailed reports on the design and the measured performance on orbit.Comment: Accepted by PASP for the special issue on The James Webb Space Telescope Overview, 29 pages, 4 figure

Modifying an evidence-based summer treatment program for use in a summer school setting: A pilot effectiveness evaluation

This report evaluates a pilot implementation of a modified version of the Summer Treatment Program (STP, Pelham et al. in Evidence-based psychotherapies for children and adolescents. The Guilford Press, New York, 2010) as an afternoon adjunct to a mandatory summer school curriculum in three inner city elementary schools (Summer School STP, SSSTP). Using preliminary post-test measures, the SSSTP was compared with afternoon adjunct programs implemented in two comparison schools. Students in pre-kindergarten through sixth grade who failed to meet grade-level requirements for grade promotion were required to attend the program and served as participants (SSSTP n = 585, Comparison n = 686). Measures collected include the following: student self-reports, teachers’ program evaluations, staff evaluations (of students, program, benefit to self), staff ratings of benefit to junior counselors (i.e., adolescent employees), and independent observations. Results suggest that the SSSTP is an acceptable and feasible adjunctive intervention for the summer school setting in inner city schools. Further research is needed to examine academic and therapeutic benefits. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved). (journal abstract

Is Parental Monitoring Just A Way to Acquire Knowledge? Re-Evaluating A Re-Conceptualization

From the 1950s to 1990s, parental monitoring was conceptualized and studied as an independent construct, driving changes in youth adjustment. In the past two decades, parental monitoring has instead come to be conceptualized in many papers as simply a way to acquire parental knowledge, with knowledge in turn driving changes in youth adjustment. We argue that this re-conceptualization is not yet supported by empirical evidence and is strongly contradicted by theory, because parental monitoring may impact youth adjustment in several plausible ways that do not involve acquiring knowledge. As a result, we recommend that the field decouple the study of parental monitoring and parental knowledge, and regard each as a construct of independent scientific interest for determining youth adjustment