Co-Rooming Accounts for Socioeconomic Disparities in Infant Sleep Quality among Families Living in Urban Environments

Poor infant sleep quality is associated with negative maternal and infant health outcomes. This study measures socioeconomic disparities in infant sleep quality, and assesses whether child sleep location and maternal stress mediate associations between socioeconomic status (SES) and infant sleep quality. The study includes 86 socioeconomically diverse, mother-infant dyads living in an urban area with infants aged 6–12 months. Mothers reported socioeconomic demographics, infant sleep quality (Brief Infant Sleep Questionnaire) and maternal subjective stress (Perceived Stress Scale). Maternal objective stress was measured via hair cortisol concentration (HCC). The associations among SES, infant sleep quality, infant co-rooming, and maternal stress were assessed. Infants from families with lower income-to-needs (ITN) ratios had poorer infant sleep quality. The association between familial ITN and infant sleep quality was mediated by whether the child co-rooms with parents. Maternal perceived stress was independently associated with infant sleep quality, but HCC was not associated with infant sleep quality

The Impact of a Poverty Reduction Intervention on Infant Brain Activity

Early childhood poverty is a risk factor for lower school achievement, reduced earnings, and poorer health, and has been associated with differences in brain structure and function. Whether poverty causes differences in neurodevelopment, or is merely associated with factors that cause such differences, remains unclear. Here, we report estimates of the causal impact of a poverty reduction intervention on brain activity in the first year of life. We draw data from a subsample of the Baby's First Years study, which recruited 1,000 diverse low-income mother–infant dyads. Shortly after giving birth, mothers were randomized to receive either a large or nominal monthly unconditional cash gift. Infant brain activity was assessed at approximately 1 y of age in the child's home, using resting electroencephalography (EEG; n = 435). We hypothesized that infants in the high-cash gift group would have greater EEG power in the mid- to high-frequency bands and reduced power in a low-frequency band compared with infants in the low-cash gift group. Indeed, infants in the high-cash gift group showed more power in high-frequency bands. Effect sizes were similar in magnitude to many scalable education interventions, although the significance of estimates varied with the analytic specification. In sum, using a rigorous randomized design, we provide evidence that giving monthly unconditional cash transfers to mothers experiencing poverty in the first year of their children's lives may change infant brain activity. Such changes reflect neuroplasticity and environmental adaptation and display a pattern that has been associated with the development of subsequent cognitive skills

Higher Utilization of Social Services Is Associated with Higher Language Scores in Children from Deeply Impoverished Urban Families

Language development has been consistently linked with socioeconomic status (SES), with children from lower SES backgrounds at higher risk for language delays. The objective of this study is to investigate the relationship between familial social service use and language development during the first year of life. Thirty-one low-income mothers and their infants were recruited from the New York metropolitan area. Mothers provided information about demographics and utilization of social services (Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), food stamps, Medicaid, and public housing). Infant language skills were assessed using the Preschool Language Scale. Multiple linear regressions were used to investigate the relationship between social service use and language skills. We found that the number of social services utilized was not an overall significant linear predictor of language skills. However, social service use interacted with poverty level to predict language skills. Specifically, for families living in deep poverty, higher service use significantly predicted higher infant language scores (β = 3.4, p = 0.005). These results suggest that social services may be an appropriate target to help narrow socioeconomic disparities in language development

Co-Rooming Accounts for Socioeconomic Disparities in Infant Sleep Quality among Families Living in Urban Environments

Poor infant sleep quality is associated with negative maternal and infant health outcomes. This study measures socioeconomic disparities in infant sleep quality, and assesses whether child sleep location and maternal stress mediate associations between socioeconomic status (SES) and infant sleep quality. The study includes 86 socioeconomically diverse, mother-infant dyads living in an urban area with infants aged 6–12 months. Mothers reported socioeconomic demographics, infant sleep quality (Brief Infant Sleep Questionnaire) and maternal subjective stress (Perceived Stress Scale). Maternal objective stress was measured via hair cortisol concentration (HCC). The associations among SES, infant sleep quality, infant co-rooming, and maternal stress were assessed. Infants from families with lower income-to-needs (ITN) ratios had poorer infant sleep quality. The association between familial ITN and infant sleep quality was mediated by whether the child co-rooms with parents. Maternal perceived stress was independently associated with infant sleep quality, but HCC was not associated with infant sleep quality

Effects of institutional rearing and foster care intervention on error monitoring and externalizing behaviors in adolescence

Children raised in institutions display deficits in error monitoring and increased psychopathology. Deficits in error monitoring might be a pathway for the emergence of psychopathology in previously institutionalized adolescents. Here we investigate the impact of early psychosocial deprivation and a foster care intervention on error monitoring and its association with internalizing and externalizing behavioral problems in adolescence A modified Flanker task assessed error monitoring in 16-year-old adolescents from the BEIP. The ERN and mid-frontal theta power were computed as indices of neural responses of error monitoring. Adolescents who experienced early institutional rearing and were subsequently placed into foster care showed comparable behavioral (RT, accuracy) and neural (ERN, theta power) measures of error monitoring to their never institutionalized peers; whereas adolescents who received care as usual showed both perturbed behavioral performance and neural responses. Longer duration of institutional care was associated with a reduction in mid-frontal theta power. The results further demonstrated a link between error monitoring as measured by ERN and mid-frontal theta and externalizing-ADHD behavioral problems in adolescents who continued receiving care as usual. The results highlight the long‐term positive impact of early foster care placement and perturbations due to prolonged institutional care in neural responses of error monitoring

The influence of social motivation on neural correlates of cognitive control in girls

Motivation influences cognitive control, particularly in childhood and adolescence. Previous work finds that the error-related negativity (ERN), an event-related potential (ERP) linked to cognitive control following errors, is influenced by social motivation. However, it is unclear whether the influences of social motivation on the ERN extend to stimulus-locked neural correlates of cognitive control. This study reexamines how social motivation influences cognitive control in adolescence by exploring motivational influences on two stimulus-locked ERPs; the N2 and P3. Adolescent girls (8-17 years of age) completed a flanker task under two different conditions. In the social condition, girls were led to believe that they were evaluated by a peer during a flanker task. In the nonsocial condition, girls completed a flanker task while evaluated by a computer. Results revealed that all girls exhibited a larger P3 in social as compared to nonsocial contexts, whereas the N2 was not different between contexts. In addition, the largest P3 enhancements were observed among younger girls. These findings suggest that social motivation influences some ERP components related to cognitive control, and such influences change across development. Additionally, findings suggest the importance of including multiple ERPs when interpreting the functional significance of motivation on cognitive control

Developmental Changes in the Association Between Cognitive Control and Anxiety

Anxiety has been associated with reliance on reactive (stimulus-driven/reflexive) control strategies in response to conflict. However, this conclusion rests primarily on indirect evidence. Few studies utilize tasks that dissociate the use of reactive ('just in time') vs. proactive (anticipatory/preparatory) cognitive control strategies in response to conflict, and none examine children diagnosed with anxiety. The current study utilizes the AX-CPT, which dissociates these two types of cognitive control, to examine cognitive control in youth (ages 8-18) with and without an anxiety diagnosis (n = 56). Results illustrate that planful behavior, consistent with using a proactive strategy, varies by both age and anxiety symptoms. Young children (ages 8-12 years) with high anxiety exhibit significantly less planful behavior than similarly-aged children with low anxiety. These findings highlight the importance of considering how maturation influences relations between anxiety and performance on cognitive-control tasks and have implications for understanding the pathophysiology of anxiety in children

The impact of a poverty reduction intervention on infant brain activity.

Early childhood poverty is a risk factor for lower school achievement, reduced earnings, and poorer health, and has been associated with differences in brain structure and function. Whether poverty causes differences in neurodevelopment, or is merely associated with factors that cause such differences, remains unclear. Here, we report estimates of the causal impact of a poverty reduction intervention on brain activity in the first year of life. We draw data from a subsample of the Baby's First Years study, which recruited 1,000 diverse low-income mother-infant dyads. Shortly after giving birth, mothers were randomized to receive either a large or nominal monthly unconditional cash gift. Infant brain activity was assessed at approximately 1 y of age in the child's home, using resting electroencephalography (EEG; n = 435). We hypothesized that infants in the high-cash gift group would have greater EEG power in the mid- to high-frequency bands and reduced power in a low-frequency band compared with infants in the low-cash gift group. Indeed, infants in the high-cash gift group showed more power in high-frequency bands. Effect sizes were similar in magnitude to many scalable education interventions, although the significance of estimates varied with the analytic specification. In sum, using a rigorous randomized design, we provide evidence that giving monthly unconditional cash transfers to mothers experiencing poverty in the first year of their children's lives may change infant brain activity. Such changes reflect neuroplasticity and environmental adaptation and display a pattern that has been associated with the development of subsequent cognitive skills

Adolescent cognitive control, theta oscillations, and social observation

Theta oscillations (4-8 Hz) provide an organizing principle of cognitive control, allowing goal-directed behavior. In adults, theta power over medial-frontal cortex (MFC) underlies conflict/error monitoring, whereas theta connectivity between MFC and lateral-frontal regions reflects cognitive control recruitment. However, prior work has not separated theta responses that occur before and immediately after a motor response, nor explained how medial-lateral connectivity drives different kinds of control behaviors. Theta's role during adolescence, a developmental window characterized by a motivation-control mismatch also remains unclear. As social observation is known to influence motivation, this might be a particularly important context for studying adolescent theta dynamics. Here, adolescents performed a flanker task alone or under social observation. Focusing first on the nonsocial context, we parsed cognitive control into dissociable subprocesses, illustrating how theta indexes distinct components of cognitive control working together dynamically to produce goal-directed behavior. We separated theta power immediately before/after motor responses, identifying behavioral links to conflict monitoring and error monitoring, respectively. MFC connectivity was separated before/after responses and behaviorally-linked to reactive and proactive control, respectively. Finally, distinct forms of post-error control were dissociated, based on connectivity with rostral/caudal frontal cortex. Social observation was found to exclusively upregulate theta measures indexing post-response error monitoring and proactive control, as opposed to conflict monitoring and reactive control. Linking adolescent cognitive control to theta oscillations provides a bridge between non-invasive recordings in humans and mechanistic studies of neural oscillations in animal models; links to social observation provide insight into the motivation-control interactions that occur during adolescence