Preschool Behavioral and Social-Cognitive Problems as Predictors of (Pre)adolescent Disruptive Behavior

This article describes preschool social understanding and difficult behaviors (hot temper, disobedience, bossiness and bullying) as predictors of oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) and aggressive conduct disorder (ACD) in a Dutch population sample of (pre)adolescents (N = 1943), measured at age 10–12 and at age 13–15. ODD and ACD were assessed by the Child Behavior Checklist and the Youth Self-Report, preschool behavior was evaluated by the parental questionnaire ‹How was your child as a preschooler? (age 4–5)’. Adjusted for each other, all difficult preschool behaviors except bullying were associated with adolescent ODD, while only bullying significantly predicted adolescent ACD. Furthermore, the results suggest a qualitative difference between ODD and ACD in terms of the social component of the disorders: poor preschool social understanding was associated with the development of ACD but not of ODD; and poor social understanding interacted with difficult preschool behaviors to predict later ACD but not ODD. The associations did not differ between boys and girls, and were roughly similar for preadolescent (age 10–12) and early adolescent (age 13–15) outcomes. The finding that poor social understanding was implicated in the development of ACD but not in the development of ODD may help to demarcate the individuality of each disorder and offer leads for (differential) treatment strategies

Environmental and genetic influences on early attachment

Attachment theory predicts and subsequent empirical research has amply demonstrated that individual variations in patterns of early attachment behaviour are primarily influenced by differences in sensitive responsiveness of caregivers. However, meta-analyses have shown that parenting behaviour accounts for about one third of the variance in attachment security or disorganisation. The exclusively environmental explanation has been challenged by results demonstrating some, albeit inconclusive, evidence of the effect of infant temperament. In this paper, after reviewing briefly the well-demonstrated familial and wider environmental influences, the evidence is reviewed for genetic and gene-environment interaction effects on developing early attachment relationships. Studies investigating the interaction of genes of monoamine neurotransmission with parenting environment in the course of early relationship development suggest that children's differential susceptibility to the rearing environment depends partly on genetic differences. In addition to the overview of environmental and genetic contributions to infant attachment, and especially to disorganised attachment relevant to mental health issues, the few existing studies of gene-attachment interaction effects on development of childhood behavioural problems are also reviewed. A short account of the most important methodological problems to be overcome in molecular genetic studies of psychological and psychiatric phenotypes is also given. Finally, animal research focusing on brain-structural aspects related to early care and the new, conceptually important direction of studying environmental programming of early development through epigenetic modification of gene functioning is examined in brief

Adults’ implicit reactions to typical and atypical infant cues

This study investigates the valence of adults’ implicit associations to typical and atypical infant cues, and the consistency of responses across the different stimuli. 48 non-parent adults (25 females, 23 males) were presented three kinds of infant cues, typical cry (TD-cry), atypical cry (ASD-cry) and infant faces, and their implicit associations were measured by means of the Single Category Implicit Association Test (SC-IAT). Results showed that, independently of gender, the implicit associations to typical and atypical infant cries had the same negative valence, whereas infant faces were implicitly associated to the positive dimension. Moreover, data showed that implicit responses to the different infant cues were not associated. These results suggest that more controlled processes influence the perceptions of atypical infant cry, and confirm the need to investigate individual reactions to infant cues by adopting a multilevel approach

Adults’ Reactions to Infant Cry and Laugh: A Multilevel Study

Starting from the assumption that caregiving behaviours are regulated at different levels, the aim of the present paper was to investigate adults’ reaction to salient infant cues by means of a multilevel approach. To this aim, psychophysiological responses (Heart Rate Variability), implicit associations (SC-IAT-A), and explicit attitudes (semantic differential) toward salient infant cues were measured on a sample of 25 non-parents adults (14 females, 11 males). Moreover, the trait anxiety and the individual noise sensitivity were considered as controlling factors. Results showed that adults’ responses were moderated by the specific measure considered, and that responses at the different levels were only partially consistent. Theoretical and practical implications were discussed

From reading minds to social interaction: respecifying Theory of Mind

The aim of this paper is to show some of the limitations of the Theory of Mind approach to interaction compared to a conversation analytic alternative. In the former, mental state terms are examined as words that signify internal referents. This study examines children’s uses of ‘I want’ in situ. The data are taken from a corpus of family mealtimes. ‘I want’ constructions are shown to be interactionally occasioned. The analysis suggests that (a) a referential view of language does not adequately account for how mental state terms are used in talk, (b) the dominant methodology for examining children’s understanding of ‘desires’ is based on several problematic assumptions. It is concluded that participation in interaction is a social matter, a consideration that is obscured by Theory of Mind and its favoured methods