Windows for preventing child and partner abuse: Early childhood and adolescence.

Author(s):  
Christine Wekerle ◽  
David A. Wolfe
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lydia Gabriela Speyer ◽  
Hildigunnur Anna Hall ◽  
Anastasia Ushakova ◽  
Michelle Luciano ◽  
Aja Louise Murray ◽  
...  

Objective: Adolescence is a crucial period in the development of psychopathology with nearly 1 in 5 adolescents suffering from a mental health disorder. In addition, more than 40 percent of adolescents with a lifetime psychiatric disorder are estimated to suffer from a co-occurring mental health disorder. Mechanisms underlying the development of comorbidities are still not well understood. Method: Graphical Vector Autoregression models were used to analyse the temporal, contemporaneous and between-person relations of socio-emotional strengths difficulties in early childhood compared to adolescence. Mental health and related socio-emotional traits were measured longitudinally at ages 4, 7, 8, 9, 11, 13, and 16 in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (N = 11279) using the subscales of the Strength and Difficulties Questionnaires (conduct problems, hyperactivity/inattention, emotional symptoms, peer problems and prosociality). Results: Results suggest that the period of adolescence is characterised by many more dynamic relations between socio-emotional difficulties than the early childhood period. In particular, the adolescence model highlights bidirectional connections between conduct problems and peer problems as well as between peer problems and emotional problems. The childhood model indicates that conduct problems and prosociality share a reciprocal relation. It further suggests peer problems as a potential mediating factor between conduct problems and emotional difficulties. Conclusion: This study emphasises that the different domains of psychosocial functioning dynamically influence each other over- and within-time. Adolescence is characterised by an increase in temporal connections reflecting the increased vulnerability to the onset of mental health problems during that period.


1998 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 176-182 ◽  
Author(s):  
Debra J. Pepler ◽  
Wendy M. Craig

Peers have both positive and negative influences on children; therefore, considerable attention has focused on assessing peer relationships and friendships through childhood and adolescence. The present article provides an overview of the main methods of assessing peer relationships. The adaptive nature of children's peer relations has been assessed through four main methodologies: (1) asking the children themselves about elements of peer relations and friendships; (2) asking children about their perceptions of others within the peer group; (3) asking adults (i.e. parents and teachers) about the peer relations skills of children in their care; and (4) directly observing children during interactions with peers. Each of these approaches is described, with attention to relative strengths and weaknesses and their suitability for assessing peer relations in early childhood, middle childhood, and adolescence.


2015 ◽  
Vol 45 (10) ◽  
pp. 2171-2179 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. J. Lewis ◽  
R. Plomin

BackgroundAlthough behavioural problems (e.g. anxiety, conduct, hyperactivity, peer problems) are known to be heritable both in early childhood and in adolescence, limited work has examined prediction across these ages, and none using a genetically informative sample.MethodWe examined, first, whether parental ratings of behavioural problems (indexed by the Strengths and Difficulties questionnaire) at ages 4, 7, 9, 12, and 16 years were stable across these ages. Second, we examined the extent to which stability reflected genetic or environmental effects through multivariate quantitative genetic analysis on data from a large (n > 3000) population (UK) sample of monozygotic and dizygotic twins.ResultsBehavioural problems in early childhood (age 4 years) showed significant associations with the corresponding behavioural problem at all subsequent ages. Moreover, stable genetic influences were observed across ages, indicating that biological bases underlying behavioural problems in adolescence are underpinned by genetic influences expressed as early as age 4 years. However, genetic and environmental innovations were also observed at each age.ConclusionThese observations indicate that genetic factors are important for understanding stable individual differences in behavioural problems across childhood and adolescence, although novel genetic influences also facilitate change in such behaviours.


2017 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 313-328 ◽  
Author(s):  
René Mõttus ◽  
Christopher J. Soto ◽  
Helena R. Slobodskaya ◽  
Mitja Back

Do individual differences in personality traits become more or less pronounced over childhood and adolescence? The present research examined age differences in the variance of a range of personality traits, using parent reports of two large samples of children from predominantly the USA and Russia, respectively. Results indicate (i) that individual differences in most traits tend to increase with age from early childhood into early adolescence and then plateau, (ii) that this general pattern of greater personality variance at older childhood age is consistent across the two countries, and (iii) that this pattern is not an artefact of age differences in means or floor/ceiling effects. These findings are consistent with several (noncontradictory) developmental mechanisms, including youths’ expanding behavioural capacities and person–environment transactions (corresponsive principle). However, these mechanisms may predominantly characterize periods before adolescence, or they may be offset by countervailing processes, such as socialization pressure towards a mature personality profile, in late adolescence and adulthood. Finally, the findings also suggest that interpreting age trajectories in mean trait scores as pertaining to age differences in a typical person may sometimes be misleading. Investigating variance should become an integral part of studying personality development. Copyright © 2017 European Association of Personality Psychology


1997 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 27-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank Ainsworth

This article reviews some recent US research into the impact of family poverty on child development. These studies report on the link between family poverty and children's early cognitive development. They also report on the impact of family and neighbourhood poverty on family structure, family process and problem behaviour in adolescence. This is important research as it goes some way toward unraveling the connection between individual behaviour and social conditions. Knowledge of this research is important for those advocating for measures to combat family poverty in Australia as it quantifies the issue and offers new ways to caste the argument for intervention.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalia E Poveda ◽  
Fernando P Hartwig ◽  
Cesar G Victora ◽  
Linda S Adair ◽  
Fernando C Barros ◽  
...  

SummaryBackgroundGrowth faltering has been associated with poor intellectual performance. The relative strengths of associations between growth in early and in later childhood remain underexplored. We examined the association between growth in childhood and adolescence and adult human capital in five low- or middle-income countries (LMICs).MethodsWe analyzed data from six prospective birth cohorts of five LMICs (Brazil, Guatemala, India, the Philippines, and South Africa). We assessed the associations of measures of height and relative weight at four ages (birth, at around age 2 years, mid-childhood (MC), adulthood), with two dimension of adult human capital (schooling attainment and IQ).FindingsIn site- and sex-pooled analyses, size at birth and linear growth from birth to around 2 years of age were positively associated with schooling attainment and adult IQ. Linear growth from age 2 years to MC and from MC to adulthood was not associated with higher school attainment or IQ. Change in relative weight in early childhood was not associated with either outcome. Relative weight in MC and in adulthood were inversely associated with schooling attainment but were not associated with adult IQ.InterpretationLinear growth in the first 1,000 days is a predictor of schooling attainment and IQ in adulthood in LMICs. Linear growth in later periods was not associated with either of these outcomes. Changes in relative weight had inconsistent association with schooling and IQ in adulthood.FundingBill and Melinda Gates Foundation (OPP1164115)Research in contextEvidence before this studyEarly life growth faltering has been associated with poor cognitive and intellectual performance in childhood and poorer schooling outcomes in children and adults. There is a paucity of data about how growth in specific age intervals over the course of childhood and adolescence relates to attained schooling and adult cognitive performance.We conducted a literature search using the terms (growth [Title/Abstract]) AND ((school [Title/Abstract] OR schooling [Title/Abstract]) AND (intelligence [Title/Abstract] OR IQ [Title/Abstract]) OR (human capital [Title/Abstract]) in Pubmed. The search yielded 536 publications from 1965 to 2020. We screened titles and selected 31 publications that included linear growth and our outcomes of interest, namely school attainment and intelligence quotient (IQ). Additionally, we checked reference lists of selected articles and identified eleven papers that were not displayed in the initial electronic query. We therefore reviewed 42 abstracts and identified 24 unique studies conducted in low and middle-income countries (LMICs). Fourteen of them investigated the association of birth size and/or early-life size with schooling or IQ, or with both outcomes during childhood. Three studies investigated the association between linear growth in early childhood and schooling and intelligence in adults, one studied the association between early-life undernutrition and IQ in early adulthood and another six publications investigated the association between growth and school attainment in adults. Economists have also studied the relationship between stunting or linear growth and schooling in LMICs, but to our knowledge not the relative importance of growth during specific age intervals.Added value of this studyThis is an analysis of the associations between child and adolescent growth and two dimensions of human capital (schooling attainment and IQ) in adulthood in six birth cohorts from five LMICs. The evidence of long-term associations of linear growth with adult IQ is scarce and the few published studies have analyzed data from a single country. In the present study, we found that size at birth and linear growth from birth to around 2 years of age were positively associated with both schooling and IQ in adulthood. Linear growth between early and mid-childhood (MC)was not associated with higher school attainment or IQ in adjusted models. Linear growth from MC to adulthood was not associated with IQ in men or women, and was inversely associated with schooling attainment in women only. Change in relative weight in early childhood was positively associated with schooling attainment only in minimally adjusted models. Relative weight measures in MC and adulthood were inversely associated with schooling attainment. Change in relative weight between MC and adulthood was not associated with adult IQ.Implications of all the available evidenceWe confirmed in multiple cohorts that birth size and linear growth from birth to age 2 years are predictors of schooling attainment and adult IQ. Linear growth in early life was the strongest predictor of these two human capital dimensions in adulthood among individuals in LMICs. We did not find evidence that supports the notion that linear growth in adolescence contributes to a better cognitive performance in adulthood. Thus, our results inform the more effective timing of nutritional and other interventions to improve linear growth and human capital in the long-term.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document