Momentary autonomic engagement during parent-adolescent conflict: Coping as a moderator of associations with emotions.

Regulatory efforts are hypothesized to affect associations between emotions and physiology (i.e., concordance) to facilitate adaptive functioning. Assessing the role of coping on physiological-emotional concordance during ecologically relevant scenarios can elucidate whether concordance can serve as a biomarker of risk or resilience. The present study assessed self-reported coping as a moderator of minute-to-minute associations between autonomic nervous system activity and emotions (i.e., physiological-emotional concordance) in caregivers (N = 97) and adolescents (N = 97; ages 10-15) during a dyadic conflict task. Models included physiological variables (sympathetic, skin conductance level [SCL]; and parasympathetic, respiratory sinus arrhythmia [RSA]) and their interaction (SCL × RSA) as predictors of emotions, with coping variables as moderators. Caregivers' use of primary control coping (e.g., problem solving and emotional expression) and secondary control coping (e.g., cognitive reappraisal and acceptance) use in response to family stress predicted more positive emotional experiences during the laboratory conflict task. Adolescents' use of secondary control coping moderated the SCL-emotion association, such that increases in momentary SCL were associated with more positive emotion ratings for youth reporting higher secondary control coping. For youth who report more adaptive trait-level coping skills, momentary changes in SCL may reflect active engagement and attentiveness to facilitate more positive emotional experiences. Findings advance our understanding of the interrelationships between physiological responses and psychological experiences during relevant, interactive scenarios. Autonomic responses are differentially related to affective states depending on the coping strategies that adolescents employ, suggesting that concordance may be associated with intervention targets (i.e., coping skills).

Selecting an Ecological Momentary Assessment Platform: Tutorial for Researchers.

BACKGROUND: Although ecological momentary assessment (EMA) has been applied in psychological research for decades, delivery methods have evolved with the proliferation of digital technology. Technological advances have engendered opportunities for enhanced accessibility, convenience, measurement precision, and integration with wearable sensors. Notwithstanding, researchers must navigate novel complexities in EMA research design and implementation. OBJECTIVE: In this paper, we aimed to provide guidance on platform selection for clinical scientists launching EMA studies. METHODS: Our team includes diverse specialties in child and adolescent behavioral and mental health with varying expertise on EMA platforms (eg, users and developers). We (2 research sites) evaluated EMA platforms with the goal of identifying the platform or platforms with the best fit for our research. We created a list of extant EMA platforms; conducted a web-based review; considered institutional security, privacy, and data management requirements; met with developers; and evaluated each of the candidate EMA platforms for 1 week. RESULTS: We selected 2 different EMA platforms, rather than a single platform, for use at our 2 research sites. Our results underscore the importance of platform selection driven by individualized and prioritized laboratory needs; there is no single, ideal platform for EMA researchers. In addition, our project generated 11 considerations for researchers in selecting an EMA platform: (1) location; (2) developer involvement; (3) sample characteristics; (4) onboarding; (5) survey design features; (6) sampling scheme and scheduling; (7) viewing results; (8) dashboards; (9) security, privacy, and data management; (10) pricing and cost structure; and (11) future directions. Furthermore, our project yielded a suggested timeline for the EMA platform selection process. CONCLUSIONS: This study will guide scientists initiating studies using EMA, an in vivo, real-time research tool with tremendous promise for facilitating advances in psychological assessment and intervention.

A systematic review of instrumented assessments for upper limb function in cerebral palsy: current limitations and future directions.

INTRODUCTION: Recently, interest in quantifying upper limb function in cerebral palsy has grown. However, the lack of reference tasks and protocols, have hindered the development of quantified movement analysis in clinical practice. This study aimed to evaluate existing instrumented assessments of upper limb function in cerebral palsy, with a focus on their clinical applicability, to identify reasons for the lack of adoption and provide recommendations for improving clinical relevance and utility. METHODS: A systematic review was conducted by a multidisciplinary team of researchers and clinicians (Prospero CRD42023402382). PubMed and Web of Science databases were searched using relevant keywords and inclusion/exclusion criteria. RESULTS: A total of 657 articles were initially identified, and after the selection process, 76 records were included for analysis comprising a total of 1293 patients with cerebral palsy. The quality assessment of the reviewed studies revealed a moderate overall quality, with deficiencies in sample size justification and participant information. Optoelectronic motion capture systems were predominantly used in the studies (N = 57/76). The population mainly consisted of individuals with spastic cerebral palsy (834/1293) with unilateral impairment (N = 1092/1293). Patients with severe functional impairment (MACS IV and V) were underrepresented with 3.4% of the 754 patients for whom the information was provided. Thirty-nine tasks were used across the articles. Most articles focused on unimanual activities (N = 66/76) and reach or reach and grasp (N = 51/76). Bimanual cooperative tasks only represented 3 tasks present in 4 articles. A total of 140 different parameters were identified across articles. Task duration was the most frequently used parameter and 23% of the parameters were used in only one article. CONCLUSION: Further research is necessary before incorporating quantified motion analysis into clinical practice. Existing protocols focus on extensively studied populations and rely on costly equipment, limiting their practicality. Standardized unimanual tasks provide limited insights into everyday arm use. Balancing methodological requirements and performance evaluation flexibility is a challenge. Exploring the correlation between outcome parameters and therapeutic guidance could facilitate the integration of quantified movement assessment into treatment pathways.

Parental Depression Symptoms, Skin Conductance Level Reactivity and Parenting: Associations with Youth Psychopathology.

Parental depression symptoms are a prevalent risk factor for internalizing and externalizing problems in youth, with parenting and parents' physiological stress reactivity representing potential contributing factors in the intergenerational transmission of psychopathology symptoms. In a sample of adolescents (N = 97) and their parents, the current study examined parental depression symptoms, an observational measure of parenting, and parents' physiological reactivity during a dyadic conflict discussion task in association with adolescents' internalizing and externalizing psychopathology. Parental depression symptoms and harsh/insensitive parenting showed positive associations with youth psychopathology symptoms. Further, parental depression symptoms were associated with greater externalizing symptoms in youth, specifically for parents with higher physiological reactivity during the conflict task. The present study highlights risks associated with parental depression and harsh/insensitive parenting, and provides evidence for parental physiological reactivity as a moderator of the association between parent and youth psychopathology. Clinical implications, limitations, and directions for future research are discussed.

Infants of mothers with early remitted clinical depression and mothers with no postpartum depression: Adaptive functioning in the second year of life.

Whether and how remitted clinical depression in postpartum motherhood contributes to poor infant adaptive functioning is inconclusive. The present longitudinal study examines adaptive functioning in infants of mothers diagnosed as clinically depressed at 5 months but remitted at 15 and 24 months. Fifty-five U. S. mothers with early, remitted clinical depression and 132 mothers without postpartum depression completed the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales about their infants at 15 and 24 months. Between groups, mothers were equivalent in age, ethnicity, marital status, and receptive vocabulary (a proxy for verbal intelligence), and infants were equivalent in age and distribution of gender. Controlling for maternal education and parity, mothers with early, remitted clinical depression and mothers with no postpartum depression rated their infants similarly on communication, daily living skills, and socialization. Mothers with early, remitted clinical depression rated their infants poorer in motor skills. Girls were rated more advanced than boys in communication at 24 months and daily living skills at 15 and 24 months. Rated infant adaptive behavior skills increased from 15 to 24 months. With exceptions, adaptive functioning in infants may be robust to early, remitted maternal depression, and adaptive functioning presents a domain to promote positive development in this otherwise vulnerable population.

Si la depresión clínica remitida en la maternidad del período de postparto contribuye y cómo contribuye al débil funcionamiento de adaptación del infante es algo inconcluso. El presente estudio longitudinal examina el funcionamiento de adaptación en infantes de madres clínicamente deprimidas a los 5 meses, pero remitidas a los 15 y 24 meses. Cincuenta y cinco madres con una temprana depresión clínica remitida y 132 madres sin depresión en el período de postparto en los Estados Unidos completaron las Escalas Vineland del Comportamiento de Adaptación acerca de sus infantes de 15 y 24 meses de edad. Entre los grupos, las madres presentaban equivalencia en cuanto a la edad, la etnicidad, el estado marital, así como el vocabulario receptivo (un reemplazo para la inteligencia verbal), y los infantes presentaban equivalencia en edad y género. Con los factores de educación y paridad controlados, las madres con temprana depresión clínica remitida y las madres sin depresión en el período de postparto evaluaron a sus infantes similarmente en cuanto a la comunicación, las habilidades del diario vivir y la socialización. Las madres con temprana depresión clínica remitida evaluaron a sus infantes más pobremente en cuanto a habilidades motoras. A las niñas se les evaluó como más avanzadas que los varones en la comunicación a los 24 meses y en las habilidades del diario vivir a los 15 y 24 meses. Las evaluadas habilidades del comportamiento de adaptación de los infantes aumentaron de los 15 a los 24 meses. Con excepciones, el funcionamiento de adaptación en los infantes pudiera ser robusto en relación con la temprana depresión materna remitida, y el funcionamiento de adaptación presenta un dominio para promover el positivo desarrollo en este grupo de población que, de lo contrario, es vulnerable.

Mean-level correspondence and moment-to-moment synchrony in adolescent and parent affect: Exploring associations with adolescent age and internalizing and externalizing symptoms.

Interactions with parents are integral in shaping the development of children's emotional processes. Important aspects of these interactions are overall (mean level) affective experience and affective synchrony (linkages between parent and child affect across time). Respectively, mean-level affect and affective synchrony reflect aspects of the content and structure of dyadic interactions. Most research on parent-child affect during dyadic interactions has focused on infancy and early childhood; adolescence, however, is a key period for both normative emotional development and the emergence of emotional disorders. We examined affect in early to mid-adolescents (N = 55, Mage = 12.27) and their parents using a video-mediated recall task of 10-min conflict-topic discussions. Using multilevel modeling, we found evidence of significant level-2 effects (mean affect) and level-1 effects (affective synchrony) for parents and their adolescents. Level-2 and level-1 associations were differentially moderated by adolescent age and adolescent internalizing and externalizing symptoms. More specifically, parent-adolescent synchrony was stronger when adolescents were older and had more internalizing problems. Further, more positive adolescent mean affect was associated with more positive parent affect (and vice versa), but only for dyads with low adolescent externalizing problems. Results underscore the importance of additional research examining parent-child affect in adolescence.

Segmental aneuploid hotspots identified across the genome concordant on reanalysis.

The aim of this study was to characterize a large set of full segmental aneuploidies identified in trophectoderm (TE) biopsies and evaluate concordance in human blastocysts. Full segmental aneuploid errors were identified in TE biopsies (n = 2766) from preimplantation genetic testing for aneuploid (PGT-A) cycles. Full segmental deletions (n = 1872; 66.1%) presented twice as many times as duplications (n = 939; 33.9%), mapped more often to the q-arm (n = 1696; 61.3%) than the p-arm (n = 847; 31.0%) or both arms (n = 223; 8.1%; P < 0.05), and were eight times more likely to include the distal end of a chromosome than not (P < 0.05). Additionally, 37 recurring coordinates (each ≥ 10 events) were discovered across 17 different chromosomes, which were also significantly enriched for distal regions (P = 4.1 × 10-56). Blinded concordance analysis of 162 dissected blastocysts validated the original TE PGT-A full segmental result for a concordance of 96.3% (n = 156); remaining dissected blastocysts were identified as mosaic (n = 6; 3.7%). Origin of aneuploid analysis revealed full segmental aneuploid errors were mostly paternally derived (67%) in contrast to whole chromosome aneuploid errors (5.8% paternally derived). Errors from both parental gametes were observed in 6.5% of aneuploid embryos when multiple whole chromosomes were affected. The average number of recombination events was significantly less in paternally derived (1.81) compared to maternally derived (3.81) segmental aneuploidies (P < 0.0001). In summary, full segmental aneuploidies were identified at hotspots across the genome and were highly concordant upon blinded analysis. Nevertheless, future studies assessing the reproductive potential of full (non-mosaic) segmental aneuploid embryos are critical to rule out potential harmful reproductive risks.

Clinically depressed and typically developing mother-infant dyads: Domain base rates and correspondences, relationship contingencies and attunement.

Maternal depression is associated with adverse outcomes in infants. Unfavorable parenting practices likely constitute one pathway of risk transmission from mother to infant, but definitional and methodological variation in the extant literature precludes a comprehensive or conclusive understanding of potential underlying mechanisms. This study aimed to illuminate the role of maternal clinical depression in mother-infant interaction by turning a microanalytic lens on four substantive relationship issues: base rates, correspondences, contingencies, and attunement. Several maternal parenting practices (aggregated into social, didactic, and language domains) and several infant behaviors (aggregated into social, exploration, and non-distress vocalization domains) were microcoded to 0.10 s from naturalistic hour long interactions of clinically depressed mothers (n = 60) and matched non-depressed controls (n = 60) with their 5-month-olds. Clinically depressed mothers spontaneously engaged their infants less didactically, were less contingent to their infants in social, didactic, and language domains, and were less attuned with their infants than were non-depressed mothers. Infants of clinically depressed mothers vocalized non-distress less than infants of non-depressed mothers. These differences unveil key disadvantages in the everyday lived experiences of infants of clinically depressed mothers. The findings advance understanding of maternal depression and its effects and have implications for identifying infants at risk on account of their mothers' clinical depression.

Cognitive and Attentional Function in Children with Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome: A Pilot Study.

While survival for children with hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS) has improved, compromised cardiac output and oxygen delivery persist, and children show cognitive deficits. Most research has assessed young children on broad cognitive indices; less is known about specific indices in older youth. In this pilot study, cognitive function and attention in youth ages 8 to 16 years with HLHS (n = 20) was assessed with the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children - Fifth Edition (WISC-V) and NIH Toolbox Cognition Battery (NTCB); parents completed the Child Behavior Checklist. Children scored significantly lower than normative means on the WISC-V Full Scale IQ, Verbal Comprehension, Visual Spatial, Working Memory, and Processing Speed indices, and the NTCB Fluid Cognition Composite; effect sizes ranged from medium to large. Attention problems had a large significant effect. Child age corresponded to lower visual spatial scores. Findings highlight the importance of assessing multiple cognitive indices for targeted intervention and investigating age and disease factors as potential correlates in larger samples.

Stress Exposure and Maternal Depression as Risk Factors for Symptoms of Anxiety and Depression in Adolescents.

Little research has explored the implications of stress inside and outside of the family as a risk factor for psychological symptoms in adolescents of depressed mothers. In a sample of 115 adolescents and their mothers with and without depression histories, adolescents' family and peer stress exposure was measured through the Responses to Stress Questionnaire, and adolescents' anxious/depressed symptoms were measured with the Youth Self Report and Child Behavior Checklist. Mothers reported their current depression symptoms on the Beck Depression Inventory-II. Results suggest that adolescents of mothers with depression histories and current depression symptoms experience more family and peer stress than adolescents of nondepressed mothers. In multiple linear regression analyses, current maternal depression symptoms moderated the relation between adolescent peer stress and adolescent anxious/depressed symptoms, such that peer stress was associated with anxious/depressed symptoms when maternal depression symptoms were average or high, but not when maternal depression symptoms were low.

Responsive Parenting Behaviors and Cognitive Function in Children With Sickle Cell Disease.

OBJECTIVE: Children with sickle cell disease (SCD) are at increased risk for cognitive impairment as a result in part from biological characteristics of the disease; however, limited research has explored possible social and contextual factors associated with risk for cognitive problems. The primary aim of the present study was to examine the relation between children's cognitive functioning and responsive parenting, a potentially important contextual factor in children with SCD, accounting for family socioeconomic disadvantage, child disease severity, and caregivers' perceived stress. METHODS: Forty-eight children completed standardized cognitive assessments and caregivers provided self-reports of general and disease-related stress. Parent-child dyads completed a video recorded puzzle-solving task and observed parenting was quantified using two coding systems. Bivariate Pearson correlations were used to assess preliminary hypotheses, and linear multiple regression analyses were used to assess the primary hypothesis. RESULTS: Results suggested that increased levels of parental stress were related to fewer observations of responsive parenting and provided evidence of an association between children's cognitive function and responsive parenting. Specifically, increased disease-related parent stress and reduced parental use of expansive language were associated with significantly lower cognitive functioning in children with SCD. CONCLUSIONS: Findings suggest that social environmental factors along with disease characteristics are sources of risk for cognitive problems with children with SCD. Further, these findings highlight the need to develop targeted interventions for parents of children with SCD to decrease levels of stress and enhance parenting skills, with the aim improving cognitive functioning in youth.

Laboratory and Self-Report Methods to Assess Reappraisal and Distraction in Youth.

Coping and emotion regulation are central features of risk and resilience in childhood and adolescence, but research on these constructs has relied on different methods of assessment. The current study aimed to bridge the gap between questionnaire and experimental methods of measuring secondary control coping strategies, specifically distraction and cognitive reappraisal, and examine associations with symptoms of anxiety and depression in youth. A community sample of 70 youth (ages 9-15) completed a novel experimental coping and emotion regulation paradigm and self-report measures of coping and emotion regulation and symptoms. Findings indicate that use of distraction and reappraisal during the laboratory paradigm was associated with lower levels of negative emotion during the task. Youth emotion ratings while implementing distraction, but not reappraisal, during the laboratory task were associated with youth self-reported use of secondary control coping in response to family stress. Youth symptoms of anxiety and depression were also significantly positively associated with negative emotion ratings during the laboratory task, and both laboratory task and self-reported coping and emotion regulation accounted for significant variance in symptoms in youth. Both questionnaire and laboratory methods to assess coping and emotion regulation in youth are important for understanding these processes as possible mechanisms of risk and resilience and continued integration of these methods is a priority for future research.

They know it's safe - they know what to expect from that face: perceptions towards a cognitive-behavioural counselling programme among caregivers of children with cystic fibrosis.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES: To explore the experiences of eight caregivers who provide care to children with cystic fibrosis in an eight-week cognitive-behavioural counselling programme at a children's hospital in Winnipeg, Canada. BACKGROUND: Youth with cystic fibrosis experience significant behavioural and psychosocial challenges, such as depression, anxiety and poor treatment adherence. Caregivers are critical to the provision of care and treatment to young people living with cystic fibrosis. Caregivers of youth with cystic fibrosis experience psychosocial morbidity. Thus, the development of counselling interventions is required to enhance psychosocial well-being among the caregivers of youth with cystic fibrosis. DESIGN AND METHODS: This study was informed by the thematic analytic qualitative research tradition. In-depth, semistructured interviews were conducted with eight caregivers who participated in our programme. The audiotaped interviews were then subject to thematic analysis. RESULTS: The counselling sessions were experienced as 'distinctly different' from routine appointments at the hospital and were characterised by a sense of listening and bidirectional communication. In addition to acquiring a sense of trust and accountability through the programme, counselling appeared to enhance caregivers' perception of their time use, leading to greater temporal agency. CONCLUSION AND RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE: From this evidence-based cognitive-behavioural counselling programme, insights about the complex psychosocial lives of the cystic fibrosis community are discussed within the context of the literature. Integrating cognitive-behavioural counselling into routine clinical CF care should be considered as a method to enhance caregiving capacity in the CF community and should be championed by nurses.

Pilot Effectiveness and Acceptability of Partial Hospitalization Treatment Incorporating Transdiagnostic, Cognitive-Behavioral Intervention.

Acute mental health treatment (e.g., partial hospitalization or PHP) is a critical component of the mental health services landscape for youth whose symptoms are too acute for a typical outpatient setting, but for whom inpatient psychiatric hospitalization is not recommended or desired. Very few interventions have been developed, adapted for, or evaluated in these fundamentally different delivery contexts. Transdiagnostic treatments may be ideal for addressing the comorbidity, complexity, and heterogeneity typical of acute mental health settings. Our aim was to examine initial acceptability and effectiveness of an adaptation of the Unified Protocols for Transdiagnostic Treatment of Emotional Disorders in Children and Adolescents (UP-C/A; Ehrenreich-May, Kennedy, et al., 2017), delivered as part of comprehensive therapeutic programming in a general psychiatric PHP. We recruited 152 youths (M age = 13.1 years, 62.5% female) and caregivers, who participated in an average of 11 days of intensive UP-C/A intervention. Participants rated symptoms and functioning at baseline, weekly, posttreatment, and 1-month follow-up. Latent growth curve modeling was used to examine patterns of change and evaluate the impact of potential demographic and treatment-related covariates. For all outcomes, a quadratic model best fit the data, with symptoms and emotional reactivity decreasing significantly during treatment and then leveling off during follow-up. There was a medium-sized change in functional impairment from baseline to the 1-month follow-up, and ≥90% of participants reported treatment as acceptable and helpful. Results provide initial support for use of a transdiagnostic, cognitive-behavioral intervention in acute mental health settings and suggest important future directions, including controlled trials and investigation of implementation supports.

Short-changing the future: The systemic gap between psychology internship stipends and living wages.

Introduction: Providing doctoral internship stipends below living wages may harm interns, the clinical services they provide, and the field of health service psychology as a whole. This study evaluated the extent to which doctoral psychology internship stipends from the 2021-2022 training year for APA-accredited, APPIC-member programs in the US are consistent with living wages in the geographic region where sites are located. Methods: We obtained data reflecting internship sites' geographic location and stipends for the 2021-2022 academic year. Using the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Living Wage Calculator, we computed a living wage for the county in which each internship site is located. Descriptive statistics, discrepancies, ratios, and correlations were calculated to reflect the associations between internship sites' stipends and their local living wages. Results: The average internship stipend was $31,783, which was lower than the average living wage by $2,091. Stipends ranged widely, from a low of $15,000 to a high of $94,595-reflecting a six-fold difference in wages. Although internship sites in higher cost of living areas paid higher stipends, over two-thirds (67.0%) of sites did not pay a stipend that equaled or exceeded a living wage. Ninety-eight sites (15.3%) had deficits of over $10,000 when comparing their stipends to local living wages, with $33,240 as the highest deficit. Discussion: Eliminating obstacles to educating health service psychologists by decreasing the financial burden of training will likely have subsequent critical benefits towards bridging the workforce gap between mental healthcare service needs and available providers, ultimately leading to improved population health.

MAP kinase kinase kinase-2 (MEKK2) regulates hypertrophic remodeling of the right ventricle in hypoxia-induced pulmonary hypertension.

Pulmonary hypertension (PH) results in pressure overload of the right ventricle (RV) of the heart, initiating pathological RV remodeling and ultimately leading to right heart failure. Substantial research indicates that signaling through the MAPK superfamily mediates pathological cardiac remodeling. These considerations led us to test the hypothesis that the regulatory protein MAPKKK-2 (MEKK2) contributes to RV hypertrophy in hypoxia-induced PH. Transgenic mice with global knockout of MEKK2 (MEKK2(-/-) mice) and age-matched wild-type (WT) mice were exposed to chronic hypobaric hypoxia (10% O(2), 6 wk) and compared with animals under normoxia. Exposure to chronic hypoxia induced PH in WT and MEKK2(-/-) mice. In response to PH, WT mice showed RV hypertrophy, demonstrated as increased ratio of RV weight to body weight, increased RV wall thickness at diastole, and increased cardiac myocyte size compared with normoxic control animals. In contrast, each of these measures of RV hypertrophy seen in WT mice after chronic hypoxia was attenuated in MEKK2(-/-) mice. Furthermore, chronic hypoxia elicited altered programs of hypertrophic and inflammatory gene expression consistent with pathological RV remodeling in WT mice; MEKK2 deletion selectively inhibited inflammatory gene expression compared with WT mice. The actions of MEKK2 were mediated in part through regulation of the abundance and phosphorylation of its effector, ERK5. In conclusion, signaling by MEKK2 contributes to RV hypertrophy and altered myocardial inflammatory gene expression in response to hypoxia-induced PH. Therapies targeting MEKK2 may protect the myocardium from hypertrophy and pathological remodeling in human PH.

The Home Environments of Infants of Mothers with Early, Remitted Clinical Depression and No Depression during the First Two Years Postpartum.

The current study examines stability, continuity, and group and gender differences in the home environments of infants of mothers with early, remitted clinical depression and no postpartum depression, overcoming methodological variations in the extant literature. Fifty-five mothers diagnosed with clinical depression (major or minor depression, dysthymia, or depressive disorder not otherwise specified) at 5 months and fully remitted by 15 and 24 months, and 132 mothers with no postpartum depression (Mage = 32.47; 69.7% European American) completed the Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (HOME) Inventory Infant/Toddler version when their infants were 15 and 24 months old. No differences in stability estimates of the HOME scales were found between the groups. In terms of continuity, controlling for maternal education and infant birth order, HOME responsivity, involvement, and total score decreased, while HOME acceptance increased between 15 and 24 months in the full sample. There were no effects of group or gender. Results may point to the home environment as a key protective factor for infants of mothers with early, remitted clinical depression, or findings may suggest improved maternal parenting cognitions and practices following remission.

Racial/ethnic differences in parenting behaviors among depressed parents.

Low parental warmth and high control are associated with parental depression and with the development of depression in children. The majority of this research, however, has focused on non-Hispanic White (NHW) parents. The present study tested whether parenting behaviors differed by race/ethnicity in a sample (N = 169) of parents with a history of depression. Participants were drawn from a randomized trial designed to prevent depression in at-risk adolescents (ages 9-15 years old). All participating parents had a current or past depressive episode within the youth's lifetime. Parents self-classified as 67.5% NHW, 17.2% Latinx (LA), and 15.4% Black (BL). Youths and parents completed standardized positive and negative interaction tasks; trained raters coded the videotaped interactions for parental warmth and control. Analyses examined the impact of race/ethnicity, current parent depression symptoms, context of the discussion (positive/negative task), and demographic covariates on observed parenting behaviors. Results revealed significant interactions among race/ethnicity, depression, and task type. Differences in warmth and control between racial/ethnic groups were more likely to be observed in negative interactions and when parents' depression symptoms were lower. In these circumstances, BL parents were rated as higher in control and lower in warmth than NHW parents. Results add to the literature on racial/ethnic differences in parenting among parents with a history of depression and highlight the importance of assessing parenting in context to capture more subtle patterns of interactions between parents and offspring. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Physiology and emotions: Within individual associations during caregiver-adolescent conflict.

Concordance between physiological and emotional responses is central to models of emotion and has been shown to correspond to effective responses and well-being in adults. A deeper understanding of physiological-emotional concordance during ecologically relevant scenarios is essential to then determine if these associations predict mental health problems or can serve as a helpful biomarker of risk or resilience in adults and youth. The present study assessed the minute-to-minute associations between sympathetic (i.e., skin conductance level [SCL]) and parasympathetic (i.e., respiratory sinus arrhythmia [RSA]) nervous system activity and self-reported emotions, assessed via video-mediated recall procedures, during a parent-adolescent conflict discussion task. Associations between emotion ratings and physiological activity were assessed in adolescents (N = 97; ages 10-15) and their adult caregivers (N = 97). Utilizing a multilevel modeling approach, findings demonstrated a significant positive association between SCL and emotion ratings for youth, suggesting that increased engagement and alertness contributed to more positive emotion. RSA was unrelated to emotion ratings. The presence of significant variability in associations indicated the presence of potential moderators. This could include clinically relevant processes (e.g., emotion regulation, relationship quality, and mental health). Future research should continue to build on findings to determine if, when, and for whom, physiological-emotional concordance occurs, and whether the degree of concordance predicts risk for mental and physical health problems.

Auditory evoked response to an oddball paradigm in children wearing cochlear implants.

OBJECTIVE: Although children with cochlear implants (CI) achieve remarkable success with their device, considerable variability remains in individual outcomes. Here, we explored whether auditory evoked potentials recorded during an oddball paradigm could provide useful markers of auditory processing in this pediatric population. METHODS: High-density electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded in 75 children listening to standard and odd noise stimuli: 25 had normal hearing (NH) and 50 wore a CI, divided between high language (HL) and low language (LL) abilities. Three metrics were extracted: the first negative and second positive components of the standard waveform (N1-P2 complex) close to the vertex, the mismatch negativity (MMN) around Fz and the late positive component (P3) around Pz of the difference waveform. RESULTS: While children with CIs generally exhibited a well-formed N1-P2 complex, those with language delays typically lacked reliable MMN and P3 components. But many children with CIs with age-appropriate skills showed MMN and P3 responses similar to those of NH children. Moreover, larger and earlier P3 (but not MMN) was linked to better literacy skills. CONCLUSIONS: Auditory evoked responses differentiated children with CIs based on their good or poor skills with language and literacy. SIGNIFICANCE: This short paradigm could eventually serve as a clinical tool for tracking the developmental outcomes of implanted children.