The Impact of Sex Chromosome Trisomies (XXX, XXY, XYY) on Early Social Cognition: Social Orienting, Joint Attention, and Theory of Mind.

OBJECTIVE: About 1:650-1,000 children are born with an extra X or Y chromosome (XXX; XXY; XYY), which results in a sex chromosome trisomy (SCT). This study aims to cross-sectionally investigate the impact of SCT on early social cognitive skills. Basic orienting toward social cues, joint attention, and theory of mind (ToM) in young children with SCT were evaluated. METHOD: About 105 children with SCT (range: 1-7 years old) were included in this study, as well as 96 age-matched nonclinical controls. Eyetracking paradigms were used to investigate the eye gaze patterns indicative of joint attention skills and orienting to social interactions. The ToM abilities were measured using the subtest ToM of the Developmental NEuroPSYchological Assessment, second edition, neuropsychological test battery. Recruitment and assessment took place in the Netherlands and in the United States. RESULTS: Eyetracking results revealed difficulties in children with SCT in social orienting. These difficulties were more pronounced in children aged 3 years and older, and in boys with 47,XYY. Difficulties in joint attention were found over all age groups and karyotypes. Children with SCT showed impairments in ToM (26.3% in the [well] below expected level), increasing with age. These impairments did not differ between karyotypes. CONCLUSIONS: An impact of SCT on social cognitive abilities was found already at an early age, indicating the need for early monitoring and support of early social cognition. Future research should explore the longitudinal trajectories of social development in order to evaluate the predictive relationships between social cognition and outcome later in life in terms of social functioning and the risk for psychopathology.

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction in Prison: Experiences of Inmates, Instructors, and Prison Staff.

Mindfulness intervention aims to reduce stress and to improve physical and mental health. The present study investigated feasibility and effectiveness of mindfulness intervention in a prison context, in both a qualitative and quantitative fashion. Specifically, the mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) intervention was investigated, in a retrospective pre-post design, in five Dutch prisons. Twenty-two inmates (out of 25 approached, mean age: 40.1 years (SD = 11.1), convicted of murder, manslaughter, sexual offenses, drug offenses, robbery with violence, and/or illegal restraint/kidnap, and sentenced to incarceration between 15 and 209 months (M = 5.5 years; SD = 3.8) took part in a semistructured interview after completion of the MBSR intervention. The interviews addressed level of satisfaction and challenges regarding the MBSR intervention as well as potential effects on stress responsivity, coping style, impulse control, aggression, and self-esteem. Ten staff members and four MBSR instructors were interviewed about their own practical issues experienced while providing or facilitating the MBSR intervention, and about the effects or changes they observed in the inmates who underwent the intervention. Both participants and instructors/prison staff reported improvements in all of the addressed domains and expressed satisfaction with the intervention. Challenges were mainly identified in practical issues regarding the organization of the intervention sessions. Future studies should investigate mindfulness in longitudinal randomly controlled designs, should strive for a multi-method approach, and distinguish inmates according to personality characteristics.

Empathic distress and concern predict aggression in toddlerhood: The moderating role of sex.

Impaired empathy is an important risk factor of aggression, but results are contradictory in toddlerhood. The association between empathy and aggression may differ for empathic distress and empathic concern in response to empathy-evoking situations, and for boys and girls. Therefore, the current study investigated whether empathic distress and empathic concern at age 20 months (N = 133, 69 boys) predicted aggression at ages 20 and 30 months (N = 119, 62 boys), while taking a potential moderating effect of sex into account. Empathic behavior was observed during a distress simulation task 20 months post-partum. Physical aggression was assessed through maternal report, using the Physical Aggression Scale for Early Childhood. Linear regression analyses revealed sex differences in the associations between empathic distress and concern on the one hand and physical aggression at age 20 months on the other. Furthermore, physical aggression at age 30 months was predicted by the interaction of sex with empathic distress at age 20 months, while controlling for aggression at age 20 months. More empathic distress and concern were associated with less physical aggression in girls, but not in boys. The findings indicate that the prediction of physical aggression by empathic distress was more robust over time than for empathic concern. This study sheds new light on the intricate relationship between empathy, aggression, and sex from a developmental perspective.