The 5Cs of positive youth development: their impact on symptoms of depression, anxiety, stress, and emotional distress in Chilean adolescents.

Effective approaches to addressing mental health challenges faced by adolescents require a deep understanding of the factors contributing to optimal development, well-being, and prosperity. From the perspective of Positive Youth Development (PYD), this study proposes to examine the relationship between the 5Cs of PYD (Competence, Confidence, Connection, Character, and Caring) and symptoms of depression, anxiety, stress, and emotional distress among Chilean adolescents. A quantitative, cross-sectional, non-experimental study was conducted with 425 adolescents (ages 12 to 19, M = 14.95, SD = 1.81) from three Chilean cities: Arica (23%), Alto Hospicio (32%), and Iquique (46%). Data analysis included the use of confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modeling (SEM). The results indicate that two of the 5Cs, Confidence and Connection, have a significant negative direct effect on the four evaluated criterion indicators. These findings contribute to the literature on positive youth development in Latin America and underscore the importance of fostering confidence and connection in interventions aimed at promoting the mental health of adolescents in Chile and in similar contexts.

Toward a decolonial developmental science in Asia: Exploring adolescent development in communities from the majority world.

The field of developmental science explores the rich interplay between individuals and their contexts, which dynamically shift across time and place. In Asia, context-specific research and practice are essential for promoting culturally relevant program and policy approaches to improving adolescent well-being. This involves critically examining how localized social structures and power dynamics shape individual experiences and outcomes. The landscape for Asian adolescents today differs significantly from that of previous generations due to rapid changes in these structures, and societal transformation has created the opportunity for traditional and modern values to coexist. This commentary draws across articles from this special issue to describe the dynamics of adolescent-context relations across diverse Asian contexts using developmental science methods. This includes interrogating risk factors, opportunities, and trajectories for adolescents growing up in non-Western settings while also questioning the application of Western, adult-centric discourses on adolescent well-being globally.

Growing Up Together in Society (GUTS): A team science effort to predict societal trajectories in adolescence and young adulthood.

Our society faces a great diversity of opportunities for youth. The 10-year Growing Up Together in Society (GUTS) program has the long-term goal to understand which combination of measures best predict societal trajectories, such as school success, mental health, well-being, and developing a sense of belonging in society. Our leading hypothesis is that self-regulation is key to how adolescents successfully navigate the demands of contemporary society. We aim to test these questions using socio-economic, questionnaire (including experience sampling methods), behavioral, brain (fMRI, sMRI, EEG), hormonal, and genetic measures in four large cohorts including adolescents and young adults. Two cohorts are designed as test and replication cohorts to test the developmental trajectory of self-regulation, including adolescents of different socioeconomic status thereby bridging individual, family, and societal perspectives. The third cohort consists of an entire social network to examine how neural and self-regulatory development influences and is influenced by whom adolescents and young adults choose to interact with. The fourth cohort includes youth with early signs of antisocial and delinquent behavior to understand patterns of societal development in individuals at the extreme ends of self-regulation and societal participation, and examines pathways into and out of delinquency. We will complement the newly collected cohorts with data from existing large-scale population-based and case-control cohorts. The study is embedded in a transdisciplinary approach that engages stakeholders throughout the design stage, with a strong focus on citizen science and youth participation in study design, data collection, and interpretation of results, to ensure optimal translation to youth in society.

Developing body estimation in adolescence is associated with neural regions that support self-concept.

Both self-concept, the evaluation of who you are, and the physical body undergo changes throughout adolescence. These two processes might affect the development of body image, a complex construct that comprises one's thoughts, feelings, and perception of one's body. This study aims to better understand the development of body image in relation to self-concept development and its neural correlates. Adolescents (aged 11-24) from the longitudinal Leiden Self-Concept study were followed for three consecutive years (NT1 = 160, NT2 = 151, and NT3 = 144). Their body image was measured using a figure rating scale and body dissatisfaction questionnaire. Body estimation was calculated based on figure ratings relative to their actual body mass index (BMI). Additionally, participants evaluated their physical appearance traits in an functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) task. Results revealed that body estimation and body dissatisfaction increased with age. Heightened inferior parietal lobe (IPL) activation during physical self-evaluation was associated with lower body estimation, meaning that the neural network involved in thinking about one's physical traits is more active for individuals who perceive themselves as larger than they are. IPL activity showed continued development during adolescence, suggesting an interaction between neural development and body perception. These findings highlight the complex interplay between affective, perceptual, and biological factors in shaping body image.

Teenage Development and Parental Authority: applying consensus recommendations to adolescent care.

The consensus recommendations by Salter and colleagues (2023) regarding pediatric decision-making intentionally omitted adolescents due to the additional complexity their evolving autonomy presented. Using two case studies, one focused on truth-telling and disclosure and one focused on treatment refusal, this article examines medical decision-making with and for adolescents in the context of the six consensus recommendations. It concludes that the consensus recommendations could reasonably apply to older children.

How we teach mindfulness matters: Adolescent development and the importance of informal mindfulness.

Given high levels of adolescent stress and educational institutions' key role in supporting students' mental health, mindfulness instruction is increasingly being implemented in schools. However, there is growing evidence adolescents find traditionally taught formal mindfulness (e.g., structured regular practice like meditation) challenging. Indeed, school-based studies report high levels of student non-compliance and lack of engagement with formal mindfulness strategies. Thus, informal mindfulness practices (e.g., unstructured brief moments integrated within daily routine) may be more accessible and developmentally appropriate for adolescents. Using a randomized experimental school-based design, this study sought to parse out the acceptability and effectiveness of formal and informal mindfulness for adolescents over time. Adolescents (n = 142; 73.9% female) were randomly assigned to a 4-week formal mindfulness, informal mindfulness, or comparison group and assessed on mental health, well-being, and educational outcomes. The informal mindfulness group (a) was more likely to report intending to frequently use the strategies (p = .025, Cramer's V = .262) and (b) reported increased dispositional mindfulness (i.e., general tendency to be mindful) from baseline to follow-up (p = .049, ηp2 = .034) which in turn mediated benefits on depression (indirect effect = -.15, 95% CI [-.31, -.03]), anxiety (indirect effect = -.21, 95% CI [-.36, -.06]), general stress (indirect effect = -.16, 95% CI [-.32, -.04]), school-related stress (indirect effect = -.15, 95% CI [-.28, -.05]), negative affect (indirect effect = -.17, 95% CI [-.35, -.04]), and attentional control (indirect effect = .07, 95% CI [.01, .13]). Thus, brief informal mindfulness strategies may be easier for students to use on a regular basis than formal mindfulness. Overall, these findings highlight the importance of going beyond a one-size-fits-all approach by offering accessible and engaging school-based mindfulness instruction to students. Recommendations for school psychologists seeking to teach mindfulness to adolescents are discussed, including the need to directly teach how to integrate informal mindfulness strategies in students' lives.

NowIKnowMyABCD: A global resource hub for researchers using data from the ABCD Study.

The Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study, involving over 11,000 youth and their families, is a groundbreaking project examining various factors impacting brain and cognitive development. Despite yielding hundreds of publications and counting, the ABCD Study has lacked a centralized help platform to assist researchers in navigating and analyzing the extensive ABCD dataset. To support the ABCD research community, we created NowIKnowMyABCD, the first centralized documentation and communication resource publicly available to researchers using ABCD Study data. It consists of two core elements: a user-focused website and a moderated discussion board. The website serves as a repository for ABCD-related resources, tutorials, and a live feed of relevant updates and queries sourced from social media websites. The discussion board offers a platform for researchers to seek guidance, troubleshoot issues, and engage with peers. Our aim is for NowIKnowMyABCD to grow with participation from the ABCD research community, fostering transparency, collaboration, and adherence to open science principles.

Expanding understanding of adolescent neural sensitivity to peers: Using social information processing theory to generate new lines of research.

Adolescence is a period of normative heightened sensitivity to peer influence. Individual differences in susceptibility to peers is related to individual differences in neural sensitivity, particularly in brain regions that support an increasingly greater orientation toward peers. Despite these empirically-established patterns, the more specific psychosocial and socio-cognitive factors associated with individual differences in neural sensitivity to peer influence are just beginning to gain research attention. Specific features of the factors that contribute to how adolescents process social information can inform understanding of the psychological and neurobiological processes involved in what renders adolescents to be more or less susceptible to peer influences. In this paper, we (1) review the literature about peer, family, and broader contextual influences on sensitivity to peers' positive and negative behaviors, (2) outline components of social information processing theories, and (3) discuss features of these models from the perspectives and social cognitive development and social neuroscience. We identify gaps in the current literature that need to be addressed in order to gain a more comprehensive view of adolescent neural sensitivity to peer influence. We conclude by suggesting how future neuroimaging studies can adopt components of this social information processing model to generate new lines of research.

Neural Sensitivity to Peer Feedback and Depressive Symptoms: Moderation by Executive Function.

Theories of adolescent development suggest that elevated neural sensitivity to social evaluation confers tradeoffs for adolescents' wellbeing, promoting adaptation to changing social contexts but increasing risk for emotional distress and depression. This study investigated whether the association between neural processing of peer feedback and depressive symptoms depends on teacher-reported executive function (EF) ability in adolescent girls. Girls showed activation to negative and positive peer feedback in regions implicated in social-emotional processing that interacted with EF to predict depressive symptoms. Specifically, activation predicted more depression in youth with poorer EF but less depression in youth with better EF, suggesting that the impact of increased social sensitivity may depend on youths' ability to regulate this sensitivity in adaptive ways.

Leveraging the adolescent brain cognitive development study to improve behavioral prediction from neuroimaging in smaller replication samples.

Neuroimaging is a popular method to map brain structural and functional patterns to complex human traits. Recently published observations cast doubt upon these prospects, particularly for prediction of cognitive traits from structural and resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). We leverage baseline data from thousands of children in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive DevelopmentSM Study to inform the replication sample size required with univariate and multivariate methods across different imaging modalities to detect reproducible brain-behavior associations. We demonstrate that by applying multivariate methods to high-dimensional brain imaging data, we can capture lower dimensional patterns of structural and functional brain architecture that correlate robustly with cognitive phenotypes and are reproducible with only 41 individuals in the replication sample for working memory-related functional MRI, and ~ 100 subjects for structural and resting state MRI. Even with 100 random re-samplings of 100 subjects in discovery, prediction can be adequately powered with 66 subjects in replication for multivariate prediction of cognition with working memory task functional MRI. These results point to an important role for neuroimaging in translational neurodevelopmental research and showcase how findings in large samples can inform reproducible brain-behavior associations in small sample sizes that are at the heart of many research programs and grants.

Educational Needs of the Adolescent Transplant Recipient: A Developmental Approach to Understanding Transplant.

BACKGROUND: As pediatric transplant patients reach adolescence, care teams must prepare them for an eventual transition to adult-oriented care. Care teams must provide patients with the necessary knowledge and skills to manage their medical needs independently, but the level of learning required to successfully self-manage a transplant is substantial. Furthermore, adolescence is also a dynamic developmental period that includes significant cognitive development and changes in social motivations. METHODS: Within this report, we offer insights into some of the key developmental mechanisms of adolescence that may influence their learning in a medical context. We also review key concepts that should be included in patient education across a range of domains. Finally, we consider how patients with comorbid developmental disorders may require tailored education. RESULTS: Key domains for education include (1) personal health history, (2) medication knowledge/adherence, (3) navigation of the healthcare system, and (4) communication with others about their health. Teams should intentionally track patient progress in their education, although few formalized tools are currently available to support tracking. Accommodations to learning for patients with developmental needs include varied instructional modalities (e.g., verbal, written, and modeling), opportunities to practice skills in a controlled manner, and establishment of family/community support that can persist into adulthood. CONCLUSIONS: Education of transplant patients is a critical but long-term process that supports the successful transition to adulthood. Care teams should develop intentional plans to transfer knowledge and build skills across adolescence, while remaining open to adaptive approaches to support the learning of all patients.

Embracing the hidden potential: The contribution of majority world research to developmental science.

Research on adolescence from the Majority World possesses major hidden potential in contributing to global adolescent research and developmental science more broadly. In this commentary, the authors (1) describe the background and the process through which this special issue came into fruition, (2) introduce the emic approaches to study the influences of macro-contextual variations on developmental science and provide several pertinent examples on the contributions of Majority World research, (3) elaborate on challenges and barriers that Majority World scholars often face in conducting and disseminating their research, and (4) a few actionable steps and recommendations in promoting the representation and inclusion of Majority World research into global developmental science. Only when our field fully integrates findings from all regions of the world will we be able to develop a fundamental scientific representation and understanding of what it means to be an adolescent, how adolescents develop over time, and what tasks or phenomena in adolescent development are truly universal or specific to particular groups, regions, or areas.

Towards a decolonial developmental science: Adolescent development in the Majority World taking center stage.

While aspiring to be a diverse and global science, developmental science continues to be dominated by EuroAmerican epistemologies, researchers, and communities in its published scholarship. Adolescents in communities across Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America comprise 85% of the world's adolescent population, and yet their experiences and perspectives are marginalized in our science. Adolescents in the Majority World live in highly diverse social, cultural, political, economic, educational and healthcare contexts that contribute to their development, and we have much to learn from their experiences. This article situates the marginalization of the global majority within coloniality embedded in developmental science. The article describes the impetus for this special issue Towards a decolonial developmental science and the process of putting it together, along with providing an overview of the 18 articles in this collection that push us towards decoloniality. The special issue serves as a call to transform developmental science to be decolonial by empowering adolescent development in Majority World communities to take center stage. Adolescent development research from Majority World communities has the potential to challenge the knowledge base generated from Minority World samples, contributing to a science that is comprehensive, inclusive, and can inform prevention and intervention efforts to support the well-being of adolescents globally.

Toward a globally inclusive knowledge base on adolescent development: A charge to the Majority World and a plea for epistemic and paradigmatic pluralism.

Ongoing internal dialog on the limitations of Euro-American developmental science has opened up space to explore how best to work toward a knowledge base that is adequately representative of the values, cultures, epistemic traditions, and lived experiences of peoples, nations, and regions around the world. So far, recommendations for the advancement of a global developmental science have focused preponderantly on (1) methodological considerations and (2) an architecture to support cross-disciplinary international collaborative inquiry and/or enhance research capacity building for Majority World scholars and institutions. In this commentary, instead of focusing on specific contributions to the Special Issue, I make a case for an explicit commitment to field-building within Majority World contexts as the primary gap-closing path toward the cultivation of a global developmental science knowledge base. I begin with a worldwide population analysis to demonstrate the magnitude of geopolitical, eco-cultural, and epistemic imbalances inherent in the shaping of Euro-American developmental science. In tandem with the Special Issue's central theme, I draw on scholarship from the fields of history, sociology, and political economy to link decolonial theory to the advancement of a global developmental science. Finally, I explore ways in which exemplary research establishments already engaged in prolific inquiry and research training may be ideal candidates to support field-building and help to advance multidisciplinary inquiry within an ethos of epistemic and methodological pluralism.

Screen use in transgender and gender-questioning adolescents: Findings from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study.

OBJECTIVE: To assess the association between transgender or gender-questioning identity and screen use (recreational screen time and problematic screen use) in a demographically diverse national sample of early adolescents in the U.S. METHODS: We analyzed cross-sectional data from Year 3 of the Adolescent Brain Cognitive DevelopmentSM Study (ABCD Study®, N = 9859, 2019-2021, mostly 12-13-years-old). Multiple linear regression analyses estimated the associations between transgender or questioning gender identity and screen time, as well as problematic use of video games, social media, and mobile phones, adjusting for confounders. RESULTS: In a sample of 9859 adolescents (48.8% female, 47.6% racial/ethnic minority, 1.0% transgender, 1.1% gender-questioning), transgender adolescents reported 4.51 (95% CI 1.17-7.85) more hours of total daily recreational screen time including more time on television/movies, video games, texting, social media, and the internet, compared to cisgender adolescents. Gender-questioning adolescents reported 3.41 (95% CI 1.16-5.67) more hours of total daily recreational screen time compared to cisgender adolescents. Transgender identification and questioning one's gender identity was associated with higher problematic social media, video game, and mobile phone use, compared to cisgender identification. CONCLUSIONS: Transgender and gender-questioning adolescents spend a disproportionate amount of time engaging in screen-based activities and have more problematic use across social media, video game, and mobile phone platforms.

Greater social jetlag predicts poorer NIH Toolbox crystallized cognitive and academic performance in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study.

Academic performance plays a crucial role in long-term educational attainment and occupational function. Chronotype refers to an individual's daily tendencies for times for waking, activity, and sleep. Social jetlag reflects the mismatch between an individual's chronotype and their social schedule. Because school typically starts early in the morning, later chronotype is often associated with daytime sleepiness, insufficient sleep, and poor academic performance. However, the relationship between academic performance, chronotype, and social jetlag has not been extensively examined in large samples like the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study. We hypothesized that greater social jetlag would predict poorer cognitive and academic performance. Year 2 (ages 11-14) cross-sectional data from the ABCD cohort (n = 6,890 adolescents) were used to evaluate academic performance (i.e. self-reported past year grades), NIH Toolbox cognitive performance measures, chronotype, and social jetlag from the Munich Chronotype Questionnaire. We found that later chronotype and greater social jetlag predicted poorer cognitive and academic performance with small effect sizes. Our findings emphasize the importance of individual differences in chronotype and social jetlag when designing class schedules, as aligning school activities with student optimal sleep-wake times may contribute to improved academic performance.

Clarifying the longitudinal factor structure, temporal stability, and construct validity of Go/No-Go task-related neural activation across adolescence and young adulthood.

This study aimed to clarify the psychometric properties and development of Go/No-Go (GNG) task-related neural activation across critical periods of neurobiological maturation by examining its longitudinal stability, factor structure, developmental change, and associations with a computational index of task-general cognitive control. A longitudinal sample (N=289) of adolescents from the Michigan Longitudinal Study was assessed at four time-points (mean number of timepoints per participant=2.05; standard deviation=0.89) spanning early adolescence (ages 10-13) to young adulthood (22-25). Results suggested that regional neural activations from the "successful inhibition" (SI>GO) and "failed inhibition" (FI>GO; error-monitoring) contrasts are each described well by a single general factor. Neural activity across both contrasts showed developmental increases throughout adolescence that plateau in young adulthood. Neural activity metrics evidenced low temporal stability across this period of marked developmental change, and the SI>GO factor showed no relations with a behavioral index of cognitive control. The FI>GO factor displayed stronger criterion validity in the form of significant, positive associations with behaviorally measured cognitive control. Findings emphasize the utility of well-validated psychometric methods and longitudinal data for clarifying the measurement properties of functional neuroimaging metrics and improving measurement practices in developmental cognitive neuroscience.

Age-related changes in ventrolateral prefrontal cortex activation are associated with daily prosocial behaviors two years later.

As adolescents acquire agency and become contributing members of society, it is necessary to understand how they help their community. Yet, it is unknown how prosocial behavior develops in the context of community-based prosocial behaviors that are relevant to adolescents, such as donating time to charities. In this longitudinal functional magnetic resonance imaging study, adolescents (N=172; mean age at wave 1=12.8) completed a prosocial task annually for three years (N=422 and 375 total behavioral and neural data points, respectively), and 14 days of daily diaries reporting on their prosocial behaviors two years later. During the task, adolescents decided how many minutes they would donate to a variety of local charities. We found that adolescents donated less time to charities from early to mid adolescence. Longitudinal whole-brain analyses revealed declines in ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vlPFC) activation, as well as inverted U-shaped changes in precuneus activation when adolescents donated their time from early to mid adolescence. A less steep decrease in vlPFC activation predicted greater real-life prosocial behaviors in youth's daily lives two years later. Our study elucidates the neurodevelopmental mechanisms of prosocial behavior from early to mid adolescence that have enduring effects on daily prosocial behaviors in late adolescence.

Adolescent Neurodevelopmental Variance Across Social Strata.

This cohort study explores variability in neurodevelopment across sociodemographic factors among youths.