Neural Activity and Emotion Socialization as Predictors of Later Emotion Regulation Difficulties in Children With and Without Hyperactivity/Impulsivity.

OBJECTIVE: This study examined emotion socialization and neural activity during frustration as predictors of emotion regulation (ER) difficulties, and the interplay of emotion socialization and neural activity, in children with and without hyperactivity/impulsivity (H/I). METHOD: At Time 1, neural activity (P1, N2, P3) during a frustration task, H/I symptoms, and emotion socialization were assessed in 68 children (aged 4-7 years old). At Time 2 (1.5-2 years later), child-report, maternal-report, and observation measures of ER difficulties were assessed. RESULTS: H/I symptoms moderated the relation between predictors and ER difficulties; there were significant relations for children with high, but not low, levels of H/I. Further, as emotion socialization quality increased, relations between event-related potentials and later ER difficulties became weaker. CONCLUSION: The processes underlying ER difficulties differ for children with H/I symptoms. High quality emotion socialization may have a protective effect for children whose neural patterns indicate risk for later ER difficulties.

Early Development of ADHD and ODD Symptoms from the Toddler to Preschool Years.

OBJECTIVE: ADHD and ODD are commonly co-occurring, but often studied individually. This study evaluated common trajectories of these disorders and explored how they co-develop in early childhood. METHOD: Community parents (N = 273) completed online surveys about their 2-year-old. Children's inattention, hyperactivity/impulsivity, and oppositional defiant disorder symptoms over 2 years were examined using latent class, dual trajectory, and cross-lagged analyses. RESULTS: Most children followed low symptom trajectories. A small portion showed high, moderate, or increasing trajectories. The hyperactive/impulsive domain of ADHD showed a declining symptoms group. Children in high ODD groups were likely to be in high ADHD symptom groups; the converse was true but probabilities were lower. Hyperactive/impulsive symptoms predicted ODD symptoms across time, more than vice versa. CONCLUSION: The study extends the small body of literature assessing early development of ADHD and ODD. Findings suggest that earlier intervention for symptoms of ADHD may mitigate risk of developing ODD.

Early Development of Comorbidity Between Symptoms of ADHD and Anxiety.

Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a common neurodevelopmental disorder that shares a high comorbidity with anxiety disorders. However, the early development of comorbid ADHD and anxiety symptoms is not well-understood. In this study, the bidirectional relation between ADHD and anxiety symptoms was examined by testing two models of the development of ADHD and anxiety comorbidity: an anxiety effects model, which posits that anxiety symptoms contribute to the development of ADHD symptoms, and an ADHD effects model, which posits that ADHD symptoms contribute to the development of anxiety symptoms. Within the ADHD effects model, parenting practices were tested as mediators of this relation. Participants included children who were 3 years old at baseline (n = 258) and their caregivers who reported on their children's ADHD and anxiety symptoms annually for 3 years. The bidirectional relation of parent-reported anxiety and ADHD symptoms was tested using a series of cross-lagged models. Results indicated that ADHD symptoms predicted later anxiety symptoms, but anxiety symptoms did not predict later ADHD symptoms. Parenting practices did not mediate the relation between ADHD and anxiety symptoms within the ADHD effects model. These findings suggest that ADHD-anxiety comorbidity may develop in part because early symptoms of ADHD contribute to the development of anxiety symptoms; future research should be conducted to elucidate the mechanisms of this relation.

Behavioral and Neural Markers of Emotion Competence as Predictors of Later Psychopathology in Children With and Without Hyperactive/Impulsive Symptoms.

Objective: We examined behavioral and neural markers of emotion competence in young children as predictors of psychopathology, and as mediators of the relation between hyperactivity/impulsivity (H/I) and psychopathology. Method: At Time 1 (T1), children (n = 49; ages 4-7 years) with and without H/I symptoms completed a frustration task. Frustration, observed emotion, and neural activity (P1, N2, and P3 event-related potentials) were measured. Symptoms of psychopathology were collected 18 months later (Time 2; T2). Results: T1 lability, negative affect, and frustration predicted T2 depression and aggression symptomatology, controlling for T1 symptoms. Children with difficulty allocating neural resources during and after frustration were at risk for depression, aggression, and anxiety symptoms, controlling for earlier symptoms. P3 amplitudes during recovery mediated the relation between H/I and later depression. Conclusion: Markers of emotion competence contribute to psychopathology symptoms, particularly in children at risk for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Emotion competence skills may be useful intervention targets.

Executive Function and Trajectories of Emotion Dysregulation in Children with Parent-Reported Behavior Problems.

The current study examined whether a variety of dimensions of executive function predicted trajectories of emotion dysregulation among preschool children with behavior problems. This study focused on 199 3-year-old children with parent-reported behavior problems who took part in a larger longitudinal study. Results revealed that response inhibition and working memory were not predictive of later emotion dysregulation. Gender differences emerged for delay aversion and attentional control. Boys who performed better on delay aversion tasks exhibited lower emotion dysregulation related to threat 2 years later, whereas girls who performed better on delay aversion tasks exhibited higher threat-related emotion dysregulation 2 years later. Better performance on a visual attention task significantly predicted decreasing threat-related emotion dysregulation slopes for boys but not for girls. Finally, girls who made more omission errors on a continuous performance task exhibited higher emotion dysregulation related to frustrative-nonreward 2 years later. Results suggest that specific facets of executive function may play an important role in difficulties with emotion dysregulation during the preschool years and that this pattern may differ across boys and girls.

Psychometric Properties of ADHD Symptoms in Toddlers.

The purpose of this study is to examine the psychometric properties of the 18 Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) symptoms of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in 2-year-old children. ADHD is typically diagnosed in elementary school, but research suggests that many children with ADHD first show symptoms during the toddler years. An important first step in identifying toddlers who are at high risk for developing ADHD is to better understand the properties of DSM symptoms of ADHD in young children. Parents of 2-year-old children (N = 434; 240 boys, 194 girls; M = 29.07 months, SD = 3.42) across the United States were recruited online through Amazon's Mechanical Turk to complete surveys about their children's ADHD symptoms and temperament. Confirmatory factor analysis showed that 2- and 3-factor models fit well. All but one verbal hyperactive/impulsive symptom loaded highly on their respective factors. Relations between ADHD symptoms and temperament traits provided some support for convergent and divergent validity of the symptoms. Finally, item response theory analyses showed that items showed moderate to high levels of discrimination between toddlers with high and low levels of ADHD symptoms. Psychometric properties in 2-year-old children were generally comparable to those in older children, with similar factor structure, good reliability and validity, and good though somewhat lower discrimination, particularly for verbal symptoms. The study provides support for conducting prospective studies to determine whether these symptoms have utility for identifying at-risk toddlers.

Perceived social support in adults with autism spectrum disorder and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

Perceived social support (PSS) has been related to physical and mental well-being in typically developing individuals, but systematic characterizations of PSS in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are limited. We compared self-report ratings of the multidimensional scale of PSS (MSPSS) among age- and IQ-matched groups of adults (18-58 years) with cognitively high-functioning ASD (N = 41), or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD; N = 69), and neurotypical controls (NC; N = 69). Accompanying group comparisons, we used machine learning random forest (RF) analyses to explore predictors among a range of psychopathological and socio-emotional variables. Relative to both ADHD and NC, adults with ASD showed lower MSPSS ratings, specifically for the friends subscale (MSPSS-f). Across ASD and ADHD, interindividual differences in autism severity, affective empathy, symptoms of anxiety related to social interactions, hyperactivity/impulsivity, and somatization best predicted MSPSS-f. These relationships did not differ between clinical groups. While group comparisons demonstrated greater impairment in individuals with ASD, analyzing individuals' characteristics revealed cross-diagnoses similarities in regard to their MSPSS-f relationships. This is consistent with the Research Domain Criteria framework, supporting a trans-diagnostic approach as on the path toward "precision medicine." Autism Res 2017, 10: 866-877. © 2017 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Mediators and Moderators of the Relation between Parental ADHD Symptomatology and the Early Development of Child ADHD and ODD Symptoms.

The present study examined mediators and moderators of the relation between parental ADHD symptomatology and the development of child attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) symptoms across the preschool years. Participants included 258 (138 boys) 3-year-old children (M = 44.13 months, SD = 3.39) with and without behavior problems and their parents who took part in a 3-year longitudinal study. Maternal ADHD symptoms predicted later ADHD symptoms in children, controlling for early child symptomatology. Both family history of ADHD and paternal comorbid psychopathology predicted later child ADHD and ODD symptoms, but they did not account for the association between maternal and child ADHD symptoms. Although paternal ADHD symptoms were associated with age 3 child ADHD symptoms, they did not significantly predict later child ADHD symptoms controlling for early symptomatology. Family adversity moderated the relation between maternal ADHD and child ADHD symptoms, such that the relation between maternal and child ADHD symptoms was stronger for families with less adversity. Maternal overreactive parenting mediated the relation between maternal ADHD symptoms and later child ADHD and ODD symptoms. Our findings suggest that targeting paternal comorbid psychopathology and maternal parenting holds promise for attenuating the effects of parental ADHD on children's ADHD.