Newborn minor physical anomalies predict short attention span, peer aggression, and impulsivity at age 3.

From a 5-to 10-minute newborn examination, behaviors of males at age 3 could be predicted. The number of minor physical anomalies, assessed soon after birth, was significantly related to a cluster of behaviors that are frequently labeled hyperactivity.

Developmental theories of parental contributors to antisocial behavior.

In view of the increased interest in a developmental approach to psychopathology, and mounting evidence of the importance of parent-child interactions in the etiology of early antisocial behavior, the following questions were posed for this review. What theories of parent-child relationships and family management techniques are available? How developmental are they, how specific and transactional are they relative to parent and child behaviors involved? And how well do they cover the period in which antisocial behavior develops? Six theories have some developmental features but the attachment theories (by L. A. Sroufe, B. Egeland, and M. T. Greenberg) and two social learning theories (by G. R. Patterson and J. Martin) are most clearly developmental. They postulate reciprocal interactions of parent and child, and transformations in the form of normative changes in the child or changes in family processes. The social learning theories of Patterson and Martin are most specific, microanalytic in fact, as to the interaction processes involved, and the attachment theories at least specify kinds of behavior involved and also do not rely on traits or types of influence as their units of analysis. Conceptualization is most weak and overly general between late infancy and the preschool years. This gap makes it difficult to link attachment and social learning theories, both of which have driven a large number of studies. A bridging theory is offered to link the two sets of theories in the critical period involved.

The development of early externalizing problems among children from low-income families: a transformational perspective.

The present study examined pathways leading to early externalizing problems from age 1 to 3 1/2 in a design that took advantage of our knowledge of normative progression and normative socialization as well as findings from research on risk. A sample of 130 low-income participants was followed longitudinally from 12 to 42 months using observational measures of developmentally salient parenting and child disruptive behavior to predict early externalizing problems. Results are best accommodated by concepts such as transformation and transaction from developmental psychology. For boys, both child and parent variables predicted later externalizing. For girls and boys, the interaction between child noncompliance and maternal rejection was significant.

A truly early starter model of antisocial behavior revisited.

This paper revisits a developmental model of the origins of early conduct problems. Several of the model's primary tenets have now been validated in two samples of at-risk children followed prospectively from infancy to school-age. In both cohorts, child, family, and sociodemographic factors all play a significant role in the development of early conduct problems. In particular, the quality of the caregiving environment during the child's second year differentiates clinical impairment according to both parent and teacher report 6 years later. We conclude by making recommendations for future studies. Research that utilizes a developmental framework, incorporates more sophisticated measurement of infant negative emotionality, and addresses the influences of neighborhood and culture, is suggested.

Multiple-risk cohorts and segmenting risk as solutions to the problem of false positives in risk for the major psychoses.

This paper briefly reviews the past promise, current results, and problems that have resulted from application of the risk group approach to understanding the etiology of the major psychoses. The ultimate objective is to stimulate a change in methods that it is hoped will lead to the knowledge required to warrant intervention. Methods of intervention are not reviewed because it is considered more important at this time to improve our understanding of the life course of these disorders. Interventions can be justified when a body of well-agreed-upon findings has accumulated indicating the developmental pathways to the major psychoses, including the situational contexts. It is assumed that the timing and mode of intervention will be evident when these pathways have been delineated.

Minor physical anomalies: relation to later achievement.

A substantial number of school-age children with learning disability are characterized as being distractible, and there is a congenital contributor to distractibility that has shown relation to school achievement, and to learning disability in particular. This congenital contributor can be assessed at any time from the neonatal through the early school-age period by a 10-minute examination. It seems likely that the basis for the congenital contributor to learning disability is an information processing defect that appears as early as the first year of life in the form of a rapid waning of attention when tired, an overly slow waning when in a rested state, and a failure to form cognitive schemas from perceptual input in either case. The congenital characteristic could also affect learning disability by its association with less than optimal peer relations. The latter could, in turn, affect the child's link to the classroom learning situation.

A congenital contribution to emotional response in early infancy and the preschool period.

Four follow-up studies carried out from the newborn period in three different laboratories have shown that a slow, low-magnitude reaction of the newborn to interruption of sucking is associated in later infancy and the preschool period with the expression of pleasurable emotional response. The basic test of the newborn's response varied slightly in the four studies, but essentially it consisted of establishing a baseline of infant behaviour during 30 to 120 seconds of sucking on a pacifier, then recording amount of (a) bodily activity, (b) crying, (c) the latency to either or both, in the 30- to 135-second period after removal of the nipple. The three aspects of the reaction are consistently intercorrelated, even when allowances are made for artifactual interdependence. Newborns who respond quickly to interruption of sucking also continue to cry and move a lot. Up to the first month a slow, low-magnitude reaction of the newborn is associated with a later low rate of smiling, but beyond the third month there is an inversion and the association is consistently with various manifestations of postive emotional expression.

Temperament and minor physical anomalies.

Minor physical anomalies (MPAs) are an index of deviant embryological development due to genetic defects of insults to the fetus. A brief 10-minute examination an an individual makes it possible to establish a count that shown highly stable individual differences from the newborn period up to age seven years, the latest age studied longitudinally. For males, high MPA counts in the newborn period have shown strong predictive relationships to preschool temperament factors such as short attention span, high activity level, and aggressive-impulsive behaviour. For females, high anomaly scores showed relationships to short attention span and to inhibition. Such findings are in contrast with inconsistent results from genetic studies and with infrequent, weak relationships of neonatal variables to later behaviour. These results from the Bethesda longitudinal study have been confirmed in most cases by several cross-sectional studies. Sex differences in behaviour, usually considered to result from differential sex-role training, disappear in preschool samples from which high MPA individuals have been removed, but are much more pronounced than usual in samples with high MPAs.

Habituation of visual attention in infants with minor physical anomalies.

Human and geometric forms were presented to 12-month-old male infants to determine if those with a large number of minor physical anomalies would show different habituation than infants with a small number. Results from a procedure using human forms in a random order failed to yield differences, but differences in dishabituation did appear when geometric forms were presented in a standard habituation procedure, and in response decrement when subgroups were created to test for differences in infant state as a function of task demands. Slower response decrement found in high-anomaly infants tested in a low task-demand condition was consistent with Lewis's findings in infants with various forms of brain pathology.