ConNEcT: An R package to build contingency measure-based networks on binary time series.

Dynamic networks are valuable tools to depict and investigate the concurrent and temporal interdependencies of various variables across time. Although several software packages for computing and drawing dynamic networks have been developed, software that allows investigating the pairwise associations between a set of binary intensive longitudinal variables is still missing. To fill this gap, this paper introduces an R package that yields contingency measure-based networks (ConNEcT). ConNEcT implements different contingency measures: proportion of agreement, corrected and classic Jaccard index, phi correlation coefficient, Cohen's kappa, odds ratio, and log odds ratio. Moreover, users can easily add alternative measures, if needed. Importantly, ConNEcT also allows conducting non-parametric significance tests on the obtained contingency values that correct for the inherent serial dependence in the time series, through a permutation approach or model-based simulation. In this paper, we provide an overview of all available ConNEcT features and showcase their usage. Addressing a major question that users are likely to have, we also discuss similarities and differences of the included contingency measures.

Attachment and the Development of Depressive Symptoms in Adolescence: The Role of Regulating Positive and Negative Affect.

Although widely accepted, attachment theory's hypothesis that insecure attachment is associated with the development of depressive symptoms through emotion regulation strategies has never been longitudinally tested in adolescence. Additionally, previous research only focused on strategies for regulating negative affect, whereas strategies for regulating positive affect may also serve as a mechanism linking insecure attachment to depressive symptoms. This study aimed to fill these research gaps by testing whether the association between attachment and change in depressive symptoms over time is explained by strategies for regulating negative and positive affect in adolescence. Adolescents (N = 1706; 53% girls; Mage = 12.78 years, SDage = 1.54 at Time 1) were tested three times, with a 1-year interval between measurement times. They reported on their attachment anxiety and avoidance at Time 1, depressive symptoms at Times 1 and 3, and regulation of negative affect (brooding and dampening) and positive affect (focusing and reflection) at Time 2. The results from multiple mediation analyses showed that more anxiously attached adolescents developed more depressive symptoms via increased brooding and dampening. More avoidantly attached adolescents developed more depressive symptoms via decreased focusing. These findings provide longitudinal support for attachment theory's emotion regulation hypothesis, and show that the regulation of both negative and positive affect is important.

Affective family interactions and their associations with adolescent depression: A dynamic network approach.

The prevalence of depression rises steeply during adolescence. Family processes have been identified as one of the important factors that contribute to affect (dys)regulation during adolescence. In this study, we explored the affect expressed by mothers, fathers, and adolescents during a problem-solving interaction and investigated whether the patterns of the affective interactions differed between families with depressed adolescents and families with nondepressed adolescents. A network approach was used to depict the frequencies of different affects, concurrent expressions of affect, and the temporal sequencing of affective behaviors among family members. The findings show that families of depressed adolescents express more anger than families of nondepressed adolescents during the interaction. These expressions of anger co-occur and interact across time more often in families with a depressed adolescent than in other families, creating a more self-sustaining network of angry negative affect in depressed families. Moreover, parents' angry and adolescents' dysphoric affect follow each other more often in depressed families. Taken together, these patterns reveal a particular family dynamic that may contribute to vulnerability to, or maintenance of, adolescent depressive disorders. Our findings underline the importance of studying affective family interactions to understand adolescent depression.

ConNEcT: A Novel Network Approach for Investigating the Co-occurrence of Binary Psychopathological Symptoms Over Time.

Network analysis is an increasingly popular approach to study mental disorders in all their complexity. Multiple methods have been developed to extract networks from cross-sectional data, with these data being either continuous or binary. However, when it comes to time series data, most efforts have focused on continuous data. We therefore propose ConNEcT, a network approach for binary symptom data across time. ConNEcT allows to visualize and study the prevalence of different symptoms as well as their co-occurrence, measured by means of a contingency measure in one single network picture. ConNEcT can be complemented with a significance test that accounts for the serial dependence in the data. To illustrate the usefulness of ConNEcT, we re-analyze data from a study in which patients diagnosed with major depressive disorder weekly reported the absence or presence of eight depression symptoms. We first extract ConNEcTs for all patients that provided data during at least 104 weeks, revealing strong inter-individual differences in which symptom pairs co-occur significantly. Second, to gain insight into these differences, we apply Hierarchical Classes Analysis on the co-occurrence patterns of all patients, showing that they can be grouped into meaningful clusters. Core depression symptoms (i.e., depressed mood and/or diminished interest), cognitive problems and loss of energy seem to co-occur universally, but preoccupation with death, psychomotor problems or eating problems only co-occur with other symptoms for specific patient subgroups.

Accounting for auto-dependency in binary dyadic time series data: A comparison of model- and permutation-based approaches for testing pairwise associations.

Many theories have been put forward on how people become synchronized or co-regulate each other in daily interactions. These theories are often tested by observing a dyad and coding the presence of multiple target behaviours in small time intervals. The sequencing and co-occurrence of the partners' behaviours across time are then quantified by means of association measures (e.g., kappa coefficient, Jaccard similarity index, proportion of agreement). We demonstrate that the association values obtained are not easy to interpret, because they depend on the marginal frequencies and the amount of auto-dependency in the data. Moreover, often no inferential framework is available to test the significance of the association. Even if a significance test exists (e.g., kappa coefficient) auto-dependencies are not taken into account, which, as we will show, can seriously inflate the Type I error rate. We compare the effectiveness of a model- and a permutation-based framework for significance testing. Results of two simulation studies show that within both frameworks test variants exist that successfully account for auto-dependency, as the Type I error rate is under control, while power is good.

Parental behavior and child interactive engagement: a longitudinal study on children with a significant cognitive and motor developmental delay.

Knowledge on the long-term interactive interplay between children with a significant cognitive and motor developmental delay and their parents is very scarce. We aimed to characterize the (in)variability and potential mutual influence of parent's interactional style and child interactive engagement throughout early childhood. Every six months over the course of two years, thirty-five parent-child dyads (children aged 6-59 months) living in Flanders (Belgium) or the Netherlands were video-taped during a 15-minute unstructured play situation. Video-taped observations were scored using the Child and Maternal Behavior Rating Scales. No consistent group-level trend was found. Within singular interactions, parent's responsive behavior and child interactive engagement (attention and initiation) seem to be strongly related. Initial child initiation seems to positively predict parents' achievement orientation and directive behavior two years later. Parental responsiveness might be an effective interactional strategy to increase child engagement and higher levels of engagement in children possibly can facilitate parental responsiveness within a concrete interaction. The more initiative children show, the more parents might have hope for developmental benefits resulting from a directive/achievement oriented approach. Further research is warranted applying more differentiated and dynamically evaluated outcome measures and a longer follow-up time frame, with specific attention to inter-individual differences.

Unraveling middle childhood attachment-related behavior sequences using a micro-coding approach.

Attachment theory states that children learn to trust in their parent's availability and support if they repeatedly experience that their parents respond sensitively to their needs during distress. Attachment is thus developed and shaped by day-to-day interactions, while at the same time, each interaction is a momentary expression of the attachment relation. How attachment-related behaviors of mother and child follow upon each other during interactions in middle childhood, and how these sequences differ in function of attachment quality, has hardly been studied up to now. To fill this gap, we analyzed the micro-coded interaction of 55 mother-child dyads (27 girls, 28 boys, mean age: 10.3) after a standardized stress-induction. Results reveal that all mother-child dyads show a loop between positive mother and child behaviors. This pattern is complemented with a loop of negative mother and child behaviors in low-trust and more avoidantly attached children: these children tend to handle negative mother behavior less well as they show more negative behavior and less positive behavior in response to negative maternal behavior. More anxiously attached children also show less positive behavior, but react positively on collaborative interactions. The micro-coded interactions thus reveal important insights that inform practitioners and advance attachment theory.

Parent-child interaction: A micro-level sequential approach in children with a significant cognitive and motor developmental delay.

BACKGROUND & AIMS: Previous research indicates that young children with a significant cognitive and motor developmental delay show low levels of interactive engagement, their parents are generally responsive towards them and these variables are positively correlated. Adapting a micro-level approach, we aim to go beyond macro-level and correlational analyses by charting the frequency, intra-individual co-occurrence and inter-individual temporal dependency of specific interactive behaviors. METHODS & PROCEDURES: Twenty-nine parent-child dyads (with children aged 6-59 months) were video-taped during a 15-minute unstructured play situation. Based on a self-developed coding scheme, interactive behaviors were coded continuously and analyzed using a three-step sequential analysis approach. OUTCOMES & RESULTS: Parents and children systematically combine either more socially-oriented or more object-oriented behaviors. Socially-oriented behaviors are less frequent in children, especially looking at and touching the partner occurs less. Socially- and object-oriented behavioral clusters are generally independent from each other and instigate/maintain the same type of behaviors in the interaction partner. While children's socially oriented behavior(al cluster)s seem to need a parental 'trigger', parents will more often independently engage with their child despite low child responsiveness. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: Further intervention-oriented research is needed to confirm this study's results and translate them into concrete guidelines for parents.