Reactive and control processes in the development of internalizing and externalizing problems across early childhood to adolescence.

Reactive and control processes - e.g., negative emotionality and immediacy preference - may predict distinct psychopathology trajectories. However, externalizing and internalizing problems change in behavioral manifestation across development and across contexts, thus necessitating the use of different measures and informants across ages. This is the first study that created developmental scales for both internalizing and externalizing problems by putting scores from different informants and measures onto the same scale to examine temperament facets as risk factors. Multidimensional linking allowed us to examine trajectories of internalizing and externalizing problems from ages 2 to 15 years (N = 1,364) using near-annual ratings by mothers, fathers, teachers, other caregivers, and self report. We examined reactive and control processes in early childhood as predictors of the trajectories and as predictors of general versus specific psychopathology in adolescence. Negative emotionality at age 4 predicted general psychopathology and unique externalizing problems at age 15. Wait times on an immediacy preference task at age 4 were negatively associated with age 15 general psychopathology, and positively associated with unique internalizing problems. Findings demonstrate the value of developmental scaling for examining development of psychopathology across a lengthy developmental span and the importance of considering reactive and control processes in development of psychopathology.

Adapting Open Science and Pre-registration to Longitudinal Research.

Open science practices, such as pre-registration and data sharing, increase transparency and may improve the replicability of developmental science. However, developmental science has lagged behind other fields in implementing open science practices. This lag may arise from unique challenges and considerations of longitudinal research. In this paper, preliminary guidelines are provided for adapting open science practices to longitudinal research to facilitate researchers' use of these practices. The guidelines propose a serial and modular approach to registration that includes an initial pre-registration of the methods and focal hypotheses of the longitudinal study, along with subsequent pre- or co-registered questions, hypotheses, and analysis plans associated with specific papers. Researchers are encouraged to share their research materials and relevant data with associated papers, and to report sufficient information for replicability. In addition, there should be careful consideration about requirements regarding the timing of data sharing, to avoid disincentivizing longitudinal research.

Dynamics of Hierarchical Task Representations.

Task representations are critical for cognitive control and adaptive behavior. The hierarchical organization of task representations allows humans to maintain goals, integrate information across varying contexts, and select potential responses. In this study we characterized the structure and interactive dynamics of task representations that facilitate cognitive control. Human participants (both males and females) performed a hierarchical task that required them to select a response rule while considering the contingencies from different contextual inputs. By applying time- and frequency-resolved representational similarity analysis to human electroencephalography data, we characterized properties of task representations that are otherwise difficult to observe. We found that participants formed multiple representations of task-relevant contexts and features from the presented stimuli, beyond simple stimulus-response mappings. These disparate representations were hierarchically structured, with higher-order contextual representations dominantly influencing subordinate representations of task features and response rules. Furthermore, this cascade of top-down interactions facilitated faster responses. Our results describe key properties of task representations that support hierarchical cognitive control.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENTHumans can adjust their actions in response to contingencies imposed from the environment. Though it has long been hypothesized that this ability depends on mental representations of tasks, the neural dynamics of task representations have been difficult to characterize. Our study utilized electroencephalography data from human participants to demonstrate the neural organization and interactive dynamics of task representations. Our results revealed a top-down, hierarchically organized representational structure that encoded multiple contexts and features from the environment. To support cognitive control, higher-level contextual representations influenced subordinate representations of task-relevant features and potential responses, facilitating response selection in a context-dependent manner. Our results provide direct evidence on organizational properties of task representations, which are cornerstones of cognitive control theories.

Studying children's growth in self-regulation using changing measures to account for heterotypic continuity: A Bayesian approach to developmental scaling.

Self-regulation is thought to show heterotypic continuity-its individual differences endure but its behavioral manifestations change across development. Thus, different measures across time may be necessary to account for heterotypic continuity of self-regulation. This longitudinal study examined children's (N = 108) self-regulation development using 17 measures, including 15 performance-based measures, two questionnaires, and three raters across seven time points. It is the first to use different measures of self-regulation over time to account for heterotypic continuity while using developmental scaling to link the measures onto the same scale for more accurate growth estimates. Assessed facets included inhibitory control, delayed gratification, sustained attention, and executive functions. Some measures differed across ages to retain construct validity and account for heterotypic continuity. A Bayesian longitudinal mixed model for developmental scaling was developed to link the differing measures onto the same scale. This allowed charting children's self-regulation growth across ages 3-7 years and relating it to both predictors and outcomes. Rapid growth occurred from ages 3-6. As a validation of the developmental scaling approach, greater self-regulation was associated with better school readiness (math and reading skills) and fewer externalizing problems. Our multi-wave, multi-facet, multi-method, multi-measure, multi-rater, developmental scaling approach is the most comprehensive to date for assessing the development of self-regulation. This approach demonstrates that developmental scaling may enable studying development of self-regulation across the lifespan.

Creating a Developmental Scale to Account for Heterotypic Continuity in Development: A Simulation Study.

Many psychological constructs show heterotypic continuity-their behavioral manifestations change with development but their meaning remains the same. However, research has paid little attention to how to account for heterotypic continuity. A promising approach to account for heterotypic continuity is creating a developmental scale using vertical scaling. A simulation was conducted to compare creating a developmental scale using vertical scaling to traditional approaches of longitudinal assessment. Traditional approaches that failed to account for heterotypic continuity resulted in less accurate growth estimates, at the person- and group level. Findings suggest that ignoring heterotypic continuity may result in faulty developmental inferences. Creating a developmental scale with vertical scaling is recommended to link different measures across time and account for heterotypic continuity.

Sleep across early childhood: implications for internalizing and externalizing problems, socioemotional skills, and cognitive and academic abilities in preschool.

BACKGROUND: Sleep is thought to be important for behavioral and cognitive development. However, much of the prior research on sleep's role in behavioral/cognitive development has relied upon self-report measures and cross-sectional designs. METHODS: The current study examined how early childhood sleep, measured actigraphically, was developmentally associated with child functioning at 54 months. Emphasis was on functioning at preschool, a crucial setting for the emergence of psychopathology. Participants included 119 children assessed longitudinally at 30, 36, 42, and 54 months. We examined correlations between child sleep and adjustment across three domains: behavioral adjustment (i.e., internalizing and externalizing problems), socioemotional skills, and academic/cognitive abilities. We further probed consistent associations with growth curve modeling. RESULTS: Internalizing problems were associated with sleep variability, and cognitive and academic abilities were associated with sleep timing. Growth curve analysis suggested that children with more variable sleep at 30 months had higher teacher-reported internalizing problems in preschool and that children with later sleep timing at 30 months had poorer cognitive and academic skills at 54 months. However, changes in sleep from 30 to 54 months were not associated with any of the domains of adjustment. CONCLUSIONS: Findings indicate that objectively measured sleep variability and late sleep timing in toddlerhood are associated with higher levels of internalizing problems and poorer academic/cognitive abilities in preschool.

Conducting Event-Related Potential (ERP) Research with Young Children: A Review of Components, Special Considerations and Recommendations for Research on Cognition and Emotion.

There has been an unprecedented increase in the number of research studies employing event-related potential (ERP) techniques to examine dynamic and rapidly-occurring neural processes with children during the preschool and early childhood years. Despite this, there has been little discussion of the methodological and procedural differences that exist for studies of young children versus older children and adults. That is, reviewers, editors, and consumers of this work often expect developmental studies to simply apply adult techniques and procedures to younger samples. Procedurally, this creates unrealistic expectations for research paradigms, data collection, and data reduction and analyses. Scientifically, this leads to inappropriate measures and methods that hinder drawing conclusions and advancing theory. Based on ERP work with preschoolers and young children from 10 laboratories across North America, we present a summary of the most common ERP components under study in the area of emotion and cognition in young children along with 13 realistic expectations for data collection and loss, laboratory procedures and paradigms, data processing, ERP averaging, and typical challenges for conducting this type of work. This work is intended to supplement previous guidelines for work with adults and offer insights to aid researchers, reviewers, and editors in the design and evaluation of developmental research using ERPs. Here we make recommendations for researchers who plan to conduct or who are conducting ERP studies in children between ages 2 and 12, focusing on studies of toddlers and preschoolers. Recommendations are based on both data and our cumulative experience and include guidelines for laboratory setup, equipment and recording settings, task design, and data processing.

Diminished Neural Responses to Emotionally Valenced Facial Stimuli: A Potential Biomarker for Unemotional Traits in Early Childhood.

Callous-unemotional (CU) traits are characterized by deficits in guilt/empathy, shallow affect, and the callous and manipulative use of others. Individuals showing CU traits have increased risk for behavior problems and reduced responses to displays of distress in others. To explore how deficits in emotion-processing are associated with CU traits, the current study examined the association between callous-unemotionality and a neural index of facial emotion processing, using the event-related potential technique in a group of 3-5 year olds. Children viewed a series of static emotional faces, depicting either fear or happiness, while electroencephalography data were collected. The N170 component, thought to index the neural processes associated with face perception, was examined along with CU traits. Findings suggest that the unemotional dimension of CU traits is associated with diminished emotion-processing responses to fearful faces. Reduced neural responses to facial depictions of fear could be a biomarker for unemotional traits in early childhood.

A longitudinal, within-person investigation of the association between the P3 ERP component and externalizing behavior problems in young children.

BACKGROUND: Externalizing problems, including aggression and conduct problems, are thought to involve impaired attentional capacities. Previous research suggests that the P3 event-related potential (ERP) component is an index of attentional processing, and diminished P3 amplitudes to infrequent stimuli have been shown to be associated with externalizing problems and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). However, the vast majority of this prior work has been cross-sectional and has not examined young children. The present study is the first investigation of whether within-individual changes in P3 amplitude predict changes in externalizing problems, providing a stronger test of developmental process. METHOD: Participants included a community sample of children (N = 153) followed longitudinally at 30, 36, and 42 months of age. Children completed an oddball task while ERP data were recorded. Parents rated their children's aggression and ADHD symptoms. RESULTS: Children's within-individual changes in the P3 amplitude predicted concomitant within-child changes in their aggression such that smaller P3 amplitudes (relative to a child's own mean) were associated with more aggression symptoms. However, changes in P3 amplitudes were not significantly associated with ADHD symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: Findings suggest that the P3 may play a role in development of aggression, but do not support the notion that the P3 plays a role in development of early ADHD symptoms.

Reduced neural responses to vocal fear: a potential biomarker for callous-uncaring traits in early childhood.

OBJECTIVE: Callous-unemotional (CU) traits are characterized by a lack of guilt and empathy, and low responsiveness to distress and fear in others. Children with CU traits are at-risk for engaging in early and persistent conduct problems. Individuals showing CU traits have been shown to have reduced neural responses to others' distress (e.g., fear). However, the neural components of distress responses in children with CU traits have not been investigated in early childhood. In the current study, we examined neural responses that underlie the processing of emotionally valenced vocal stimuli using the event-related potential technique in a group of preschoolers. METHOD: Participants between 2 and 5 years old took part in an auditory oddball task containing English-based pseudowords spoken with either a fearful, happy, or a neutral prosody while electroencephalography data were collected. The mismatch negativity (MMN) component, an index of the automatic detection of deviant stimuli within a series of stimuli, was examined in association with two dimensions of CU traits (i.e., callousness-uncaring and unemotional dimensions) reported by primary caregivers. RESULTS: Findings suggest that the callousness-uncaring dimension of CU traits in early childhood is associated with reduced responses to fearful vocal stimuli. CONCLUSIONS: Reduced neural responses to vocal fear could be a biomarker for callous-uncaring traits in early childhood. These findings are relevant for clinicians and researchers attempting to identify risk factors for early callous-uncaring traits.

The role of language ability and self-regulation in the development of inattentive-hyperactive behavior problems.

Previous research has found associations but not established mechanisms of developmental linkage between language ability and inattentive-hyperactive (I-H) behavior problems. The present study examined whether self-regulation mediates the effect of language ability on later I-H behavior problems among young children (N = 120) assessed at 30, 36, and 42 months of age. Cross-lagged panel models tested the direction of effect between language ability and self-regulation and longitudinal effects of language ability on later I-H problems mediated by self-regulation. Language ability was measured by children's scores on the receptive and expressive language subtests of the Differential Ability Scales. Self-regulation was measured by three behavioral tasks requiring inhibitory control. I-H problems were reported by parents and secondary caregivers. Language ability predicted later self-regulation as measured by all three tasks. There was no association, however, between self-regulation and later language ability, suggesting that the direction of effect was stronger from language ability to later self-regulation. Moreover, the effect of language ability on later I-H behavior problems was mediated by children's self-regulation in one of the tasks (for secondary caregivers' but not parents' ratings). Findings suggest that language deficits may explain later I-H behavior problems via their prediction of poorer self-regulatory skills.

Describing and predicting developmental profiles of externalizing problems from childhood to adulthood.

This longitudinal study considers externalizing behavior problems from ages 5 to 27 (N = 585). Externalizing problem ratings by mothers, fathers, teachers, peers, and self-report were modeled with growth curves. Risk and protective factors across many different domains and time frames were included as predictors of the trajectories. A major contribution of the study is in demonstrating how heterotypic continuity and changing measures can be handled in modeling changes in externalizing behavior over long developmental periods. On average, externalizing problems decreased from early childhood to preadolescence, increased during adolescence, and decreased from late adolescence to adulthood. There was strong nonlinear continuity in externalizing problems over time. Family process, peer process, stress, and individual characteristics predicted externalizing problems beyond the strong continuity of externalizing problems. The model accounted for 70% of the variability in the development of externalizing problems. The model's predicted values showed moderate sensitivity and specificity in prediction of arrests, illegal drug use, and drunk driving. Overall, the study showed that by using changing, developmentally relevant measures and simultaneously taking into account numerous characteristics of children and their living situations, research can model lengthy spans of development and improve predictions of the development of later, severe externalizing problems.

Bedtime routines in early childhood: prevalence, consistency, and associations with nighttime sleep.

The ability to transition from wakefulness to sleep is one of the most important tasks in the development of sleep during early childhood. Although establishing regular bedtime routines for children with sleep problems can be clinically effective in reducing the number of signaled night awakenings and increasing amount of sleep, it is unclear whether a regular bedtime routine would be associated with either the frequency of signaled night awakenings or nightly sleep minutes in a nonclinical sample of children. This study examined the role of a regular bedtime routine on the development of sleep regulation and consolidation in a community sample of young children. Adherence to a bedtime routine was concurrently associated with a greater amount of nightly sleep at 36 and 42 months. In addition, adherence to a bedtime routine predicted an increase in nightly sleep minutes over a 6-month period. Finally, this study demonstrated that adherence to a bedtime routine was particularly supportive of developmental gains for children of mothers who used consistent parenting practices during the day.

A Developmentally Informed Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of the Strength of General Psychopathology in Childhood and Adolescence.

Considerable support exists for higher-order dimensional conceptualizations of psychopathology in adults. A growing body of work has focused on understanding the structure of general and specific psychopathology in children and adolescents. No prior meta-analysis has examined whether the strength of the general psychopathology factor (p factor)-measured by explained common variance (ECV)-changes from childhood to adolescence. The primary objective of this multilevel meta-analysis was to determine whether general psychopathology strength changes across development (i.e. across ages) in childhood and adolescence. Several databases were searched in November 2021; 65 studies, with 110 effect sizes (ECV), nested within shared data sources, were identified. Included empirical studies used a factor analytic modeling approach that estimated latent factors for child/adolescent internalizing, externalizing, and optionally thought-disordered psychopathology, and a general factor. Studies spanned ages 2-17 years. Across ages, general psychopathology explained over half (~ 56%) of the reliable variance in symptoms of psychopathology. Age-moderation analyses revealed that general factor strength remained stable across ages, suggesting that general psychopathology strength does not significantly change across childhood to adolescence. Even if the structure of psychopathology changes with development, the prominence of general psychopathology across development has important implications for future research and intervention.

The Lifespan Trajectories of Brain Activities Related to Cognitive Control.

Cognitive control plays a pivotal role in guiding human goal-directed behavior, and revealing its lifespan trajectory is crucial for optimizing cognitive functioning at different ages, especially for stages of rapid development and decline. While existing studies have shed light on the inverted U-shaped trajectory of cognitive control function both behaviorally and anatomically, little is known about the corresponding changes in functional brain activation with age. To bridge this gap, we conducted a comprehensive meta-analysis of 129 neuroimaging studies using conflict tasks, encompassing 3,388 participants whose age spanned from 5 to 85 years old. We applied the seed-based d mapping (SDM), generalized additive model (GAM) and model comparison approaches to investigate age-related changes of brain activity, chart the lifespan trajectories and pinpoint peaks of cognitive control brain activity. The present study have three major findings: 1) The inverted U-shaped lifespan trajectory is the predominant pattern; 2) Cognitive control related brain regions exhibit heterogeneous lifespan trajectories: the frontoparietal control network (such as the inferior frontal gyrus and inferior parietal lobule) follows inverted U-shaped trajectories, peaking between 24 and 41 years, while the dorsal attention network (such as the frontal eye field and superior parietal lobule) demonstrates flatter trajectories with age; 3) Both the youth and the elderly show weaker brain activities and greater left laterality than young adults. These results collectively reveal the lifespan trajectories of cognitive control, highlighting heterogeneous fluctuations in brain networks with age.

Explaining Brain-Behavior Relations: Inhibitory Control as an Intermediate Phenotype Between the N2 ERP and the Externalizing Spectrum in Childhood.

Identifying neural and cognitive mechanisms in externalizing problems in childhood is important for earlier and more targeted intervention. Meta-analytic findings have shown that smaller N2 event-related potential (ERP) amplitudes, thought to reflect inhibitory control, are associated with externalizing problems in children. However, it is unclear how (i.e., through which cognitive processes) N2 amplitudes relate to externalizing problems. We examined whether inhibitory control may be a cognitive process that links N2 amplitudes and externalizing problems in early childhood. Children (N = 147, 74 girls) were assessed at four time points, spanning 3-7 years of age. Children's externalizing behavior was assessed via questionnaires completed by mothers, fathers, and teachers/secondary caregivers. Children's inhibitory control was assessed using eleven performance-based tasks and two questionnaires. Developmental scaling linked differing measures of inhibitory control and externalizing behavior across ages onto the same scale. Children's N2 amplitudes were extracted from electroencephalography data collected during a go/no-go task. Smaller N2 amplitudes were associated with externalizing problems and poorer inhibitory control. A concurrent analysis of indirect effects revealed that poorer inhibitory control partially explained the association between smaller N2 amplitudes and externalizing problems, even when controlling for the child's age, sex, and socioeconomic status. This is among the first studies to link N2 amplitudes, inhibitory control, and externalizing problems during early childhood. Findings suggest that smaller N2 amplitudes may be an early neural indicator of inhibitory control deficits and externalizing psychopathology. Moreover, inhibitory control may be an important target for early intervention in the development of externalizing psychopathology.

Reexamining developmental continuity and discontinuity in the 21st century: Better aligning behaviors, functions, and mechanisms.

Developmental science aims to explain development across the lifespan. Jerome Kagan observed that the same behavior can occur for different reasons, and differing behaviors can occur for the same reason. To help account for persistence, desistence, and transformation of behavior across development, Kagan introduced various types of continuity and discontinuity of forms and functions of behavior. This framework provides opportunities for identifying explanatory mechanisms in behavior development. However, misconceptions remain in applying the concepts that Kagan introduced. Much of the literature assumes developmental continuity in constructs without examining whether assumptions are supported, leading to faulty developmental inferences. For instance, the use of the same measure across time to assess development assumes that the behavior occurs for the same reason across time (homotypic continuity). In addition, just because one behavior predicts a different behavior at a later time does not necessarily indicate that age-differing behaviors occur for the same reason (heterotypic continuity). This review aims to advance conceptualizations of continuity and discontinuity from a contemporary perspective with aims to improve mechanistic understanding of behavior development across the lifespan. To better align behaviors, functions, and mechanisms, research should (a) examine (dis)continuity of individual behaviors rather than merely syndromes, (b) identify the function(s) of the given behavior(s), and (c) identify the cognitive and biological processes that underlie the behavior-function pairs. Incorporating examples from research on development of humans and nonhuman animals, I discuss challenges from work that has followed Kagan's ideas and ways to advance understanding of continuity and discontinuity across development. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

The P3 ERP in Relation to General Versus Specific Psychopathology in Early Childhood.

There is considerable covariation between externalizing and internalizing problems across the lifespan. Partitioning general and specific psychopathology is crucial to identify (a) processes that confer specific risk for externalizing versus internalizing problems and (b) transdiagnostic processes that confer risk for the covariation between externalizing and internalizing problems. The oddball P3 event-related potential (ERP) component, thought to reflect attentional orienting, has been widely examined in relation to psychopathology. However, prior studies have not examined the P3-or other aspects of neural functioning-in relation to general versus specific psychopathology in children. The present study examined whether children's (N = 124, ages 3-7 years) P3 amplitudes were associated with general versus specific psychopathology. Children's electroencephalography data were recorded during an oddball task. Parents rated their children's externalizing and internalizing problems. Using bifactor models to partition variance in parents' ratings of children's psychopathology symptoms, we examined children's P3 amplitudes in relation to three latent factors: (1) the general factor of psychopathology-the covariation of externalizing and internalizing psychopathology, (2) unique externalizing problems-the variance in externalizing problems after controlling for the general factor, and (3) unique internalizing problems. Results indicated that smaller P3 amplitudes were associated with unique externalizing problems at ages 3-5, and with general psychopathology at ages 6-7. Findings suggest that smaller P3 amplitudes may be associated with externalizing problems from a very young age. Moreover, there may be a developmental shift in the functional significance of the P3 in relation to general and specific psychopathology in childhood.

Creating a developmental scale to chart the development of psychopathology with different informants and measures across time.

Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) aims to advance a dimensional, multilevel understanding of psychopathology across the life span. Two key challenges exist in applying a developmental perspective to RDoC: First, the most accurate informants for assessing a person's psychopathology often differ across development (e.g., parents and teachers may be better informants of a person's externalizing problems in early childhood, whereas peer- and self-report may also be important to assess in adolescence). Second, many constructs change in their behavioral manifestation across development (i.e., heterotypic continuity). Thus, different informants and measures across time may be necessary to account for the construct's changing manifestation. The challenge of using different informants and measures of a construct across time is ensuring that the same construct is assessed in a comparable way across development. Vertical scaling creates a developmental scale to link scores from changing informants and measures to account for heterotypic continuity and study people's development of psychopathology across the life span. This is the first study that created a developmental scale to assess people's development by putting different informants and measures on the same scale. We examined the development of externalizing problems from ages 2 to 15 years (N = 1,364) using annual ratings by mothers, fathers, teachers, other caregivers, and self-report. The developmental scale linked different informants and measures on the same scale. This allowed us to chart people's growth trajectories and to identify multilevel risk factors, including poor verbal comprehension. Creating a developmental scale may be crucial to advance RDoC's goal of studying the development of psychopathology across the life span. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Heterotypic continuity of inhibitory control in early childhood: Evidence from four widely used measures.

Inhibitory control has been widely studied in association with social and academic adjustment. However, prior studies have generally overlooked the potential heterotypic continuity of inhibitory control and how this could affect assessment and understanding of its development. In the present study, we systematically considered heterotypic continuity in four well-established measures of inhibitory control, testing two competing hypotheses: (a) the manifestation of inhibitory control coheres within and across time in consistent, relatively simple ways, consistent with homotypic continuity. Alternatively, (b) with developmental growth, inhibitory control manifests in more complex ways with changes across development, consistent with heterotypic continuity. We also explored differences in inhibitory control as a function of the child's sex, language ability, and the family's socioeconomic status. Children (N = 513) were studied longitudinally at 30, 36, and 42 months of age. Changes in the patterns of associations within and among inhibitory control measures across ages suggest that the measures' meanings change with age, the construct manifests differently across development, and, therefore, that the construct shows heterotypic continuity. We argue that the heterotypic continuity of inhibitory control motivates the use of different combinations of inhibitory control indexes at different points in development in future research to improve validity. Confirmatory factors and growth curves also suggest that individual differences in inhibitory control endure, with convergence among inhibitory control measures by 36 months of age. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).