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Michalska KJ, Moroney E, Lee SS. Introduction to the special issue on threat and safety learning. Dev Psychobiol 2024; 66:e22446. [PMID: 38131240 DOI: 10.1002/dev.22446] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/01/2023] [Accepted: 11/06/2023] [Indexed: 12/23/2023]
Affiliation(s)
- Kalina J Michalska
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Riverside, California, USA
| | - Elizabeth Moroney
- Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Northwestern University, Chicago, Illinois, USA
| | - Steve S Lee
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles, California, USA
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Palmer E, Woolgar M, Carter B, Cartwright-Hatton S, Challacombe FL. Preventing anxiety in the children of anxious parents - feasibility of a brief, online, group intervention for parents of one- to three-year-olds. Child Adolesc Ment Health 2023; 28:33-41. [PMID: 35983606 DOI: 10.1111/camh.12596] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 06/22/2022] [Indexed: 02/07/2023]
Abstract
BACKGROUND The evidence suggests an increased risk of developing anxiety problems in children of anxious parents. The current study explored the feasibility and acceptability of an intervention with anxious parents of young children, to inform the possibility of further trials. METHODS Participants were recruited through primary and secondary care psychological services and social media. Participants who had a current or recent anxiety disorder and a child aged 12-47 months were included. Assessments of parental and child outcomes occurred at baseline, after the intervention (week-2) and follow-up (week-8). The intervention was delivered in a small group format, in two sessions, one week apart, using videoconferencing. RESULTS Out of 32 participants, 30 (94%) attended the full intervention. All found the intervention acceptable and reported it as useful and relevant. There was a reduction in parental depression (MD = 2.63, 95%CI 1.01-4.26), anxiety (MD = 3.93, 95%CI 2.49-5.37) and stress (MD = 4.60, 95% CI 3.02-6.18) and increases in parenting confidence. CONCLUSIONS The online group intervention was feasible and acceptable. There were moderate to large effects on parental mental health and no adverse effects on children (decline on outcome measures). This indicates that intervening early in parenting with anxious parents is possible and warrants further investigation to establish prevention efficacy with a larger, controlled trial.
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Affiliation(s)
- Emily Palmer
- Department of Psychology, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King's College London, London, UK
| | - Matt Woolgar
- Department of Psychology, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King's College London, London, UK
| | - Ben Carter
- Department of Biostatistics and Health Informatics, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King's College London, London, UK
| | | | - Fiona L Challacombe
- Section of Women's Mental Health, Health Service and Population Research Department, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King's College London, London, UK
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Reilly EB, Dickerson KL, Pierce LJ, Leppänen J, Valdes V, Gharib A, Thompson BL, Schlueter LJ, Levitt P, Nelson CA. Maternal stress and development of infant attention to threat-related facial expressions. Dev Psychobiol 2022; 64:e22332. [PMID: 36282765 PMCID: PMC11071158 DOI: 10.1002/dev.22332] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/31/2022] [Revised: 08/01/2022] [Accepted: 08/30/2022] [Indexed: 01/27/2023]
Abstract
Attentional biases to threat-related stimuli, such as fearful and angry facial expressions, are important to survival and emerge early in development. Infants demonstrate an attentional bias to fearful facial expressions by 5-7 months of age and an attentional bias toward anger by 3 years of age that are modulated by experiential factors. In a longitudinal study of 87 mother-infant dyads from families predominantly experiencing low income, we examined whether maternal stress and depressive symptoms were associated with trajectories of attentional biases to threat, assessed during an attention disengagement eye-tracking task when infants were 6-, 9-, and 12-month old. By 9 months, infants demonstrated a generalized bias toward threat (both fearful and angry facial expressions). Maternal perceived stress was associated with the trajectory of the bias toward angry facial expressions between 6 and 12 months. Specifically, infants of mothers with higher perceived stress exhibited a greater bias toward angry facial expressions at 6 months that decreased across the next 6 months, compared to infants of mothers with lower perceived stress who displayed an increased bias to angry facial expressions over this age range. Maternal depressive symptoms and stressful life events were not associated with trajectories of infant attentional bias to anger or fear. These findings highlight the role of maternal perceptions of stress in shaping developmental trajectories of threat-alerting systems.
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Affiliation(s)
- Emily B. Reilly
- Institute of Child Development, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
| | - Kelli L. Dickerson
- Department of Pediatrics, Division of Developmental Medicine, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
- Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
| | - Lara J. Pierce
- Department of Psychology, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
| | - Jukka Leppänen
- Department of Psychology and Speech-Language Pathology, University of Turku, Turku, Finland
| | - Viviane Valdes
- Department of Pediatrics, Division of Developmental Medicine, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
| | - Alma Gharib
- Department of Pediatrics, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, USA
- Developmental Neuroscience and Neurogenetics Program, The Saban Research Institute, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, USA
| | - Barbara L. Thompson
- Department of Pediatrics and Human Development, College of Human Medicine, Michigan State University, Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA
| | - Lisa J. Schlueter
- Department of Pediatrics, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, USA
| | - Pat Levitt
- Department of Pediatrics, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, USA
| | - Charles A. Nelson
- Department of Pediatrics, Division of Developmental Medicine, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
- Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
- Harvard Graduate School of Education, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
- Harvard Center on the Developing Child, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
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LoBue V, Ogren M. How the Emotional Environment Shapes the Emotional Life of the Child. POLICY INSIGHTS FROM THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES 2022; 9:137-144. [PMID: 36059861 PMCID: PMC9435752 DOI: 10.1177/23727322211067264] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/15/2023]
Abstract
Emotion understanding facilitates the development of healthy social interactions. To develop emotion knowledge, infants and young children must learn to make inferences about people's dynamically changing facial and vocal expressions in the context of their everyday lives. Given that emotional information varies so widely, the emotional input that children receive might particularly shape their emotion understanding over time. This review explores how variation in children's received emotional input shapes their emotion understanding and their emotional behavior over the course of development. Variation in emotional input from caregivers shapes individual differences in infants' emotion perception and understanding, as well as older children's emotional behavior. Finally, this work can inform policy and focus interventions designed to help infants and young children with social-emotional development.
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Reider LB, Bierstedt L, Burris JL, Vallorani A, Gunther K, Buss KA, Pérez‐Edgar K, Field AP, LoBue V. Developmental patterns of affective attention across the first 2 years of life. Child Dev 2022; 93:e607-e621. [PMID: 35904130 PMCID: PMC9796239 DOI: 10.1111/cdev.13831] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/31/2022] [Revised: 06/28/2022] [Accepted: 07/04/2022] [Indexed: 01/01/2023]
Abstract
This study examined patterns of attention toward affective stimuli in a longitudinal sample of typically developing infants (N = 357, 147 females, 50% White, 22% Latinx, 16% African American/Black, 3% Asian, 8% mixed race, 1% not reported) using two eye-tracking tasks that measure vigilance to (rapid detection), engagement with (total looking toward), and disengagement from (latency to looking away) emotional facial configurations. Infants completed each task at 4, 8, 12, 18, and 24 months of age from 2016 to 2020. Multilevel growth models demonstrate that, over the first 2 years of life, infants became faster at detecting and spent more time engaging with angry over neutral faces. These results have implications for our understanding of the development of affect-biased attention.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lori B. Reider
- Department of PsychologyRutgers UniversityNewarkNew JerseyUSA
| | - Laura Bierstedt
- Department of PsychologyRutgers UniversityNewarkNew JerseyUSA
| | | | - Alicia Vallorani
- Department of PsychologyPennsylvania State UniversityState CollegePennsylvaniaUSA
| | | | - Kristin A. Buss
- Department of PsychologyPennsylvania State UniversityState CollegePennsylvaniaUSA
| | - Koraly Pérez‐Edgar
- Department of PsychologyPennsylvania State UniversityState CollegePennsylvaniaUSA
| | | | - Vanessa LoBue
- Department of PsychologyRutgers UniversityNewarkNew JerseyUSA
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