Child Negative Emotionality and Caregiver Sensitivity Across Context: Links with Children's Kindergarten Behaviour Problems

Effects of Cognitive Flexibility, Prosocial and Problem Behaviours, Parenting Style and Social Support on Social Adaptation Among Children With Leukaemia: A Structural Equation Modelling Approach

BACKGROUND

Leukaemia children often encounter various social adaptation issues stemming from changes in their living environment. Identifying and optimising the factors associated with social adaptation is crucial in improving social adaptation in children with leukaemia.

OBJECTIVES

To investigate social adaptation in children with leukaemia and to clarify the impact pathway of cognitive flexibility, problem behaviour, prosocial behaviour, parenting style and social support on social adaptation.

METHODS

Using a convenience sampling method, 264 leukaemia children completed a cross-sectional survey. Data were collected using the Social Adaptation Assessment Scale for Children with Leukaemia, Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire, Cognitive Flexibility Scale, Short-Egna Minnenav Barndoms Uppfostran and Multi-Dimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support. Structural equation modelling was used to test the influencing factors of social adaptation.

RESULTS

Social support directly influenced social adaptation (β = 0.19, p < 0.01) and indirectly influenced social adaptation through prosocial behaviour (β = 0.06, p < 0.01) and problem behaviour (β = 0.18, p < 0.01). Prosocial behaviour (β = 0.17, p < 0.01) and problem behaviour (β = -0.61, p < 0.01) directly influenced social adaptation. Negative parenting directly influenced social adaptation (β = 0.12, p < 0.01) and indirectly influenced social adaptation (β = -0.23, p < 0.01) through problem behaviour.

CONCLUSION

Our finding indicated that there are prominent social adjustment problems in the recovery process of children with leukaemia. These findings suggest that targeted education is needed to enhance social adaptation among children with leukaemia.

RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE

The final model should serve as a framework to guide intervention research targeting social support and negative parenting to improve the social adaptation of children with leukaemia. During the recovery process, nurses need to regularly follow up on the children's social adaptation and encourage them to participate in social activities to increase social support while providing family guidance based on improving parenting styles.

PATIENT OR PUBLIC CONTRIBUTION

The subjects of this study were children with leukaemia aged 8-18 years. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Parenting and Child Personality as Modifiers of the Psychosocial Development of Youth with Cerebral Palsy

This two-year longitudinal study addressed the joint contribution of parent-rated parenting behaviors and child personality on psychosocial outcomes in 118 families of children with Cerebral Palsy (M age Time 1 = 10.9 years old, 64.4% boys). Latent change modeling revealed intra-individual changes in children's psychosocial development as internalizing and externalizing behaviors increased from the first to the second assessment and psychosocial strengths increased from the second to the third assessment, whereas externally controlling and autonomy-supportive parenting behavior remained stable over time. Externally controlling parenting related to higher levels of, and increases in behavioral problems, with these associations being most pronounced among children low on Extraversion, Conscientiousness, or Imagination. Autonomy-supportive parenting related to higher levels of psychosocial strengths, with this association being most pronounced among children high on Emotional Stability.

Reducing Poverty-Related Disparities in Child Development and School Readiness: The Smart Beginnings Tiered Prevention Strategy that Combines Pediatric Primary Care with Home Visiting

This paper describes the Smart Beginnings Integrated Model, an innovative, tiered approach for addressing school readiness disparities in low-income children from birth to age 3 in the United States through universal engagement of low-income families and primary prevention in pediatric primary care integrated with secondary/tertiary prevention in the home. We build on both public health considerations, in which engagement, cost and scalability are paramount, and a developmental psychopathology framework (Cicchetti & Toth, Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, and Allied Disciplines 50:16–25, 2009), in which the child is considered within the context of the proximal caregiving environment. Whereas existing early preventive models have shown promise in promoting children’s school readiness, the Smart Beginnings model addresses three important barriers that have limited impacts at the individual and/or population level: (1) identification and engagement of vulnerable families; (2) the challenges of scalability at low cost within existing service systems; and (3) tailoring interventions to address the heterogeneity of risk among low-income families. Smart Beginnings takes advantage of the existing platform of pediatric primary care to provide a universal primary prevention strategy for all families (Video Interaction Project) and a targeted secondary/tertiary prevention strategy (Family Check-Up) for families with additional contextual factors. We describe the theory underlying the Smart Beginnings model, some initial findings from its recent application in two cities, and implications for changing social policy to promote school readiness beginning during very early childhood.

Intrusive parenting, teacher sensitivity, and negative emotionality on the development of emotion regulation in early head start toddlers

Toddler emotion regulation develops within the context of relationships but is also influenced by toddlers' individual characteristics. Drawing on transactional and differential susceptibility frameworks, this study examined direct and interactive associations of intrusive parenting, teacher sensitivity, and negative emotionality on toddler emotion regulation development in a sample of Early Head Start families utilizing center-based child care. Latent growth models indicated that, after controlling for a series of family and child care covariates, intrusive parenting at 14 months had diminishing effects on trajectories of emotion regulation across toddlerhood (14 to 36 months), whereas teacher sensitivity in child care was promotive for emotion regulation growth. Toddlers with high negative emotionality were not more susceptible to the effects of intrusive parenting or teacher sensitivity on emotion regulation development, however, results suggested emerging evidence for individual differences in the protective nature of teacher sensitivity in the context of high intrusion at home. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for informing parents and early care and education providers in nurturing relationships with the children who may be the most challenging to care for but may stand to make the greatest gains in emotion regulation development in quality caregiving settings.

Frühkindliche Prädiktoren externalisierender Verhaltensauffälligkeiten

Zusammenfassung. Externalisierende Verhaltensauffälligkeiten sind mit hohen gesellschaftlichen Kosten verbunden. Damit wirksame Präventions- und frühe Therapieprogramme entwickelt werden können, ist es notwendig, bereits in den ersten Lebensjahren Risiken für einen externalisierenden Entwicklungsverlauf zu identifizieren. In einer systematischen Literaturrecherche konnten aus 21 Publikationen zu 12 längsschnittlichen Geburtskohorten mit insgesamt 55 077 Kindern frühe Risiken bezogen auf eine elterliche Psychopathologie, einen niedrigen sozio-ökonomischen Status und ungünstige Eltern-Kind-Interaktionen identifiziert werden. Insbesondere eine mütterliche Depression, ein niedriger sozio-ökonomischer Status und ein harsches Erziehungsverhalten in den ersten Lebensjahren waren prädiktiv für externalisierende Verhaltensauffälligkeiten im Kindergarten und bei Schuleintritt. Implikationen für die klinische Praxis werden vorgestellt.

Interactive Effects of Infant Gestational Age and Infant Fussiness on the Risk of Maternal Depressive Symptoms in a Nationally Representative Sample

OBJECTIVE

To examine the interactive effects of gestational age and infant fussiness on the risk of maternal depressive symptoms in a nationally representative sample.

METHODS

Our sample included 8200 children from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Birth Cohort. Gestational age categories were very preterm (VPT, 24-31 weeks), moderate/late preterm (MLPT, 32-36 weeks) and full term (FT, 37-41 weeks). Maternal depressive symptoms (categorized as nondepressed/mild/moderate-severe), from the modified Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Questionnaire, and infant fussiness (categorized as fussy/not fussy) were assessed at 9 months from parent-report questionnaires. We examined the interactive effects of infant fussiness and gestational age categories and estimated adjusted odds ratios (aOR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) of maternal depressive symptoms using multinomial logistic regression.

RESULTS

Infant fussiness interacted with gestational age categories in predicting maternal depressive symptoms (P = .04), with severity varying by gestational age and infant fussiness. Compared with mothers of VPT infants without fussiness, mothers of VPT infants with fussiness had greater odds of mild depressive symptoms (aOR, 2.32; 95% CI, 1.19-4.53). Similarly, compared with mothers of MLPT and FT infants without fussiness, mothers of fussy MLPT and FT infants had greater odds of moderate-severe symptoms (aOR, 2.30; 95% CI, 1.40-3.80, and aOR, 1.74; 95% CI, 1.40-2.16, respectively).

CONCLUSIONS

Mothers of MLPT and FT infants with fussiness had increased odds of moderate-severe depressive symptoms, and mothers of VPT infants with fussiness had increased risk of mild symptoms. Early screening for infant fussiness in preterm and FT may help identify mothers with depressive symptoms in need of support.