Associations of observed callous-unemotional behaviors in early childhood with conduct problems and substance use over 14 years

Maternal emotional intelligence and negative parenting affect are independently associated with callous-unemotional traits in preschoolers

Deficits in emotion intelligence (EI) are a key component of early-childhood callous-unemotional (CU) traits. Children's EI may be influenced by their mother's EI through both familial genetic and environmental mechanisms; however, no study has directly tested the role of maternal EI in the development of CU traits. This study investigated whether maternal EI had a direct relationship with children's CU traits when controlling for the potential influence of parenting affect and other psychiatric diagnoses. Mothers and their 3- to 5-year-old preschoolers (N = 200) were recruited as part of a parent-child interaction-emotion development therapy treatment trial for preschool clinical depression and comorbid psychopathology. Using data collected prior to treatment, regression models tested whether maternal EI was related to children's CU traits, which specific aspects of maternal EI were most strongly associated with CU traits, and whether associations held after accounting for observed parenting affect. Maternal EI (p < 0.005), specifically the ability to understand others' emotions (p < 0.01), was significantly associated with children's CU traits. This relationship was specific, as maternal EI did not predict depression or oppositional defiant disorder. Both maternal EI and observed negative parenting affect were independently and significantly related to CU traits (p < 0.05) in a combined model. Given that maternal EI and observed negative parenting affect were independent predictors of CU traits in preschoolers with comorbid depression, findings suggest that current treatments for CU traits that focus solely on improving parenting could be made more effective by targeting maternal EI and helping mothers better model emotional competence.

Describing Callous Unemotional Traits and Stressful Life Event Trajectories: Differences on Risk Factors and Mental Health Outcomes from the Age of 3 to 10

Callous Unemotional (CU) traits are associated with different environmental risk factors, such as negative stressful life events (SLE). The most common studied SLE associated with CU trait has been childhood maltreatment, but less is known about how other SLE impact the development of CU traits. Therefore, this work examines risk factors, personal factors (executive functioning), and mental health outcomes associated with the trajectories of Callous Unemotional (CU) traits and Stressful Life Events (SLE) in a community sample of children. A cohort of 377 preschoolers were followed up between ages 3 and 10. Several risk factors and outcomes for three trajectory groups (high CU/SLE; high CU/low SLE; and the reference group with low CU/SLE) were analyzed by using multiple post-hoc comparisons. We hypothesized that children with high CU/SLE would face more contextual risk factors, more executive functioning difficulties and more mental health problems than children with high CU/low SLE or the reference group. At the age of 3, children who showed high CU/SLE faced more early contextual adversity, including socioeconomic difficulties and maternal antisocial behavior than the other groups of children. At the age of 10, children with high CU/SLE presented more peer problems and higher psychopathology symptoms than the reference group, but no differences on mental health outcomes in comparison to the high CU/low SLE group. These results have potential implications for clinical practice and studies attempting to identify different CU subtypes in children.