Temperament and Craniofacial Variation in the First Two Years

Parent- and Child-Factors in Specific Phobias: The Interplay of Overprotection and Negative Affectivity

Specific phobias are among the most prevalent anxiety disorders in children and adolescents. Although brief and intensive treatments are evidence-based interventions (Davis III et al. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 15, 233-256, 2019), up to one-third of youth do not show significant change in their symptoms following these interventions. Hence, consideration of additional factors influencing treatment response is necessary. Child-factors such as temperament and parent-factors such as parenting behaviors both contribute to the development of specific phobias and their maintenance over time. Specifically, we addressed child temperament (negative affectivity) and parenting behaviors (overprotection) that could uniquely predict clinical outcomes for specific phobias and that might interact to inform goodness-of-fit in the context of these interventions. We also considered whether child- and/or parent-gender shaped the effects of temperament or parenting on clinical outcomes. Participants were 125 treatment-seeking youth (M age = 8.80 years; age range = 6-15 years; 51.5% girls) who met criteria for specific phobia and their mothers and fathers. Mothers' reports of children's negative affectivity uniquely predicted poorer specific phobia symptom severity and global clinical adjustment at post-treatment. Interaction effects were supported between parental overprotection and child negative affectivity for post-treatment fearfulness. The direction of these effects differed between fathers and mothers, suggesting that goodness-of-fit is important to consider, and that parent gender may provide additional nuance to considerations of parent-child fit indices.

Children's biobehavioral reactivity to challenge predicts DNA methylation in adolescence and emerging adulthood

A growing body of research has documented associations between adverse childhood environments and DNA methylation, highlighting epigenetic processes as potential mechanisms through which early external contexts influence health across the life course. The present study tested a complementary hypothesis: indicators of children's early internal, biological, and behavioral responses to stressful challenges may also be linked to stable patterns of DNA methylation later in life. Children's autonomic nervous system reactivity, temperament, and mental health symptoms were prospectively assessed from infancy through early childhood, and principal components analysis (PCA) was applied to derive composites of biological and behavioral reactivity. Buccal epithelial cells were collected from participants at 15 and 18 years of age. Findings revealed an association between early life biobehavioral inhibition/disinhibition and DNA methylation across many genes. Notably, reactive, inhibited children were found to have decreased DNA methylation of the DLX5 and IGF2 genes at both time points, as compared to non‐reactive, disinhibited children. Results of the present study are provisional but suggest that the gene's profile of DNA methylation may constitute a biomarker of normative or potentially pathological differences in reactivity. Overall, findings provide a foundation for future research to explore relations among epigenetic processes and differences in both individual‐level biobehavioral risk and qualities of the early, external childhood environment.