Despite findings that developmental timing of maltreatment is a critical factor in predicting subsequent outcomes, children's developmental stage is understudied in maltreatment research. Moreover, childhood maltreatment is associated with the development of maladaptive peer relationships and psychopathology, with social cognition identified as a process underlying this risk. The current study utilizes structural equation modeling to examine the impact of developmental timing of maltreatment (i.e., infancy through preschool versus elementary and middle school years) on psychopathology via negative perceptions of peer relationships. Multi-informant methods were used to assess 680 socioeconomically disadvantaged children. Results did not support differential effects of early versus later maltreatment on children's internalizing symptomatology or disruptive behavior, but indicated that chronic maltreatment, relative to episodic maltreatment, has more severe consequences for children's internalizing symptomatology. Results further support the mediating role of children's perceptions of relationships in the effect of maltreatment on negative developmental outcomes.

The current study characterized the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and stay-at-home orders on adolescents' internalizing symptoms and assessed predictors of adolescents' internalizing symptoms during the pandemic. Seventy-nine adolescents (18 autistic, 61 nonautistic) and their parents who participated in a previous study and were at least 10 years old ( = 13.8, = 1.7) were invited to participate in three online follow-up surveys post-stay-at-home order (May through November 2020). Measures of children's anxiety and depressive symptoms, parenting practices, family togetherness, conflict, financial problems, and parental mental health during the pandemic were collected. Nonautistic adolescents experienced a significant decrease in anxiety symptoms across the beginning of the pandemic and a significant increase in depressive symptoms from pre- to post-stay-at-home order. Permissive parenting and financial problems predicted adolescents' depressive symptoms. Parental mental health difficulties and permissive parenting predicted adolescents' anxiety symptoms. Results underscore the need to support parents and youth.

Making a smooth transition to the K-12 (kindergarten through Grade 12) classroom context sets the stage for academic success throughout the life course. Parents' early education-related behaviors are linked with children's adjustment, yet less is known about how parental school readiness beliefs motivate parenting practices at this educational transition. We investigated the associations between parental school readiness beliefs (general and child-specific) following the transition to kindergarten and parents' involvement the following year. Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten 2011 cohort ( = 9,790), general school readiness beliefs and child-specific academic and behavioral competency beliefs were associated with school-based involvement in first grade. Kindergarten parents who held higher child-specific academic competency beliefs also reported less homework involvement and had greater teacher-reported classroom-based involvement in first grade. Family poverty status differences did not emerge. Findings can inform efforts to increase parental involvement by elucidating the ways in which parents' beliefs about their children motivate involvement strategies.

Although existing research has shed much light on the development of ethnic minority children, many studies focus on maladjustment, such as behavioral problems, without also speaking to positive experiences in children's lives, such as friendship. An aspect of development that predicts both positive and negative outcomes for children is self-regulation. The present study investigates precursors and sequelae of self-regulation in middle childhood among low-income, ethnic minority children. The four self-regulatory constructs examined in the current study include low-level executive function (EF; e.g., working memory), high-level EF (e.g., planning), effortful control (EC; e.g., delay of gratification), and impulsivity (e.g., does not think before doing). EC in preschool was related to high-level EF and impulsivity in elementary school. High-level EF explained positive and negative aspects of social development during middle childhood. Additionally, self-regulation during elementary school played a mediating role between EC in preschool and social development in middle childhood.

This study examined relations between children's false statements and response latency, executive functioning, and truth-lie understanding in order to understand what underlies children's emerging ability to make false statements. A total of 158 (2- to 5-year-old) children earned prizes for claiming that they were looking at birds even when presented with images of fish. Children were asked recall ("What do you have?"), recognition ("Do you have a bird/fish?"), and outcome ("Did you win/lose?") questions. Response latencies were greater when children were presented with fish pictures than bird pictures, particularly when they were asked recall questions, and were greater for false statements than for true statements, again when children were asked recall questions. Older but not younger children exhibited longer latencies when making false responses to outcome questions, which suggests that younger children were providing impulsive desire-based responses to the outcome questions. Executive functioning, as measured by the Stroop task, was not related to false statements. Children who were better at labeling statements as the truth or not the truth were more proficient at making false statements. The results support the proposition that the cognitive effort required for making false statements depends on the types of questions asked.

Child maltreatment is associated with increased risk of substance abuse in adulthood. However, prior investigations have not examined substance use specifically in pregnancy, and have relied on self-report of substance use. The present study addresses these gaps via secondary analysis of 295 primarily low-income, Black postpartum women who agreed to complete a brief questionnaire and subsequently provided urine and hair samples. A clear relationship emerged between self-reported maltreatment and positive toxicology (with drug use present in 37.2% of maltreated participants and 17.1% of non-maltreated participants; < .001). Depression and violence exposure were positively associated with maltreatment and with drug use. The combined effect of violence exposure and depression mediated the association between maltreatment and drug use during pregnancy (the bootstrapped 95% confidence interval of total indirect effect ranged from .17-.86). This investigation is the first to show an association between childhood maltreatment and toxicological evidence of drug use in pregnancy.

Maternal depressive symptoms predict negative child behaviors, including internalizing problems. However, protective factors, such as positive emotionality and positive parenting behaviors, may play an important a role in attenuating associations between maternal depressive symptoms and child behavior problems. This manuscript presents two studies that examined buffers of links between maternal depressive symptoms and child internalizing problems. Each study examined samples of primarily African American families with young children in an impoverished large city in the Midwestern United States. Families were recruited from kindergarten classes and Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) centers. In both studies, indicators of mothers' positivity, as measured by text based analysis of positive emotion word use or behavioral observation of positive parenting behaviors, attenuated links between maternal depressive symptoms and child internalizing problems. The results suggest that risk for internalizing problems within the context of maternal depressive symptoms is reduced when parents experience and express more positive emotions and behaviors.

A growing body of literature indicates that childhood emotion regulation predicts later success with peers, yet little is known about the processes through which this association occurs. The current study examined mechanisms through which emotion regulation was associated with later peer acceptance and peer rejection, controlling for earlier acceptance and rejection. Data included mother-, teacher-, and peer-reports on 338 children (55% girls, 68% European American) at ages 7 and 10. A path analysis was conducted to test the indirect effects of emotion regulation at age 7 on peer acceptance and peer rejection at age 10 via positive social behaviors of cooperation and leadership, and negative social behaviors of indirect and direct aggression. Results indicated numerous significant indirect pathways. Taken together, findings suggest cooperation, leadership, and direct and indirect aggression are all mechanisms by which earlier emotion regulation contributes to later peer status during childhood.

Past research suggests that reading comprehension test performance does not rely solely on targeted cognitive processes such as word reading, but also on other non-target aspects such as test anxiety. Using a genetically sensitive design, we sought to understand the genetic and environmental etiology of the association between test anxiety and reading comprehension as measured by a high-stakes test. Mirroring the behavioral literature of test anxiety, three different dimensions of test anxiety were examined in relation to reading comprehension, namely intrusive thoughts, autonomic reactions, and off-task behaviors. Participants included 426 sets of twins from the Florida Twin Project on Reading. The results indicated test anxiety was negatively associated with reading comprehension test performance, specifically through common shared environmental influences. The significant contribution of test anxiety to reading comprehension on a high-stakes test supports the notion that non-targeted factors may be interfering with accurately assessing students' reading abilities.

For socio-economically disadvantaged children, a positive experience in kindergarten may play a particularly important role in fostering the behavioral adjustment and learning engagement necessary for school success. Prior research has identified supportive student-teacher relationships and classroom emotional support as two features of the classroom context that can promote student adjustment; however, very few studies have examined these two aspects of the classroom context simultaneously. Given their modest inter-correlations, these dimensions of classroom context may have both unique and shared associations with child progress. This study followed 164 children as they transitioned from Head Start into elementary school, and regressions revealed significant unique associations between each type of kindergarten support and children's aggressive behaviors, social withdrawal, learning engagement, and emergent literacy skills in first grade, controlling for their pre-kindergarten adjustment. In addition, learning engagement significantly mediated the association between a supportive relationship with the kindergarten teacher and first grade literacy skills.

We examined the relations between maternal depressive symptoms and child internalizing and externalizing problems in a sample of 125 adolescent Latina mothers (primarily Puerto Rican) and their toddlers. We also tested the influence of mother-reported partner child care involvement on child behavior problems and explored mother-reported partner characteristics that related to this involvement. Results suggested that maternal depressive symptoms related to child internalizing and externalizing problems when accounting for contextual risk factors. Importantly, these symptoms mediated the link between life stress and child behavior problems. Mother-reported partner child care interacted with maternal depressive symptoms for internalizing, not externalizing, problems. Specifically, depressive symptoms related less strongly to internalizing problems at higher levels of partner child care than at lower levels. Participants with younger partners, co-residing partners, and in longer romantic relationships reported higher partner child care involvement. Results are discussed considering implications for future research and interventions for mothers, their children, and their partners.

An important developmental task is learning to organize experience by forming conceptual relations among entities (e.g., a and a can be linked because both are animals; a and a can be linked because the lion lives in the cage). We propose that representational medium (i.e., pictures vs. objects) plays an important role in influencing which relations children consider. Prior work has demonstrated that pictures more readily evoke broader categories, whereas objects more readily call attention to specific individuals. We therefore predicted that pictures would encourage taxonomic and shared-property relations, whereas objects would encourage thematic and slot-filler relations. We observed 32 mother-child dyads ( child ages = 2.9 and 4.3) playing with pictures and objects, and identified utterances in which they made taxonomic, thematic, shared-property, or slot-filler links between items. The results confirmed our predictions and thus support representational medium as an important factor that influences the conceptual relations expressed during dyadic conversations.

We investigated the degree to which parent positive personality characteristics in terms of conscientiousness, agreeableness and emotional stability predict similar adolescent personality traits over time as well as the role played by positive parenting in this process. Mothers and fathers of 451 White adolescents (52% female, mean age = 13.59 years) were assessed on three occasions, with 2-year lags between each assessment. Parent personality and observed positive parenting both predicted 12(th) graders personality. Additionally, we found evidence for an indirect link between parent personality and later adolescent personality through positive parenting. The results suggest that parents may play a significant role in the development of adolescent personality traits that promote competence and personal well-being across the life course.

This study examined the relations between facial attractiveness, peer victimization, and internalizing problems in early adolescence. We hypothesized that experiences of peer victimization would partially mediate the relationship between attractiveness and internalizing problems. Ratings of attractiveness were obtained from standardized photographs of participants (93 girls, 82 boys). Teachers provided information regarding peer victimization experiences in sixth grade, and seventh grade teachers assessed internalizing problems. Attractiveness was negatively correlated with victimization and internalizing problems. Experiences of peer victimization were positively correlated with internalizing problems. Structural equation modeling provided support for the hypothesized model of peer victimization partially mediating the relationship between attractiveness and internalizing problems. Implications for intervention programs and future research directions are discussed.

Using a high-risk community sample, multiple regression analyses were conducted separately for mothers (=416) and fathers (= 346) to test the unique, prospective influence of parental negative affect on adolescent maladjustment (internalizing symptoms, externalizing symptoms, and negative emotionality) two years later over and above parental alcohol and affective disorders, major disruption in the family environment, and parenting. Adolescent sex was tested as a moderator. Results indicated that maternal (but not paternal) negative affect had a unique, prospective effect on adolescent internalizing symptoms in girls and negative emotionality in both sexes, but did not predict adolescent externalizing symptoms. Findings demonstrate that mothers' negative affect may have unique effects on adolescent adjustment, separate from the effects of clinically significant parental psychopathology, parenting, and disruption in the family environment.

Although shyness has often been found to be negatively related to vocabulary, few studies have examined the processes that produce or modify this relation. The present study examined executive functioning skills and home environmental stimulation as potential mediating and moderating mechanisms. A sample of 3.5-year-old children (N=254) were administered executive functioning tasks and a vocabulary test during a laboratory visit. Mothers completed questionnaires assessing child shyness and home environmental stimulation. Our primary hypothesis was that executive functioning mediates the association between shyness and vocabulary, and home environmental stimulation moderates the relation between executive functioning and vocabulary. Alternative hypotheses were also tested. Results indicated that children with better executive functioning skills developed stronger vocabularies when reared in more, versus less, stimulating environments. Implications of these results are discussed in terms of the role of shyness, executive functioning, and home environmental stimulation in early vocabulary development.

The influence of using substances with friends on future individual use was examined in the context of parental monitoring rules and the ecology of peer activities. A one-year longitudinal study design included a combined sample of North Italian and French Canadian adolescents (N = 285, 53% girls, M = 14.25 years). Data analyses were conducted using structural equation modeling and multiple regression analyses. As expected, the covariation between parental monitoring and adolescent substance use was mediated by "co-use" with friends. Moreover, the relation between substance use with friends and individual substance use was moderated by parental monitoring rules and the peer activity context. Specifically, the relation between substance co-use with friends and individual substance use was stronger when the level of parental monitoring rules was low and when friends spent their time together primarily in unstructured contexts such as on the street or in park settings. These findings underline the importance of adults' use of rules to monitor adolescents prone to substance use, and the role of context in facilitating or reducing peer influence.

The relations among peer victimization, effortful control, school engagement, and academic achievement were examined in a group of 390 (212 boys and 178 girls) racially diverse (38.20% Latino and 46.70% White) 6- to 10-year-old children. Specifically, a multimethod, multi-informant approach was used in which data were gathered using self-report, peer-report, and teacher-report questionnaires at three points in time: twice during the initial year of the study when children were in first and third grades and once in the fall of their second-grade and fourth-grade years, respectively. Findings showed that peer victimization was negatively correlated with effortful control; however, longitudinal analyses conducted to examine causal priority were inconclusive. Results from structural equation modeling were consistent with the hypotheses that school engagement mediated the relations between peer victimization and academic achievement, as well as between effortful control and academic achievement.

This study examined concurrent and longitudinal associations among peer victimization, peer status, and self-injurious thoughts and behaviors (i.e., suicidal ideation and nonsuicidal self-injury [NSSI]) over a 2-year period. A community sample of 493 adolescents (51% girls) in Grades 6-8 participated in the study. Participants completed measures of suicidal ideation and NSSI at three time points. Measures of peer victimization (overt and relational) and peer status (preference-based and reputation-based popularity) were collected by using a standard sociometric procedure. The hypothesized model was examined by using a multiple group (by gender) latent growth curve analysis. Results suggested that high levels of overt victimization were associated with increases in suicidal ideation over time for girls. No effects were revealed for relational victimization in the prediction of concurrent or longitudinal associations with suicidal ideation for boys or girls. With respect to peer status, low levels of preference-based popularity were associated with increases in suicidal ideation over time. Implications for understanding the complex patterns of association among different forms of peer victimization, self-injurious thoughts and behaviors, and peer group status are discussed.

This study examined early elementary school children's trajectories of peer victimization with a sample of 218 boys and girls. Peer victimization was assessed (via peer report) in kindergarten, 1(st), 2(nd), and 5(th) grades. Hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) was used to examine multiple types of relationships (mother-child, student-teacher, friendship) as predictors of kindergarten levels of peer victimization and changes in peer victimization across time. Results indicated that the mother-child relationship predicted kindergarten levels of peer victimization, and that the student-teacher relationship did not provide additional information, once the mother-child relationship was accounted for in the analyses. Friendship predicted changes in peer victimization during the elementary school years. Results are discussed in a developmental psychopathology framework with special emphasis on the implication for understanding the etiology of peer victimization.

This multi-method study examined the association between family instability and children's internal representations of security in the family system within the context of maternal communications about disruptive family events. Participants included 224 kindergarten children (100 boys and 124 girls) and their parents. Parents reported on the frequency of unstable family events, mothers reported their patterns of communication to children following disruptive events, and children completed a story-stem battery to assess their internal representations of family security. Consistent with predictions, heightened family instability was associated with less security in child representations. The implication of these results for notions of children's security in the family system, including exploratory findings on the protective role of maternal communications for children's representations, are discussed.

This study examines whether disagreeable youth are distinct from aggressive youth, victimized youth, and withdrawn youth. Young adolescents (120 girls and 104 boys, = 13.59 years old) completed personality and adjustment inventories. Aggression, withdrawal, and victimization scores were derived from peer nominations ( = 807). Cluster analyses identified six groups. Disagreeable youth, aggressive victimized youth, withdrawn victimized youth, and withdrawn youth tended to have worse concurrent peer relations than did agreeable youth and aggressive youth. Disagreeable youth had some of the highest levels of concurrent and prospective adjustment problems, with rates of self-and mother-reported internalizing problems that rivaled withdrawn victimized youth and withdrawn youth, and rates of self-and mother-reported externalizing problems that rivaled aggressive victimized youth and aggressive youth. The findings indicate that low agreeable youth represent a discrete category of adolescents with social and adjustment difficulties.

Reminiscing has been shown to be a critical conversational context for the development of autobiographical memory, self-concept, and emotional regulation (for a review, see Fivush, Haden, & Reese, 2006). Although much past research has examined reminiscing between mothers and their preschool children, very little attention has been given to family narrative interaction with older children. In the present study, we examined family reminiscing in spontaneous narratives that emerged during family dinnertime conversations. The results revealed that mothers contributed more to the narratives than did fathers in that they provided, confirmed, and negated more information, although fathers requested more information than mothers. In exploratory analyses, mothers' contributions to shared family narratives were found to be related to fewer internalizing and externalizing behaviors in their children, while fathers' contributions to individual narratives of day-today experiences were related to fewer internalizing and externalizing behaviors in their children. These results indicate that mothers and fathers may play different roles in narrative construction with their children, and there is some suggestion that these differences may also be related to children's behavioral adjustment.

The present study examined delinquency concordance and the moderating effects of younger sibling perceptions of older sibling popularity in a sample of 587 adolescent sibling pairs. Using a social learning framework, and taking dyad composition into account, perceptions of popularity were hypothesized to strengthen siblings' concordance for delinquency. Older sibling delinquency significantly predicted younger sibling delinquency. Older sibling popularity was not important in predicting boys' delinquency. However, perceptions of older sibling popularity directly predicted reduced delinquency for girls with older sisters. A significant interaction effect was found for girls with older brothers. Older brother delinquency predicted girls' delinquency for girls who perceived their older brother to be relatively popular. There was no delinquency concordance for girls who perceived their older brothers to be less popular.

In this prospective longitudinal study (N = 585) we examined intergenerational links in level of educational attainment. Of particular interest was whether family background characteristics, parenting in early childhood and early adolescence, and school adjustment and performance in middle childhood accounted for (i.e., mediated) continuity and amplified or attenuated (i.e., moderated) continuity. Family background data, including mother education level, were collected when the children were age 5 years; parenting was assessed at ages 5 and 12; and school adjustment data (behavior problems, peer acceptance, academic performance) were collected in the first four years of elementary school. Cross-generational continuity in educational attainment was moderate (r = .38) and largely indirect via children's academic performance in elementary school and mothers' academic involvement in early adolescence. Moderator analyses indicated greater cross-generational continuity in single-parent families; in families low in proactive teaching, monitoring, and academic involvement; and in families with lower-IQ children who performed poorly in school and were disliked by peers, These findings suggest that distal and proximal family and child characteristics may serve as crucial processes in the intergenerational transmission of low educational attainment.

We examine the prediction of individuals' educational and occupational success at age 48 from contextual and personal variables assessed during their middle childhood and late adolescence. We focus particularly on the predictive role of the parents' educational level during middle childhood, controlling for other indices of socioeconomic status and children's IQ, and the mediating roles of negative family interactions, childhood behavior, and late adolescent aspirations. Data come from the Columbia County Longitudinal Study, which began in 1960 when all 856 third graders in a semi-rural county in New York State were interviewed along with their parents; participants were reinterviewed at ages 19, 30, and 48 (Eron et al, 1971; Huesmann et al., 2002). Parents' educational level when the child was 8 years old significantly predicted educational and occupational success for the child 40 years later. Structural models showed that parental educational level had no direct effects on child educational level or occupational prestige at age 48 but had significant indirect effects that were independent of the other predictor variables' effects. These indirect effects were mediated through age 19 educational aspirations and age 19 educational level. These results provide strong support for the unique predictive role of parental education on adult outcomes 40 years later and underscore the developmental importance of mediators of parent education effects such as late adolescent achievement and achievement-related aspirations.

Seventh-grade students (N = 324) completed social cognitive maps to identify peer groups and peer group leaders, sociometric nominations to describe their peers' behaviors, and questionnaires to assess their own behaviors. Peer group members resembled one another in levels of direct and indirect aggression and substance use; girls' cliques were more behaviorally homogenous than were boys' cliques. On average, leaders (especially if they were boys) were perceived as engaging in more problem behaviors than were nonleaders. In girls' cliques, peripheral group members were more similar to their group leader on indirect aggression than were girls who were more central to the clique. Peer leaders perceived themselves as being more able to influence peers but did not differ from nonleaders in their perceived susceptibility to peer influence. The findings contribute to our understanding of processes through which influence may occur in adolescent peer groups.

This study investigated the effects of the peer social context and child characteristics on the growth of authority-acceptance behavior problems across first, second, and third grades, using data from the normative sample of the Fast Track Project. Three hundred sixty-eight European American and African American boys and girls (51% male; 46% African American) and their classmates were assessed in each grade by teacher ratings on the Teacher Observation of Child Adaptation-Revised. Children's growth in authority-acceptance behavior problems across time was partially attributable to the level of disruptive behavior in the class-room peer context into which they were placed. Peer-context influence, however, were strongest among same-gender peers. Findings held for both boys and girls, both European Americans and African Americans, and nondeviant, marginally deviant, and highly deviant children. Findings suggest that children learn and follow behavioral norms from their same-gender peers within the classroom.

The current study examines whether associations exist between household chaos and children's early reading skills, after controlling for a comprehensive battery of home literacy environment characteristics. Our sample included 455 kindergarten and First-grade children who are enrolled in the Western Reserve Reading Project. We go on to test whether these associations are moderated by maternal reading ability. Results suggest that the degree of household order is significantly and positively associated with the expressive vocabulary, Woodcock Reading Mastery, and phonological awareness skills of children whose mothers are above-average readers. By contrast, the number of books a child owns or brings home and how often a child amuses self alone with books are significantly associated with the expressive vocabulary, Woodcock Reading Mastery, and phonological awareness skills of children whose mothers ore average-ability readers. These results suggest the potential for new approaches to encouraging literacy development in the home beyond those that depend solely on parental literacy.

This study explored how children's self-concepts were related to child temperament, dyadic parenting behavior, and triadic family interaction. At age 3, child temperament, mothers' and fathers' parenting behavior, and triadic (mother, father, and child) family interaction were observed in the homes of fifty families. At age 4, children's self-concepts were assessed using the Children's Self-View Questionnaire (Eder, 1990). Analyses revealed that temperamental proneness-to-distress and triadic family interaction made independent contributions to children's self-reported Timidity and Agreeableness. In contrast, dyadic parenting behavior moderated the associations between child temperament and children's self-reported Timidity and Agreeableness, such that temperament was only associated with children's self-concepts when mothers and fathers engaged in particular parenting behaviors. Results suggest both direct and interactive influences of family dynamics and child characteristics on children's self-concept development.