Adolescence is a developmental period during which youth tend to initiate sexual behavior, which may include sexual risk behavior. Symptoms of borderline personality disorder (BPD) are associated with increased rates of risky behaviors. However, little is known about longitudinal associations between BPD symptoms and sexual risk behaviors during adolescence. This study examines developmental trajectories of adolescent girls' BPD symptoms and sexual risk behaviors in a community sample of Black and White girls from the Pittsburgh Girls Study (n = 1620). Dual trajectory modeling provided insights into the temporal precedence and co-development of BPD symptoms and sexual risk behaviors from ages 14 to 18. In order to examine the unique association between BPD symptoms and sexual risk behaviors, analyses controlled for symptoms of depression and conduct disorder, as well as race, sexual orientation, and pubertal development. Girls with more BPD symptoms at age 14 showed steeper growth over time in sexual risk behaviors from ages 14 to 18. Additionally, adolescents who showed steeper increases in BPD symptoms over time also showed steeper increases in sexual risk behaviors across adolescence. Notably, however, sexual risk behavior at age 14 was not significantly associated with longitudinal trajectories of BPD symptoms. Results suggest that adolescent girls with early symptoms of BPD are at heightened risk for the development of sexual risk behaviors during adolescence, while the reverse association does not hold. Implications for adolescent development and sexual risk behavior are discussed.

The aim of this study was to identify whether parenting style during a child's toddler years predicts the course of the child's internalising symptoms throughout early to middle childhood. The current study uses data from waves 1 to 7 (acquired biennially) of the infant cohort (N = 4494) of Growing up in Australia: the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC), a population-based longitudinal study. Latent class growth analysis identified four distinct longitudinal trajectories of internalizing symptoms: Low stable (66% of the children), High increasing (7%), Low increasing (17%) and High decreasing (10%). Multinomial logistic regression indicated that low self-efficacy and socioeconomic disadvantage during the toddler years were significant predictors of unfavourable (i.e., increasing) trajectories of internalizing symptoms across later childhood. Parenting hostility was a significant predictor of the low increasing trajectory. Additionally, male children were more likely than females to follow unfavourable trajectories. However, low parenting warmth was not predictive of increasing symptoms across time. Our findings highlight the importance of parenting factors in a child's early years, particularly the potentially detrimental outcomes associated with parental hostility and low self-efficacy.

The development of negative cognitive biases, together with symptoms of anxiety and depression, has yet to be investigated longitudinally. Using a three-wave design, the present study examined developmental trajectories of anxiety and depressive symptoms and the co-occurrence of cognitive biases, in a large normative sample of adolescents (N = 504). Data was drawn from the CogBIAS Longitudinal Study (CogBIAS-L-S), which assessed a wide range of psychological variables, including cognitive biases and self-reported anxiety and depressive symptoms, when adolescents were approximately 13, 14.5, and 16 years of age. The results showed that overall levels of anxiety were low and stable, while levels of depression were low but increased slightly at each wave. Growth mixture modeling identified four distinct developmental classes with regard to anxiety and depressive symptoms. Multiple group analysis further showed that class membership was related to the development of cognitive biases. The majority of the sample (75%) was characterised by 'Low symptoms' of anxiety and depression and showed low interpretation and memory biases for negative stimuli at each wave. A second class (11%) displayed 'Decreasing anxiety symptoms' and showed decreasing interpretation bias, but increasing memory bias. A third class (8%) displayed 'Comorbid increasing symptoms' and showed increasing interpretation and memory biases. While the fourth class (6%) displayed 'Comorbid decreasing symptoms' and showed decreasing interpretation and memory biases. This longitudinal study sheds light on healthy and psychopathological emotional development in adolescence and highlights cognitive mechanisms that may be useful targets for prevention and early interventions.

Mounting evidence highlights the link between screen time and adolescent mood problems. However, there are several shortcomings to the extant literature: (1) this link is underexplored in preadolescents, (2) most existing studies look at mood problems using categorical diagnoses rather than from a symptom-level perspective, despite the heterogeneity within mood disorders, (3) few studies have simultaneously examined the links of mood symptoms with different types of screen time, and (4) family/child-level factors that have shown links to youth psychopathology are not typically considered. This study, for the first time, examined the relationships of mood symptoms with different types of screen time, while accounting for theoretically important factors-parental monitoring and the behavioral inhibition/activation systems (BIS/BAS)-in preadolescents aged 9 to 10 from 9986 families participating in the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development Study. Using mixed graphical models, we found that screen time involving age-inappropriate content was stably and significantly associated with various elevated mood symptoms, independent from other types of screen time, BIS/BAS, and parental monitoring. Additionally, age-inappropriate screen time was associated with increased overall symptom connectivity. Further, preadolescents engaged in high levels of age-inappropriate screen time reported different symptom profiles (i.e., differences in symptom centralities) from common pediatric mood problems. Our findings underline the multifaceted role (i.e., direct associations with symptoms, a moderator for symptom relationships, associations with distinct symptom profiles) of age-inappropriate screen time in preadolescent mood problems. These findings serve as foundations for future research that may facilitate early detection of preadolescents at risk of mood problems.

Growing up in poverty increases youth risk for developing aggressive behavior problems, which, in turn, are associated with a host of problematic outcomes, including school drop-out, substance use, mental health problems, and delinquency. In part, this may be due to exposure to adverse school contexts that create socialization influences supporting aggression. In the current study, 356 children from low-income families (58% White, 17% Latinx, 25% Black; 54% girls) were followed from preschool through seventh grade. Longitudinal data included measures of the school-level contexts experienced by study participants during their elementary and middle school years, including school levels of poverty (percentage of students receiving free or reduced-price lunch) and academic achievement (percentage of students scoring below the basic proficiency level on state achievement tests). Regression analyses suggested little impact of these school-level contexts on teacher or parent ratings of aggression in fifth grade, controlling for child baseline aggression and demographics. In contrast, school-level contexts had significant effects on child aggression in seventh grade with unique contributions by school-level achievement, controlling for child fifth grade aggression and elementary school contexts along with baseline covariates. These effects were robust across teacher and parent ratings. Findings are discussed in terms of understanding the school-based socialization of aggressive behavior and implications for educational policy and prevention programming.

Sluggish cognitive tempo (SCT) is characterized by behavioral symptoms reflecting slowness and lethargy (e.g., sluggishness, appearing sleepy) and inconsistent alertness/mental confusion (e.g., daydreaming, fogginess). SCT is substantially correlated with the inattentive symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and may be part of that domain, but in cross-sectional data, SCT is also strongly associated with both inattention and depression. To date, no study has examined the prospective associations of SCT symptoms in childhood/adolescence with symptoms of ADHD and internalizing problems in adulthood. Using a sample of 449 twin children and adolescent pairs, prospective multiple regression analyses examined whether self- and parent-reported SCT, depression, and parent-reported symptoms of ADHD predicted symptoms in adulthood 12 years later. SCT and depression at time one were strongly correlated (self-reported SCT and depression r = 0.84; parent-reported SCT and depression r = 0.78). When adult outcomes were separately regressed on each youth symptom dimension, self-reported SCT (β = 0.26, p < 0.0001) and depression (β = 0.13, p < 0.0001) each predicted adult symptoms of depression and self-reported SCT predicted inattention (β = 0.12, p = 0.0026). Parent-reported depression, but not parent-reported SCT, predicted self-reported adult depression symptoms (β = 0.17, p = 0.0003). In contrast, when each adult outcome was regressed simultaneously on youth self-reported SCT and depression, neither predicted adulthood inattention or depression. These findings indicate that SCT in childhood and adolescence is strongly associated concurrently and predictively with both inattention and depression. Theoretical and clinical applications of the construct of SCT must take its robust association with both inattention and depression into account.

The present study characterizes changes in sustained attention ability over ages 9-14, and whether longitudinal trajectories of attention development differ between persistent ADHD, remitted ADHD and control groups. The Sustained Attention to Response Task (SART) was administered to 120 children with ADHD and 123 controls on three occasions between ages 9 and 14. Trajectories of sustained attention development, indicated by changes in SART performance (standard deviation of response time [SDRT], omission errors, and ex-Gaussian parameters sigma and tau), were examined using generalized additive mixed models. For all measures there was a significant main effect of age; response time variability and number of omission errors improved linearly as children aged. However, children with ADHD had significantly greater SDRT, tau and omission errors than controls across waves. There were no significant group differences in sigma, indicating that the greater overall response time variability (SDRT) observed in ADHD was likely driven by more intermittent long responses (larger tau). Trajectories of sustained attention performance did not differ between children with persistent ADHD or ADHD in remission. Longitudinal trajectories of sustained attention development are comparable between ADHD and controls, however children with ADHD (regardless of remission status) display a performance deficit equivalent to typical controls 1-3 years younger. Findings highlight the need for continued clinical support for children in remission from ADHD and provide support for tau as an endophenotype of ADHD.

Although youth irritability is linked with substantial psychiatric morbidity and impairment, little is known about how personal characteristics influence its course. In this study we examined the prospective associations between angry and depressive rumination and irritability. A sample of 165 school pupils aged 12-14 years were assessed at two time points six months apart. They completed measures of irritability at Times 1 and 2 and depressive and angry rumination at Time 1. In line with our hypotheses, we found that angry rumination is significantly associated with irritability six months later, over and above baseline irritability and depressive rumination. The present findings suggest angry rumination is relevant to the genesis of irritability in adolescents, and point to possible routes for prevention and early intervention.

Research on attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) points to the possibility that contextual factors (e.g., time of day, school vs. home) may be related to symptoms and impairment. This prior research has relied on laboratory-based or retrospective, global approaches which has limited ecological validity. The present study substantively contributes to the extant literature by examining adolescents' ADHD symptoms in the real world across the day on both school and non-school days to test whether symptoms worsened throughout the day and were higher on school days relative to non-school days. As part of a larger study, 83 adolescents taking stimulant medication for ADHD (M = 14.7, 66% identified as boys/men, 78% White) completed a 17-day ecological momentary assessment protocol that included wake-up and bedtime reports and two reports in the afternoon and evening. These assessments asked about ADHD symptoms and stimulant medication usage since the last report. Hypotheses were tested using multilevel modeling. Accounting for demographic covariates and medication usage, ADHD symptoms worsened quadratically, peaking by the afternoon report and subsequently declining, across school days but not non-school days. Mean-level ADHD symptoms were also worse on school days relative to non-school days. Results did not differ across gender. In conclusion, our study is the first to examine important environmental factors (school, time of day) in real time in relation to level of naturalistically occurring ADHD symptoms. Our findings highlight the importance of advancing treatments to support adolescents with ADHD on school days and in the afternoon.

Parents of preterm children are more likely to adopt non-optimal parenting behaviors than parents of full-term (FT) children. However, there is a lack of studies on parents of children born moderate to late preterm (MLP; 32-36 gestational weeks). In this study, we aimed to examine: (1) the association between MLP birth status and the trajectory of parental overprotection throughout preschool years, and (2) the role of parental overprotection, MLP birth status, and their interaction in the prediction of the trajectories of hyperactivity-impulsivity and inattention throughout childhood. Data comes from a Canadian representative population-based cohort including 2028 FT, 100 MLP children, and their parents. Overprotective parenting was measured when children were 5, 17, and 29 months old. Hyperactivity-impulsivity and inattention symptoms were measured repeatedly from 4 to 8 years of age. Trajectories of parents' overprotectiveness and children's hyperactivity-impulsivity and inattention were modeled. MLP birth status was associated with an increase in parental overprotectiveness across the preschool period. MLP birth status and parental overprotection were both found to be associated with higher levels of hyperactivity-impulsivity symptoms across childhood. No interaction was found between birth status and parental overprotection. The results suggest that parents of MLP children become more overprotective across time compared to parents of FT children and that children born MLP and/or exposed to higher levels of parental overprotection demonstrated higher levels of hyperactivity-impulsivity symptoms across childhood.

Community violence exposure (CVE) is associated with aggression among youth, particularly those who reside in low-income, urban neighborhoods. However, not all youth who experience CVE exhibit aggression. Working memory (WM) difficulties may interfere with attributions or retrieval of nonaggressive responses, suggesting that individual differences in WM may contribute to proactive and/or reactive aggression among youth who experience CVE. Participants were 104 low-income, urban youth (M = 9.92 ± 1.22 years old; 50.5% male; 95% African American). Youth reported on frequency of direct victimization and witnessing of violence in the community and completed two WM tasks. Teachers reported on youth proactive and reactive aggression. WM moderated the relation between direct victimization and proactive and reactive aggression, and between witnessing violence and reactive aggression. Among youth reporting less frequent victimization and witnessing, lower WM was associated with higher levels of proactive and reactive aggression. Among youth reporting more frequent direct victimization, lower WM was associated with higher levels of proactive aggression. Proactive and reactive aggression levels were similar among youth reporting more frequent witnessing regardless of WM levels. WM represents a potential target for early identification and intervention efforts to reduce reactive and proactive aggression among low-income, urban youth who are at elevated risk for CVE.

The present research introduced the Penn State Worry Questionnaire for Children (PSWQ-C) to China and evaluated its structure and psychometric properties in Chinese adolescent samples. The PSWQ-C is a 14-item self-report questionnaire designed to measure the generality, excessiveness, and uncontrollability aspects of pathological worries in children and adolescents. Factor analysis results suggested that the three reverse-scored items represented one or more unknown factors rather than worry; thus, they were discarded and the remaining 11 positively worded items formed the Chinese version of the PSWQ-C (CH-PSWQ-C). The CH-PSWQ-C was found to have acceptable internal consistency reliability and favorable convergent and divergent validity by examining its correlations with measures of anxiety, depression, and some personality characteristics. To illustrate the utility of the CH-PSWQ-C in Chinese adolescent samples, we used the CH-PSWQ-C to explore the moderating effect of neuroticism on the relationship between earthquake experiences and worry; the results suggested that adolescents with high neuroticism were more vulnerable to worry after experiencing serious disasters.

This investigation answers and amplifies calls to model the transdiagnostic structure of psychopathology in clinical samples of early adolescents and using stringent psychometric criteria. In 162 clinically referred, clinically evaluated 11-13-year-olds, we compared a correlated two-factor model, containing latent internalizing and externalizing factors, to a bifactor model, which added a transdiagnostic general factor. We also evaluated the bifactor model psychometrically, including criterion validity with broad indicators of psychosocial functioning. In doing so, we compared alternative approaches to defining and interpreting criterion validity: a recently proposed incremental definition based on amounts of variance in criterion factors explained, and the more typical definition based on the presence of conceptually meaningful relationships. While traditional fit statistics favored the bifactor model as expected, psychometric analyses added important nuance. Despite moderate reliability, the general factor was not fully transdiagnostic (i.e., was not informed by several externalizing scores), and was partially redundant with internalizing scores. Approaches to criterion validity yielded opposing results. Compared to the correlated two-factor model, the bifactor model redistributed, without incrementally increasing, the total variance explained in criterion indicators of psychosocial functioning. Yet, the bifactor model did improve the precision of clinically important relationships to psychosocial functioning, raising questions about meaningful tests of bifactor psychopathology models.

Adolescents with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are at high risk for tobacco use, but tobacco use prevention strategies are not regularly incorporated into evidence-based ADHD interventions. We conducted a pilot randomized-controlled trial to determine the feasibility of integrating tobacco use prevention skills into a behavioral treatment for ADHD and to provide preliminary efficacy data comparing a combined (ADHD + tobacco) intervention (N = 40) to an ADHD only intervention (N = 23) on tobacco risk outcomes. Sixty-three adolescents (72% male; 13-17 years) with ADHD and their caregivers were randomly assigned to condition and families were masked to condition. Parent and adolescent ratings were collected at baseline, immediate post-intervention, and at 3- and 9-month follow-up assessments. The combined intervention was (1) implemented with high fidelity (94%), (2) well received by parents and adolescents as evidenced by high levels of treatment attendance (82%) and satisfaction with the intervention, and (3) associated with parent- and adolescent-reported reductions in tobacco use risk. Relative to the ADHD intervention, the combined intervention buffered against increases in tobacco risk, including reduced intentions to smoke and maladaptive social normative beliefs, and increased parental control, family cohesion, and family communication about substance use. Effect sizes at post-treatment were in the small to moderate range. Overall, this study provides preliminary support for a parent-adolescent behavioral treatment supplemented with family-based tobacco prevention strategies. This approach targets families already in treatment for ADHD, reducing barriers that occur when families attend multi-session prevention programs in addition to ADHD treatment.

Addressing aggression in youth requires understanding of the range of social problem situations that may lead to biased social information processing (SIP). The present study investigated situation-specificity of SIP and analyzed whether SIP deficits and biases are found in ambiguous as well as clearly accidental situations in adolescents with clinical levels of externalizing behavior or with low intellectual level, congruent with mild intellectual disability. Adolescents (N = 220, M = 15.21) completed a SIP test on a mobile app with six videos with ambiguous, hostile, and accidental social problems. Caretakers, teachers, and adolescents themselves reported on youth externalizing behavior problems. In accidental situations specifically, adolescents with low IQ scores more often attributed purposeful intent to perpetrators than peers with borderline or average IQ scores. In accidental situations, adolescents with clinical levels of externalizing behavior generated and selected more aggressive responses than nonclinical adolescents, regardless of their cognitive level. In line with previous literature, the ambiguous situations also brought out SIP differences between IQ groups. These results suggest that not only ambiguous situations should be considered informative for understanding SIP biases, but situations in which adolescents are clearly accidentally disadvantaged bring out SIP biases as well, that may lead to conflicts with others.

Nearly half of all youth with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) have at least one parent who also meets criteria for the disorder, and intergenerational ADHD is a significant risk factor for poor outcomes following evidence-based behavioral parent training (BPT) programs. Given that BPT is predicated on consistent parental involvement, symptoms of ADHD in parents may be a significant barrier to effective engagement with BPT treatment. In the present investigation, we examine the effect of parental ADHD symptoms on BPT treatment engagement for children with ADHD-predominantly inattentive presentation (N = 148, ages 7-11). We examine the following parent- and clinician-rated treatment engagement domains: between-session skill adherence, in-session participation, perceived skill understanding, treatment-engagement attitudes, and session attendance. Parent- and clinician-rated between-session adherence was the only treatment engagement domain related significantly to parental ADHD symptoms. This finding was robust and remained even after accounting for symptoms of parental anxiety and depression, child ADHD symptom severity, and various sociodemographic factors (parental education level, household income, employment status, and being a single parent). These findings suggest that targeting parental ADHD symptoms in the context of parenting interventions may be a promising approach for improving adherence and treatment outcomes for BPT interventions.

Although families can be a source of support post-disaster, depending on how they communicate about their stress, their attempts at support can be helpful or harmful. This study explored the moderating role of topic avoidance and co-rumination on post-disaster mental health (MH) in a sample of 485 parent-child dyads following severe floods affecting Texas. Parents (69.0% female) and their oldest child between the ages of 10-19 years (M = 13.75 years, SD = 2.56) completed online surveys approximately one-year post-flooding. Participants reported their flood exposure, life stressors since the disaster, topic avoidance, co-rumination, and MH symptoms (posttraumatic stress symptoms [PTSS], depression, anxiety). Structural equation models tested a moderated-mediation model of whether communication processes moderated the associations of flood exposure and life stressors on MH. They did not moderate the association of flood exposure to PTSS, but did have a moderating role for depression and anxiety. At low levels of topic avoidance, there was no association between flood exposure and child anxiety or depression. However, at mean and high levels of topic avoidance, there was a significant, positive association between flood exposure and child anxiety and depression. Co-rumination impacted both parents and children. For parents, there was no association between flood exposure and depression or anxiety when co-rumination was low or mean-level. However, flood exposure increased risk for depression and anxiety at high levels of co-rumination. A similar pattern emerged for children. Results for life stressors were nuanced. Overall, this suggests that communication can influence post-disaster MH.

Violence is a public health concern linked with mental health problems among adolescents, and risk behavior increases the likelihood of violence exposure. Family cohesion may attenuate the negative effects of risk behavior. The purpose of this study was to examine family cohesion as a moderator in the relation between risk behavior (substance use and delinquency) and violence exposure, and to explore longitudinal associations among cohesion, violence exposure, and subsequent mental health outcomes (PTSD and depression). Data were drawn from the National Survey of Adolescents-Replication, a nationally representative sample of 3604 adolescents, with data collected via structured phone interviews at three waves spanning a two-year period. Hypotheses were tested using longitudinal structural equation modeling. Findings revealed that high family cohesion attenuated the relation between risk behavior and subsequent violence exposure. Wave 2 violence exposure was associated with more Wave 3 mental health problems, but high family cohesion was related to fewer subsequent symptoms. Follow-up analyses revealed that family cohesion moderated the relation between risk behavior and experiencing, but not witnessing, violence. Several demographic associations were observed. Although risk behavior increases exposure to violence, and in turn, mental health problems, family cohesion may serve as a protective factor, attenuating the link between risk behavior and subsequent negative consequences. This effect emerged even when accounting for demographic and socioeconomic covariates. Interventions with adolescents should target family relationships as a protective factor to reduce risk of violence exposure and mental health problems, particularly for adolescents who are engaging in high-risk behaviors.

Early proximal interpersonal processes in central microsystems have been widely linked to child subsequent adaptation. What remains sparse is research spanning multiple developmental stages and examining unique, relative implications of distinct early proximal interpersonal processes for child later adjustment in various domains and the cognitive, emotional, and behavioral mechanisms underlying such associations. Using NICHD SECCYD data, a process model was tested in which negativities and positivities in three early proximal interpersonal processes (i.e., mother-child, child care provider-child, and child care peer interactions at 6-36 months) were simultaneously linked to child internalizing problems, externalizing problems, and social relationship quality in early adolescence (6th grade) via child hostile attribution bias, emotion reactivity, and social skills in middle childhood (3rd grade). Social skills mediated the associations between positivities/negativities in early mother-child and peer interactions and later behavioral and social adaptation. Emotion reactivity was identified as a process via which negativities in early peer interactions predicted later behavioral problems. Maternal negativities were positively associated with hostile attribution biases, but such biases did not relate to later adaptation. We also identified a negative direct link between maternal positivities and later externalizing problems and a positive direct link between maternal positivities and later social relationship quality. No effects emerged for child care providers-child interactions. Improving early mother-child and peer interactions may promote adaptation in early adolescence. For children with poor early mother-child and peer interactions, training socioemotional capacities may be a way to diminish consequences of early negative interpersonal processes.

The original version of this article unfortunately contained a mistake. The supplementary material was not captured to our commentary article.

The original version of this article unfortunately contained a mistake.