School connectedness may offset mental health risks associated with childhood adversity. The present study examined the potential protective effects of school connectedness against childhood adversity when predicting adolescent mental health outcomes in 9,964 individuals (51% female, 81% white) from the Millennium Cohort Study. Structural equation models were fitted to examine the longitudinal relationships between childhood adversity, school connectedness, and adolescent mental health. Childhood adversity was a risk factor, predicting greater internalizing and externalizing problems and lower levels of positive mental health. School connectedness was a promotive factor as it predicted fewer mental health problems and greater positive mental health. Furthermore, school connectedness at age 11 was protective against childhood adversity when predicting internalizing and externalizing problems at age 14. That is, students with a history of adversity who felt more connected to school were less likely to exhibit internalizing and externalizing symptoms than those who felt less connected to school. Only school connectedness at age 11 was protective against childhood adversity, indicating that feeling connected to school at younger ages may disrupt processes linking childhood adversity to adolescent mental health. Schools should foster students’ feelings of connectedness to protect vulnerable individuals and benefit all pupils’ mental health.

Internalizing and externalizing problems tend to co-occur beginning in early childhood. However, the dynamic interplay of symptom-level internalizing and externalizing problems that may drive their co-occurrence is poorly understood. Within the frameworks of the Network Approaches to Psychopathology and the Developmental Cascade Perspective, this study used a panel network approach to examine how symptoms of internalizing and externalizing problems are related in early childhood both concurrently and longitudinally and whether the pattern may differ in American (N = 1,202) and Chinese (N = 180) preschoolers. Internalizing and externalizing problems were rated by mothers in two waves. Results from cross-sectional networks showed that the bridge symptoms underlying the co-occurrence of internalizing and externalizing problems were largely consistent in American and Chinese preschoolers (e.g., withdrawal, aggressive behavior, anxiety and depressive moods). Results from cross-lagged panel networks further showed that the co-occurrence was manifested by unidirectional relations from internalizing to subsequent externalizing symptoms in both American and Chinese preschoolers. The findings contribute needed cross-cultural evidence to better understand the co-occurrence of internalizing and externalizing problems and highlight the temporal heterogeneity of the symptom networks of internalizing and externalizing problems in early childhood.

Despite the well-established link between children’s executive function and behavioral adjustment, it remains unclear whether the hot and cool aspects of executive function are uniquely associated with children’s behavioral problems. Using longitudinal data spanning in the grade school (N = 1,140), this study aimed to examine whether hot and cool executive function skills may be uniquely related to the development of behavioral problems. Hot and cool executive function skills were measured with tasks, standardized tests, and questionnaires at 54 months and in the first grade, respectively. Internalizing and externalizing problems were evaluated by teachers using questionnaires throughout the grade school. The results indicated that, independent of each other, hot and cool executive function skills were uniquely and negatively related to the development of internalizing and externalizing problems over time at the between-individual level, adjusting for within-individual fluctuations. Moreover, internalizing and externalizing problems were positively related at the between-individual level across the grade school. Findings provide needed evidence to clarify the relations between hot and cool executive function and children’s behavioral problems, emphasizing the importance of both aspects of executive function in understanding the development of behavioral problems in school-age children.

Studies show that war leads to an increase in harsh parenting and a decrease in parental warmth, which in turn has a devastating impact on children’s development. However, there is insufficient research on the factors that affect parenting in post-conflict regions. In addition, most previous studies on the role of parenting in the context of war rely on self-reports, which are subject to a number of limitations. To complement existing research, the present cross-sectional study used behavioral observations of 101 mothers and their 6–12 year old children to assess parenting in post-conflict northern Uganda. The aim of the current study was to explore associations between observed maternal warmth and coercion and self-reported socioeconomic status (e.g., mother’s educational level) as well as maternal (e.g., posttraumatic stress disorder), child (e.g., externalizing problems), and social contextual factors (e.g., family violence). Results show a link between observed parenting, child characteristics, and family violence. Higher levels of children’s externalizing problems were associated with more severe maternal coercion. In addition, a negative association was found between family violence and maternal warmth. Findings are discussed in terms of their implications for prevention and intervention programs and the use of behavioral observations in post-conflict environments.

The field of developmental psychopathology tends to focus on the negative aspects of functioning. However, prosocial behavior and empathy-related responding – positive aspects of functioning– might relate to some aspects of psychopathology in meaningful ways. In this article, we review research on the relations of three types of developmental psychopathology– externalizing problems (EPs), internalizing problems (IPs), and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) – to empathy-related responding (e.g., affective and cognitive empathy, sympathy, personal distress) and prosocial behavior. Empathy-related responding and prosocial behavior generally have been inversely related to EPs, although findings are sometimes reversed for young children and, for empathy, weak for reactive aggression. Some research indicates that children’s empathy (often measured as emotional contagion) and personal distress are positively related to IPs, suggesting that strong sensitivity to others’ emotions is harmful to some children. In contrast, prosocial behaviors are more consistently negatively related to IPs, although findings likely vary depending on the motivation for prosocial behavior and the recipient. Children with ASD are capable of prosocially and empathy-related responding, although parents report somewhat lower levels of these characteristics for ASD children compared to neurotypical peers. Issues in regard to measurement, motivation for prosociality, causal relations, and moderating and mediating factors are discussed.

In studies of singletons, a range of early-life characteristics have been reported to be associated with handedness, but some of these associations have failed to replicate. We examined associations between 23 early life characteristics with handedness in a large sample of 37,495 5-year-old twins. We considered three definitions of handedness: left-handedness (LH), mixed-handedness (MH), and non-right-handedness (NRH). Our main aim was to test whether the associations with sex, birth weight, gestational age, and season of birth — as reported in singletons — replicate in twins, and to examine twin-specific variables, including zygosity, chorionicity, birth order, and intertwin delivery time. Compared to previously published data from adults born as singletons (7.23%), the prevalence of NRH was higher in both twins (16.19%) and their parents (15.09%). In the twins, LH and NRH were associated with parents’ LH. Male sex and lower gestational age were associated with NRH, and LH was associated with not being breastfed. MH was related to neurodevelopmental delays and higher externalizing problems later in childhood. Other previously reported associations were not replicated, and no twin-specific characteristics were related to handedness. These results emphasize the importance of considering multiple definitions of handedness and indicate a small number of replicated associations across studies.

Bullying research has shown repeatedly that victims of bullying have an increased risk for later internalizing problems and bullies have an increased risk for later externalizing problems. Bullying involvement is often, either explicitly or implicitly, presented as part of a causal mechanism for maladjustment. However, genetic vulnerability may confound the reported associations. This study examined to what extent genetic vulnerability can account for the reported associations between bullying involvement (age 11-14) and later internalizing and externalizing problems (age 16), using data from the TRacking Adolescents' Individual Lives Survey (n = 1604). Because polygenic scores capture only a fraction of the total genetic effect, they were extrapolated to the size of single-nucleotide polymorphism and twin heritability estimates to examine genetic confounding while controlling for (hypothetical) polygenic scores that fully capture the genetic effect. Genetic vulnerability for internalizing and externalizing problems confounded, respectively, the association between bullying victimization and later internalizing problems, and the association between bullying perpetration and later externalizing problems. As such, this study showcases a method that can be broadly used to assess the magnitude of genetic confounding. Caution is, however, warranted in interpreting particularly the less straightforward extrapolations of polygenic scores to the size of twin heritability estimates.

Children’s peer victimization trajectories and their longitudinal associations with externalizing and internalizing problems were investigated from Grades 2 to 5. Secondary data analysis was performed with the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS-K-2011; n = 13,860, Mage = 8.1 years old in the spring of Grade 2; 51.1% male, 46.7% White, 13.2% African-American, 25.3% Hispanic or Latino, 8.5% Asian, and 6.1% other or biracial). Children who experienced high and persistent levels of peer victimization (high-chronic victims) exhibited co-occurring externalizing and internalizing problems. Moreover, among high-chronic victims, boys had a more pronounced increase in their externalizing trajectories, and girls had greater increases in their social anxiety trajectories. In contrast, those with decreasing peer victimization across time exhibited signs of recovery, particularly with respect to their social anxiety. These findings elucidated how chronic, increasing, and decreasing victims exhibited distinct patterns in the co-occurring development of their externalizing and internalizing problems, and how findings varied depending on the form of problem behavior and by child sex.

This study examined how youth aggressive and delinquent externalizing problem behaviors across childhood and adolescence are connected to consequential psychosocial life outcomes in adulthood. Using data from a longitudinal, high-risk sample (N = 1069) that assessed children and their parents regularly from early childhood (ages 3–5) through adulthood, multilevel growth factors of externalizing behaviors were used to predict adult outcomes (age 24–31), providing a sense of how externalizing problems across development were related to these outcomes via maternal, paternal, teacher, and child report. Findings indicated strong support for the lasting connections between youth externalizing problems with later educational attainment and legal difficulties, spanning informants and enduring beyond other meaningful contributors (i.e., child sex, cognitive ability, parental income and education, parental mental health and relationship quality). Some support was also found, although less consistently, linking externalizing problems and later alcohol use as well as romantic relationship quality. Delinquent/rule-breaking behaviors were often stronger predictors of later outcomes than aggressive behaviors. Taken together, these results indicate the importance of the role youth externalizing behaviors have in adult psychosocial functioning one to two decades later.

While the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) acknowledges that environmental and developmental influences represent important elements of the RDoC framework, there is little specificity regarding how and when to systematically examine the impact of these dimensions on domains of function. The primary aims of this paper are to demonstrate the ways in which the RDoC can be expanded to include an explicit emphasis on (a) assessing within-individual change in developmental processes over time and (b) evaluating the extent to which selective and measurable environmental influences drive meaningful change during key developmental periods. We provide data from an ongoing randomized control trial as a proof of concept to highlight how repeated assessments within an experimental intervention design affords the unique opportunity to test the impact of environmental influences on within-individual change. Using preliminary data from 77 mother–child dyads repeatedly assessed across 12 months during the sensitive preschool period, we demonstrate the impact of change in maternal emotion regulation (ER) on within-individual growth in child ER and link that growth to fewer teacher-reported externalizing problems. In line with this Special Issue, findings are discussed within the context of expanding and clarifying the existing RDoC framework to explicitly incorporate environmental and developmental dimensions.

Neurobiological and social-contextual influences shape children’s adjustment, yet limited biopsychosocial studies have integrated temporal features when modeling physiological regulation of emotion. This study explored whether a common underlying pattern of non-linear change in respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) across emotional scenarios characterized 4–6 year-old children’s parasympathetic reactivity (N = 180). Additionally, we tested whether dynamic RSA reactivity was an index of neurobiological susceptibility or a diathesis in the association between socioeconomic status, authoritarian parenting, and the development of externalizing problems (EP) and internalizing problems over two years. There was a shared RSA pattern across all emotions, characterized by more initial RSA suppression and a subsequent return toward baseline, which we call vagal flexibility (VF). VF interacted with parenting to predict EP. More authoritarian parenting predicted increased EP two years later only when VF was low; conversely, when VF was very high, authoritarian mothers reported that their children had fewer EP. Altogether, children’s patterns of dynamic RSA change to negative emotions can be characterized by a higher order factor, and the nature by which VF contributes to EP depends on maternal socialization practices, with low VF augmenting and high VF buffering children against the effects of authoritarian parenting.

Maladaptive offspring emotion regulation has been identified as one pathway linking maternal and child psychological well-being in school-aged children. Whether such a pathway is present earlier in life still remains unclear. The present study investigated the role of preschoolers’ emotion reactivity and regulation in the association between maternal psychological distress and child internalizing and externalizing problems. Children’s emotion reactivity and regulation were assessed through both observed behavior and physiology. At 42 months of age, children (n = 251; 128 girls) completed a fear induction task during which their heart-rate variability was assessed and their behavior was monitored, and maternal self-reports on depressive mood and anxiety were collected. At 48 months mothers and fathers reported on their children’s internalizing and externalizing problems. Higher maternal depressive mood was associated with lower child fear-related reactivity and regulation, as indexed by heart-rate variability. The latter mediated the association between higher maternal depressive mood and higher preschoolers’ externalizing problems. Overall, our findings support the role of preschoolers’ emotion reactivity and regulation in the relationship between maternal psychological distress and children’s socio-emotional difficulties. This role may also depend on the discrete emotion to which children react or seek to regulate as, here, we only assessed fear-related reactivity and regulation.

School victimization has been negatively associated with children's social status. However, previous studies have primarily focused on peer victimization, leaving a significant knowledge gap regarding violence by teachers. We hypothesized that, when almost all children experience violence by teachers, not only the experience of violence, but also other factors, for example, mental health problems, may influence children's social preference and centrality. We therefore examined potential moderation effects of children's internalizing and externalizing problems. We implemented a multistage cluster randomized sampling approach to randomly chose fifth- and sixth-grade students from primary schools throughout Tanzania. Using a multi-informant approach, data were collected from 643 children (51.0% girls, Mage = 12.79 years). Results showed inconsistent direct associations between teacher violence and social status, whereas mental health problems were consistently associated with lower social status. Significant interaction effects were found for internalizing problems; that is, teacher violence was associated with lower social status for increasing internalizing problems. However, no interaction effects were found for externalizing problems. The findings underline the burden of exposure to violence by teachers and the importance of mental health for children's social functioning. Knowledge about interrelations can be applied in interventions to effectively reduce violence by teachers toward students.

Individual differences in two inhibitory temperament systems have been implicated as key in the development of early disruptive behaviors. The reactive inhibition system, behavioral inhibition (BI) entails fearfulness, shyness, timidity, and caution. The active inhibition system, or effortful control (EC) entails a capacity to deliberately suppress, modify, or regulate a predominant behavior. Lower scores in each system have been associated with more disruptive behaviors. We examined how the two systems interact, and whether one can alleviate or exacerbate risks due to the other. In two community samples (Study 1, N = 112, ages 2.5 to 4, and Study 2, N = 102, ages 2 to 6.5), we assessed early BI and EC, and future disruptive behaviors (observed disregard for rules in Study 1 and parent-rated externalizing problems in Study 2). Robustly replicated interactions revealed that for children with low BI (relatively fearless), better EC was associated with less disruptive behavior; for children with low EC, more BI was associated with less disruptive behavior. This research extends the investigation of Temperament × Temperament interactions in developmental psychology and psychopathology, and it suggests that reactive and active inhibition systems may play mutually compensatory roles. Those effects emerged after age 2.

Among children exposed to elevated maternal depression symptoms (MDS), recent studies have demonstrated reduced internalizing and externalizing problems for those who have attended formal childcare (i.e., center-based, family-based childcare). However, these studies did not consider whether childcare attendance is associated with benefits for the child only or also with reduced MDS. Using a four-wave longitudinal cross-lagged model, we evaluated whether formal childcare attendance was associated with MDS or child behavior problems and whether it moderated longitudinal associations between MDS and child behavior problems and between child behavior problems and MDS. The sample was drawn from a population-based cohort study and consisted of 908 biologically related mother–child dyads, followed from 5 months to 5 years. Attending formal childcare was not associated with MDS or child behavior problems but moderated the association between MDS at 3.5 years and child internalizing and externalizing problems at 5 years as well as between girls’ externalizing problems at 3.5 years and MDS at 5 years. No other moderation of formal childcare was found. Findings suggest that attending formal childcare reduces the risks of behavior problems in the context of MDS but also the risk of MDS in the context of girls’ externalizing problems.