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Over the past few decades early self-regulation has been identified as foundational to positive learning and wellbeing trajectories. As a consequence, a wide range of approaches have been developed to capture children’s developmental progress in self-regulation. Little is known, however, about whether and which of these are reliable indicators of future ability and risk for young children. This study examined measures from prominent approaches to self-regulation assessment (i.e., task-based, observation, adult-report) to determine: their structure; how these predict future academic school readiness in 3–5-year-old children, individually and if combined; and whether thresholds could be ascertained to reliably discriminate those children at risk of poor academic outcomes. Longitudinal analyses were conducted on start-of-year self-regulation data from 217 children in the final year of pre-school, using three prominent approaches to self-regulation assessment, and their end-of-year school readiness data. Data were subjected to path analysis, structural equation modelling and receiver operating characteristic curve analyses. Start-of-year cognitive self-regulation indices—but not behavioral or emotional self-regulation indices—from each approach reliably predicted school readiness 7 months later, just prior to commencing school. Only when combined into a composite score was a threshold with sufficient sensitivity and specificity for predicting school readiness risk established; yet this provided better prediction of true-negative than true-positive cases. Taken together, these results suggest the importance of cognitive self-regulation in particular for school readiness, as measured here, although self-regulation is just one of the contributing factors to school readiness risk.

The Project to Learn About Youth-Mental Health (PLAY–MH; 2014–2018) is a school-based, two-stage study designed to estimate the prevalence of selected mental disorders among K-12 students in four U.S.-based sites (Colorado, Florida, Ohio, and South Carolina). In Stage 1, teachers completed validated screeners to determine student risk status for externalizing or internalizing problems or tics; the percentage of students identified as being at high risk ranged from 17.8% to 34.4%. In Stage 2, parents completed a structured diagnostic interview to determine whether their child met criteria for fourteen externalizing or internalizing disorders; weighted prevalence estimates of meeting criteria for any disorder were similar in three sites (14.8%–17.8%) and higher in Ohio (33.3%). PLAY–MH produced point-in-time estimates of mental disorders in K-12 students, which may be used to supplement estimates from other modes of mental disorder surveillance and inform mental health screening and healthcare and educational services.

This exploratory study occurred in Title 1 schools located within a large urban area. The sample included 23 general educators and 551 students in second through fifth grade, with 57 students identified as at risk for an emotional or behavioral disorder. The purpose of this study was to determine (a) to what extent general education teachers used evidence-based practices—specifically, opportunities to respond, positive specific feedback, and precorrections—during classroom instruction, and (b) if those practices occurred at different rates across demographic groups (i.e., race and disability risk). The results indicated that teachers used higher rates of opportunities to respond and positive specific feedback with students not at risk compared with at-risk students. We did not find main effects of race or race-by-disability risk interaction effects. These findings support the need to continue examining teachers’ differing uses of evidence-based practices.

OBJECTIVES This meta-analysis quantified associations between goal disengagement and goal reengagement capacities with individuals' quality of life (i.e., well-being and health). METHODS Effect sizes (Fisher's Z'; N = 421) from 31 samples were coded on several characteristics (e.g., goal adjustment capacity, quality of life type/subtype, age, and depression risk status) and analyzed using meta-analytic random effects models. RESULTS Goal disengagement (r = 0.08, p < 0.01) and goal reengagement (r = 0.19, p < 0.01) were associated with greater quality of life. While goal disengagement more strongly predicted negative (r = -0.12, p < 0.01) versus positive (r = 0.02, p = 0.37) indicators of well-being, goal reengagement was similarly associated with both (positive: r = 0.24, p < 0.01; negative: r = -0.17, p < 0.01). Finally, the association between goal disengagement and lower depressive symptoms (r = -0.11, p < 0.01) was reversed in samples at-risk for depression (r = 0.08, p = 0.01), and goal disengagement more strongly predicted quality of life in older samples (B = 0.003, p < 0.01). CONCLUSIONS These findings support theory on the self-regulatory functions of individuals' capacities to adjust to unattainable goals, document their distinct benefits, and identify key moderating factors.

The purpose of this study was to explore interactions between limited English proficiency (LEP) status, as a function of risk status (low math performance at the start of the school year), on computation and word-problem-solving performance. Among 260 first-grade students, classified as at-risk (AR) or not-at-risk (NAR) for math disability, we compared the performance of LEP students with native-English-speaking peers. A series of two-way ANOVAs were conducted on computation and word-problem-solving skills at two time points, fall and spring of first grade. On fall computation measures, there was no main effect for LEP status and no interaction between LEP and risk status. On spring computation, a main effect for LEP status had emerged, but again no interaction. By contrast, on fall word-problem solving, there was an interaction between LEP and risk status; however, this interaction was no longer significant by spring. Results suggest that language proficiency is an important factor in the development of computation and word-problem-solving skill. Implications for future research are discussed.

AIM. Early psychosis is typically operationalized as a categorical construct by dividing people into one of three diagnostic statuses: low-risk, clinical high-risk, and first episode psychosis. We empirically assess whether an alternative dimensional approach focused on observed symptom severity may be more desirable for clinical and research purposes. METHODS. Participants were 152 help-seeking youths ages 12–22 years old. Structured Interview for Psychosis Risk Syndromes interviews were used to obtain dimensional psychosis symptom severity ratings, and to classify participants by categorical psychosis risk status. Twenty-five participants were classified as having a diagnosable psychotic disorder, 52 participants as clinical high-risk, and 75 participants as help-seeking controls. We assessed the relation between categorical and dimensional measurements of psychosis severity, and then compared categorical versus dimensional psychosis severity in their ability to predict social and role functioning. RESULTS. On average, dimensional psychosis symptom severity increased along with categorical risk status (help-seeking control < clinical high-risk < diagnosable psychotic disorder). There was, however, considerable overlap between categories with people at clinical high-risk being particularly hard to distinguish from people with diagnosable psychotic disorders on the basis of symptom severity. Dimensional symptom severity was more predictive of functioning than categorical risk status. CONCLUSIONS. Categorical risk status and psychosis symptom severity are related but not interchangeable, and dimensional models of psychosis may be more predictive of functional outcomes. Adopting a dimensional rather than categorical approach to the psychosis risk spectrum may facilitate better predictive models and a richer theoretical understanding of early psychosis.

Current tools for objectively measuring young children’s observed behaviors are expensive, time-consuming, and require extensive training and professional administration. The lack of scalable, reliable, and validated tools impacts access to evidence-based knowledge and limits our capacity to collect population-level data in non-clinical settings. To address this gap, we developed mobile technology to collect videos of young children while they watched movies designed to elicit autism-related behaviors and then used automatic behavioral coding of these videos to quantify children’s emotions and behaviors. We present results from our iPhone study Autism & Beyond, built on ResearchKit’s open-source platform. The entire study—from an e-Consent process to stimuli presentation and data collection—was conducted within an iPhone-based app available in the Apple Store. Over 1 year, 1756 families with children aged 12–72 months old participated in the study, completing 5618 caregiver-reported surveys and uploading 4441 videos recorded in the child’s natural settings. Usable data were collected on 87.6% of the uploaded videos. Automatic coding identified significant differences in emotion and attention by age, sex, and autism risk status. This study demonstrates the acceptability of an app-based tool to caregivers, their willingness to upload videos of their children, the feasibility of caregiver-collected data in the home, and the application of automatic behavioral encoding to quantify emotions and attention variables that are clinically meaningful and may be refined to screen children for autism and developmental disorders outside of clinical settings. This technology has the potential to transform how we screen and monitor children’s development., Mobile technologies: revolutionizing behavioral assessments of young children A phone-based app that assesses the behavior of young children in their homes can be used to determine their risk of autism. Autism is the most common neurodevelopmental disorder in the US. Although some of the signs of autism can be identified within the first months of life, many children wait years to be diagnosed. A study led by Richard Bloomfield, Geraldine Dawson, Helen Egger, and Guillermo Sapiro, Duke University, examined caregiver-collected smartphone videos that quantify the emotion and attention of children aged between 1 and 6 years watching movies known to elicit autism-related behaviors. Automatic coding identified significant differences in emotion and attention by age, sex, and autism risk status. These findings highlight the feasibility of using this approach to identify autism symptoms and, potentially, those of other behavioral disorders.

Aims: Our goal was to identify an assessment package that could improve treatment planning for troubled children and their families. To assess the validity of our tools, we tested the relations among the School-Age Assessment of Attachment, the Family Drawing and children’s risk status. We used the Dynamic-Maturational Model of Attachment and Adaptation to interpret the assessments in the hope of identifying a gradient of risk, and explore whether a new coding method improved the validity of Family Drawings and their utility as a tool to complement the School-Age Assessment of Attachment. Method: The participants were 89 children, aged between 5 and 12 years; 32 children were involved with mental health services or child protection. Each child completed a School-Age Assessment of Attachment and a Family Drawing. Results: Both assessments differentiated between clinical and normative referrals with moderate effect sizes when dichotomizing risk versus non-risk attachment. When the analysis incorporated a gradient of six attachment classifications, the effect sizes decreased, but specificity of risk increased. Conclusions: The School-Age Assessment of Attachment had greater validity for discriminating risk, and type of risk, than the Family Drawings. With a School-Age Assessment of Attachment and family history, the Family Drawing can provide information about distress that some children do not provide verbally. Integration of the two assessment tools alongside information about parental and family functioning appears to be the key to formulating children’s problems.

While it has been established that course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) lead to student benefits, it is less clear what aspects of CUREs lead to such gains. In this study, we aimed to understand the effect of students analyzing their own data, compared with students analyzing data that had been collected by professional scientists. We compared the experiences of students in a CURE investigating whether the extinction risk status of terrestrial mammals and birds is associated with their ecological traits. Students in the CURE were randomly assigned to analyze either data that they had collected or data previously collected by professional scientists. All other aspects of the student experience were designed to be identical. We found that students who analyzed their own data showed significantly greater gains in scientific identity and emotional ownership than students who analyzed data collected by professional scientists.

Background Personalised health-risk assessment is one of the most common components of health promotion programs. Previous research on responses to health risk feedback has commonly focused on the reception of bad news (high-risk feedback). The reception of low-risk feedback has been comparably neglected since it is assumed that good news is reassuring and readily received. However, field studies suggest mixed responses to low-risk health feedback. Accordingly, we examine whether pre-feedback risk expectancies can mitigate the reassuring effects of good news. Methods In two studies (N = 187, N = 565), after assessing pre-feedback risk expectancies, participants received low-risk personalised feedback about their own risk of developing (the fictitious) Tucson Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (TCFS). Study 2 also included peer TCFS risk status feedback. Afterwards, self- and peer-related risk perception for TCFS was assessed. Results In both studies, participants who expected to be at high risk but received good news (unexpected low-risk feedback) showed absolute lack of reassurance. Specifically, they felt at significantly greater TCFS risk than participants who received expected good news. Moreover, the unexpected low-risk group even believed that their risk was as high as (Study 1) or higher (Study 2) than that of their peers (comparative lack of reassurance). Conclusion Results support the notion that high pre-feedback risk expectancies can mitigate absolute and comparative reassuring effects of good news.

From a bio-behavioral framework, the relations between physiological synchrony, positive behavioral synchrony, and child self-regulation under varying levels of risk were examined among 93 mother- (M age = 30.44 years, SD = 5.98 years) preschooler (M age = 3.47 years, SD =.52 years, 58.70% male) dyads. Physiological synchrony was examined using interbeat interval (IBI) data and measures of positive behavioral synchrony and self-regulation were based on observations of a mother-child interaction task. Results supported the phenomenon of physiological synchrony among mother-preschooler dyads during an interaction, but not a baseline, task. Moderation analyses indicated that under conditions of high family risk, positive behavioral synchrony and child self-regulation were greater when physiological synchrony was low. Positive behavioral synchrony was positively associated with child self-regulation, regardless of risk status. The results document physiological synchrony among mothers and their preschool-aged children and the complex ways that physiological attunement relates to important developmental processes.

Background Expanded carrier screening can provide risk information for numerous conditions. Understanding how individuals undergoing preconception expanded carrier screening value this information is important. The NextGen study evaluated the use of genome sequencing for expanded carrier screening and reporting secondary findings, and we measured participants’ willingness to pay for this approach to understand how it is valued by women and couples planning a pregnancy. Methods We assessed 277 participants’ willingness to pay for genome sequencing reporting carrier results for 728 gene/condition pairs and results for 121 secondary findings. We explored the association between attitudes and demographic factors and willingness to pay for expanded carrier screening using genome sequencing and conducted interviews with 58 of these participants to probe the reasoning behind their preferences. Results Most participants were willing to pay for expanded carrier screening using genome sequencing. Willingness to pay was associated with income level and religiosity, but not risk status for a condition in the carrier panel. Participants willing to pay nothing or a small amount cited issues around financial resources, whereas those willing to pay higher amounts were motivated by “peace of mind” from carrier results. Conclusion Women and couples planning a pregnancy value genome sequencing. The potentially high out-of-pocket cost of this service could result in healthcare disparities, since maximum amounts that participants were willing to pay were higher than a typical copay and related to income.

Older adults are increasingly choosing to stay and age in their home or other place where they normally live, even when a change in their health reduces their ability to live independently creating concerns about their safety. In this context, community practitioners need to be aware of risk assessment and management strategies as they support their clients’ choices when safety is a concern. This requires an understanding of living at risk and an ability to evaluate the client’s risk status. This article is based on a qualitative research study in which we interviewed 12 Canadian community practitioners in 2012 and explored how they defined, perceived, assessed and managed risk and how they balanced their client’s safety and autonomy. We used a grounded theory methodology to collect and analyse the data. We found that participants tended to define living at risk as a judgement about a client’s impairment within an environment that can cause an event that has an increased potential for a negative consequen...

To investigate approaches for identifying young children who may be at risk for later reading-related learning disabilities, this study compared the use of four contemporary methods of indexing learning disability (LD) with older children (i.e., IQ-achievement discrepancy, low achievement, low growth, and dual-discrepancy) to determine risk status with a large sample of 1,011 preschoolers. These children were classified as at risk or not using each method across three early-literacy skills (i.e., language, phonological awareness, print knowledge) and at three levels of severity (i.e., 5th, 10th, 25th percentiles). Chance-corrected affected-status agreement (CCASA) indicated poor agreement among methods with rates of agreement generally decreasing with greater levels of severity for both single- and two-measure classification, and agreement rates were lower for two-measure classification than for single-measure classification. These low rates of agreement between conventional methods of identifying children at risk for LD represent a significant impediment for identification and intervention for young children considered at-risk.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine how status-based labels, based on future capabilities, can impact people's risk tolerance in decision making. Design/methodology/approach – In this paper the authors developed and tested theoretical arguments using a set of three studies employing a scenario-based approach and a total of 449 undergraduate business students. Findings – The findings suggest that labeling people in terms of future capabilities can trigger perceptions of public scrutiny and influence their risk preferences. Specifically, the results reveal that individuals who are recipients of high-status labels tend to choose lower risk decision options compared to their peers. Research limitations/implications – The study employed scenarios to examine the issue of employee labeling. The extent to which these scenarios have truly captured the dynamics of labeling is questionable, and future research should employ a field-based study to examine whether the reported effect can be observed in a “real” work context. Practical implications – Organizations are concerned about their future leadership capacity and often attempt to grow leadership talent by identifying high-potential employees early on. The results of this study suggest that such practice may have an unintentional negative effect of reducing high-potentials’ tolerance toward risky decision making, thus potentially impacting these future leaders’ decision making in the realm of corporate strategy, R&D, etc. Originality/value – The issue of how labeling individuals in terms of future capabilities can impact their risk preference has been largely ignored by organizational research. This paper suggests that the popular practice of identifying high-potential employees may have unintentional negative effects by lowering their risk tolerance.

This study examined concordance in heart rate (HR) and respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) in a sample of 104 child-maltreating (CM) and nonCM mother–preschooler dyads (208 individuals). In a laboratory setting, mother and child cardiac physiology was simultaneously monitored via ECG in a 5-min resting period. Mothers ranged in age from 20 to 49 years; children ranged in age from 3 to 5 years. Significant within-dyad (WD) and between-dyad (BD) associations were observed for mother HR and both child HR and RSA, and the associations were moderated by CM status. Only CM dyads exhibited BD associations: Higher average maternal HR was associated with higher child HR and lower child RSA. By contrast, when the time interval was divided into 30 s epochs, nonCM dyads exhibited positive WD (dynamic) associations in mother and child HR, and both CM and nonCM dyads showed negative WD associations in mother HR and child RSA. Further, mothers’ mean HR levels moderated the extent of epoch-by-epoch WD concordance observed in mother and child, such that elevated average maternal HR was associated with lower levels of WD (dynamic) concordance. No BD or WD concordance in maternal and child RSA was observed. The findings suggest that measures of intraindividual variation provide useful, alternate perspectives in the study of dyadic processes in at-risk families.

This study assesses the combined effects of children’s early medical risk (e.g., preterm status) and parental investment levels (time spent in provision of care to target children as opposed to other family members) on children’s response to novel, potentially distressing stimuli. While engaged in play activities, children were exposed to stimuli that were either neutral (a speaker on television with a calm voice) or threatening (a speaker with an angry voice). A significant interaction between children’s risk status and parental investment was found only for threatening stimuli. High-risk children with high-investing parents showed high visual engagement with potentially threatening responses, whereas high-risk children with low-investing parents were more likely to show visual avoidance. No comparable effects were found for low-risk children. Findings were interpreted as showing that high-risk children with a history of high parental investment are more likely to attend to potentially threatening events, an adaptive response in the presence of reliable support.

Based on a national survey conducted two years after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit the U.S. Gulf Coast, we investigate the ways in which major “risk conditions,” which may subject individuals to climate-related hazards, translate to varying responses to risk: including risk assessment, behavioral modification, and policy support. We present a model that an individual's risk status can be determined by their embeddedness in risk conditions, which include both exposure to risk sources and access to risk information. Our findings suggest that an individual's access to information on climate risks significantly influences their proactive responses to climate hazards, as in, those who have objective knowledge of climate risks and social ties with concerned others are more likely to be proactive toward climate risks. It is also observed that an individual's political views tend to predispose their assessment of climate risks, which further affect their behavioral and policy responses.

The purpose of the present study is to establish how the quality of kindergarten classroom interactions and the frequency of literacy activities affect reading development among Grade 1 children—both those who are at risk and not at risk of developing reading difficulties. Interaction was assessed in terms of classroom organization, and the level of emotional and instructional support offered in 49 kindergarten classrooms in Finland using the CLASS (Classroom Assessment Scoring System). Kindergarten teachers also recorded the frequency of literacy activities in their classrooms. The phonological awareness and letter knowledge of 515 children (i.e., their pre-reading skills) were assessed at the end of kindergarten, as were their reading skills at the start and at the end of Grade 1. Eighty-seven of these children were identified in kindergarten as being likely to develop reading difficulties. The results showed that emotional support and classroom organization in kindergarten were positively associated with the development of children’s reading skills across Grade 1, especially for those prone to reading difficulties. They also showed that frequent literacy activities in kindergarten were positively related to children’s reading skills shortly after entering Grade 1. All the positive longitudinal associations were stronger for those children seen to be at risk of developing reading difficulties than for those not at risk. peerReviewed

Attachment in middle childhood increasingly attracts the interest of developmental psychologists and clinicians. Recent studies using attachment narratives elicited by story stems reported gender-specific aspects of attachment development, potentially evoked by developmental tasks during this period of the life span. There is evidence that children with risk factors present more insecure and disorganized attachment narratives compared to children without risk. Yet, there is little research concerning the joint effects of gender, risk, and age for attachment classifications. The paper presents a pooled analysis of 22 samples (eight risk samples) including 887 children (411 girls), aged between 4.5 and 8.5 years who were assessed with the same "German Attachment Story Completion Procedure" (GASCP). Girls were 1.8 times more likely to present secure and 0.4 times less likely to present disorganized narratives compared to boys when controlling for risk status and age. Children from risk samples were more likely (odd ratio 5.4) to display disorganized and less likely to show a secure attachment (odd ratio 0.3) compared to those from no-risk samples in multilevel logistic regressions. Remarkably, the effect of risk was not moderated by age and gender, and gender effects were not moderated by age.

Family interactions can be important contributors to the development of child psychopathology, yet the mechanisms of influence are understudied, particularly for populations at risk. This prospective longitudinal study addresses differences in whole family interactions in 194 families of young children with and without early-identified developmental risk associated with cognitive delay. The influence of family interactions on children's later externalizing behaviors, internalizing behaviors, and social skills was examined, and developmental risk was tested as a potential moderator of these relations. Results indicated that the presence of cognitive developmental risk was linked to higher levels of family control than in families of typically developing children, but groups did not differ on dimensions of cohesion, warmth, organization, or conflict. Observed cohesion and organization were associated with better social skills for all children, regardless of risk status. Significant interactions emerged, indicating that higher levels of conflict and control were associated with higher levels of behavior problems, but only for families of typically developing children. These findings underscore the importance of family-level assessment in understanding the development of children's behavior and suggest the need for deeper analysis of the nuances of family process over time.

This article examines how genetic counsellors and clients account for evidence when explaining the familial cancer risk. Against the backdrop of scientific developments in genetics, which give rise to new knowledge about genes and genetic tests, there also prevail layers of uncertainty surrounding genetic test results vis-a-vis risk status. Formulation and assessment of evidence thus become a core communicative activity, especially when the evidence is inconclusive, whether based on genetic test results or patterns of family inheritance. Drawing upon transcripts of 26 tape-recorded cancer genetic counselling sessions in Norway, and following discourse analytic methodology, we specifically consider those explanations which are triggered by inconclusive evidence, hence engendering uncertainty. This analysis focuses on the kinds of evidence (e.g. direct vs. indirect) that are mobilised by the counsellors and the clients for specific purposes. We suggest that the counsellors’ cautious framing of evidence is t...

To aid in understanding preschoolers' self-regulation and refinement of measurement, we examined properties of a field-based assessment battery of preschooler's self-regulation, the Preschool Self-regulation Assessment (PSRA). The PSRA, which includes seven age-appropriate tasks that tap children's executive control, was administered to 313 preschoolers and then to 261 of these children approximately 3 months later. Teachers reported on children's school readiness (social competence and classroom adjustment) at the end of preschool and kindergarten years, and on academic success in kindergarten. PSRA tasks were examined for ceiling effects at 35–65 months; Pencil Tap, Balance Beam, Toy Wrap and Snack Delay were retained for lack of such effects. Confirmatory factor analyses showed two components at each time point – hot and cool executive control – and cross-time correlations showed significant stability of individual differences. Four-year-old girls and children of higher socioeconomic status outperformed 3-year-old boys and those at socioeconomic risk. Children, especially girls, scored higher on hot executive control. Finally, aspects of executive control differentially predicted teacher-reports of school readiness at both times of assessment, with age, gender and risk status controlled. These selected PSRA tasks, as a shortened battery, have potential for research and applied usage, and findings speak to theoretical understanding of preschoolers' self-regulation. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

In clinical practice, psychotic disorders naturally come as diagnosable ‘‘things,’’ categories, the carriers of which form a diagnostic boundary below which reside the healthy noncarriers who do not display the mental phenomena observed in patients. In research, however, the focus is on scientific exploration of the distribution of experiences at all levels of severity in populations and its genetic and nongenetic causes. Population research has shown high rates of psychotic experiences in people who are not readily diagnosable according to ICD/DSM/ RDC criteria—suggesting an ‘‘extended psychosis phenotype,’’ which shares demographic, etiological, familial, and psychopathological factors with clinical psychotic disorder. In fact, affective dysregulation, psychotic experiences, motivational impairments, and cognitive alterationsappeartobedistributed andcoexpressedtoadegree in nonill individuals and have been shown to index risk for later onset of disorder, particularly if they tend to persist over time. 1 (also, R. J. L & J. v. O., unpublished data

Research Findings: Effects of parenting quality on the academic functioning of young homeless children were examined using data from 58 children ages 4 to 7 and their parents during their stay at an emergency homeless shelter. Parenting quality, child executive function, child intellectual functioning, and risk status were assessed in the shelter, and teacher reports of academic functioning were obtained when the children began kindergarten or 1st grade. As hypothesized, parenting quality was associated with children's academic success, and this effect was mediated by executive function skills in the child. Parenting quality also had a moderating effect on risk, consistent with a protective role of high-quality parenting among children with higher risk levels. Concomitantly, children with higher risk and lower parenting quality appeared to be more vulnerable to academic problems. Practice or Policy: In homeless families, parenting may play an especially important role in academic success through multiple ...

Background Cognitive impairments are a core feature of schizophrenia (SZ).1 The few existing retrospective or prospective population-based studies indicate that patients who develop psychoses have cognitive impairments in childhood and adolescence.2,3 Offspring at high genetic risk also present neurocognitive impairments before the age of disease incidence.4,5 The form of the childhood cognitive trajectory may be a predictor of transition to illness but more data are needed on the early cognitive trajectories in children at genetic risk to inform about the most sensitive periods in risk progression to psychosis and to orient interventions.6 The objective was to investigate the cognitive trajectories in children born to a parent affected by a SZ or BP from early childhood to late adolescence, in terms of changes in cognitive 4 domains known to be impaired in major psychosis. A special attention was given to the timing of changes in childhood, and their association with well documented clinical risk indicators. Methods The sample consisted of 79 offspring (age from 6 to 21) born to parents affected by SZ or BP from our multi-affected kindreds of Eastern Quebec. Our cognitive battery covered: episodic memory, working memory, speed of processing and executive functioning evaluated at two-time points (mean duration between assessments +/- 6y). A Cognitive domain was considered impaired when mean performance was below -1 SD. We had measurements of established childhood risk indicators [4]: psychotic-like experiences, non-psychotic DSM diagnoses and social functioning (GAF). Results Three distinct developmental trajectories were identified according to the progression in number of impaired cognitive domains from baseline to follow-up: i) A “steady” trajectory with stable and intact performances across all cognitive domains (n=52; 66%); ii) a “deteriorating” trajectory with an accumulation of cognitive impairments (n=18; 23%) and; iii) an “improving” trajectory with a diminishing number of cognitive impairments at follow-up (n=9; 11%). IQ and neuropsychological performances were similar at baseline between the “deteriorating” and “improving” trajectories (p=.4), while the steady group performed best. The 3 subgroups were comparable in terms of the parent diagnosis and offspring gender. Regarding clinical risk indicators, the deteriorating subgroup presented a worsening of social functioning between the two-time points (-7 GAF points vs -0.8 for steady, +0.56 for improving) and a higher rate of childhood non-psychotic DSM diagnosis (p≤.01). Importantly, we observed striking differences in cognitive trajectories among siblings suggesting that change or stability go beyond the heritability of cognitive capacities. Discussion Our results suggest three types of cognitive developmental trajectories among offspring of parents affected by SZ or BP. The progressive deteriorating trajectory was associated with an aggregation of other clinical risk indicators shown to predict transition.4 Cognitive deterioration was slightly more frequent in childhood and pre-adolescence than in late adolescence which has implications for the timing of detection, the need of care, the type of longitudinal surveillance and the design of future prevention research.6 References 1. Keefe & Kahn, JAMA Psychiatry, 2017 2. Meier et al., Am J Psychiatry, 2014 3. MacCabe et al., JAMA Psychiatry 2013 4. Paccalet et al., Schizophr Res, 2016 5. Maziade et al., Schizophr Bull, 2011 6. Maziade, N Eng J Med, 2017

It is estimated that approximately one third of first-time driving-under-the-influence (DUI) offenders are at risk for committing a subsequent offense. To reduce the risk of recidivism, most states require mandatory screening and counseling of convicted DUI offenders. Unfortunately, the majority of offenders are not receptive to either screening or recommendations for further interventions designed to reduce their level of risk. The current study examines the relationship between locus of control and receptivity to risk status. To test this hypothesis, both the Rotter Internal-External Locus of Control Scale (I-E) and the Drinking Related Internal-External Locus of Control Scale (DRIE) were administered to a group of convicted first DUI offenders. The results indicate that the offenders manifesting a more internal locus of control were more receptive to risk information compared to their external locus of control counterparts. Important clinical implications of these findings are discussed.

Although parental volubility, or amount of talk, has received considerable recent attention, infant volubility has received comparatively little attention despite its potential significance for communicative risk status and later linguistic and cognitive outcomes. Volubility of 16 typically developing infants from 2 to 11 months of age was longitudinally investigated in the present study across three social circumstances: parent talking to infant, parent not talking to infant and parent talking to interviewer while the infant was in the room. Results indicated that volubility was least in the Interview circumstance. There were no significant differences in volubility between the parent Talk and No Talk circumstances. Volubility was found to reduce with age. These results suggest that infants vocalise in a variety of circumstances, even when no one talks to or interacts with them. The presence of a stranger or perhaps overhearing adults speaking to each other, however, may significantly reduce infant volubility.

Twenty years ago, meta-analytic results (k = 19) confirmed the association between caregiver attachment representations and child-caregiver attachment (Van IJzendoorn, 1995). A test of caregiver sensitivity as the mechanism behind this intergenerational transmission showed an intriguing "transmission gap." Since then, the intergenerational transmission of attachment and the transmission gap have been studied extensively, and now extend to diverse populations from all over the globe. Two decades later, the current review revisited the effect sizes of intergenerational transmission, the heterogeneity of the transmission effects, and the size of the transmission gap. Analyses were carried out with a total of 95 samples (total N = 4,819). All analyses confirmed intergenerational transmission of attachment, with larger effect sizes for secure-autonomous transmission (r = .31) than for unresolved transmission (r = .21), albeit with significantly smaller effect sizes than 2 decades earlier (r = .47 and r = .31, respectively). Effect sizes were moderated by risk status of the sample, biological relatedness of child-caregiver dyads, and age of the children. Multivariate moderator analyses showed that unpublished and more recent studies had smaller effect sizes than published and older studies. Path analyses showed that the transmission could not be fully explained by caregiver sensitivity, with more recent studies narrowing but not bridging the "transmission gap." Implications for attachment theory as well as future directions for research are discussed.

This chapter addresses core developmental approaches to understanding the nature of social and emotional consequences of illness and disability during the developmental period. The chapter addresses the ways in which developmental disabilities and chronic illness share a particular risk status, but can also be differentiated. Definitions and epidemiology are broadly considered to set the stage for the specific social and emotional domains to be reviewed. Three basic domains are addressed in depth: social and peer competencies, emotion and emotion regulation, and behavior and emotion problems. Disabilities and chronic illnesses are discussed both separately and together within these domains. The shifting nature of the conceptual paradigms used to understand the consequences of chronic conditions (pathology versus adaptational or positive approaches) are discussed. Both endogenous and exogenous factors that contribute to the consequences of chronic conditions are addressed. Genetic approaches highlight the endogenous considerations, while family, school, and cultural factors are the focus of the exogenous factors that contribute. These considerations lead to a discussion of intervention approaches that have addressed socioemotional competencies in children with chronic conditions. The chapter concludes with a review of the current state of the field, and suggestions for the next generation of research for the field. Keywords: behavior and emotion problems; chronic illness; current state of the field; developmental disabilities; emotion and emotion regulation; family, school, and cultural factors; genetic approaches; intervention approaches; next generation of research; pathology versus adaptational; social and peer competencies

Response to intervention is a framework for organizing planned se- quences of prevention and empirically validated interventions ordered by inten- sity. Plans might increase or decrease in intensity depending on risk status and outcomes. If interventions are well sequenced and technically adequate, these outcomes can be interpreted (with other sources) as evaluation data concerning educational needs. This article presents broad-spectrum response to intervention as a method for answering practical preschool service delivery questions. Fol- lowing a presentation of key literatures and a model for this purpose, and elaborating on decision making for extremely challenging behaviors, a case study adapted from a school psychology practicum is presented. The case study shows how response to intervention might work in preschools. Possible advantages, problem areas, and practice implications are discussed.

This article discusses distinct ways in which research plays pivotal roles in the development, evaluation, refinement and dissemination of interventions for children and adolescents. A key challenge in interventions for high-risk children is to identify screening criteria for risk status. Longitudinal research is essential in creating a screening system with adequate sensitivity and specificity. Research-based developmental models should provide the framework for interventions as they are developed. These models can be then tested with the interventions, and ongoing developmental research can lead to a series of refinements of the interventions. Research can also provide essential information about who the programs succeed with and who they do not, and a newer phase of intervention research can rigorously identify factors which can bridge the “research-to-practice” gap, maximizing the effectiveness of interventions when they are disseminated into real-world settings.

Objective: The present study investigated the extent to which direct (D) and indirect (ID) measures of unrealistic optimism truly capture people's beliefs about their comparative risk status. Method: Respondents (N = 425) were contacted in a general population survey. The D measure required respondents to estimate whether their personal chance of contracting an illness was above/below the average for people of the same age/gender. The ID measure was based on separate assessments of personal/others' chances. Results: Poor concurrent validity between the measures implied that one or both was tapping into perceptions unrelated to comparative risk. This was explored by examining the relationships between the measures and various health problem attributes (e.g. perceived preventability, personal experience). A picture emerged that suggested the D measure did not seem to reflect the effects of social comparison as much as the ID measure, a crucial criterion for a measure intended to elicit comparative risk ratings. Conclusion: When measuring unrealistic optimism by asking ‘Compared to other men/women your age how would you rate your chances of X?’ researchers should be sensitive to the possibility that the question is being interpreted simply as ‘How would you rate your chances of X?'.

Links between peer reports of social cluster membership and observed classroom interactions were examined in a sample of 72 children in 4th grade and 7th grade. All participating children in each classroom identified as many social clusters in the classroom as they could recall. Using the social-cognitive map (SCM) procedure, these individual reports were aggregated to summarize the number of times a given child was nominated as being in the same social cluster as each of his or her classmates (i.e., a co-nomination profile) and to identify the classmates in each child's social cluster. Extensive classroom observations allowed for a parallel summary of the number of times a given child was observed to interact with each of his or her classmates (i.e., an interaction profile). Results indicated that correlations between conomination profiles and interaction profiles were positive and statistically reliable. Children were observed to interact with members of their SCM-identified social cluster at a rate four times higher than with other same-sex classmates. These effects did not vary reliably by grade, sex or aggressive risk status.

This study applied an early screening approach to determine the risk status of children in five urban schools and monitor their patterns of reading growth over 3 years. A majority of students were from culturally diverse and low-SES backgrounds.Two validated instruments were used for determining (a) academic risk (the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills [DIBELS]; Good et al., 1998) and (b) behavioral risk ( Systematic Screening for Behavior Disorders [SSBD]; Walker & Severson, 1992, or Early Screening Project; Walker, Severson, & Feil, 1995). DIBELS data for 383 students were used to determine the characteristics and effectiveness of reading curriculum reforms for students in kindergarten through second grade. Results indicated that students with a single risk factor (academic or behavioral) progressed more slowly than the general population in the participating schools.The students with behavioral risks, however, made better progress, becoming more fluent readers than the students with academic risks. Students with both academic and behavioral risks made the least progress. The Reading Mastery curriculum (Reading Mastery, 1995) produced better growth in reading fluency than did Success for All (Success for All, 1999) or the literature-based curriculum. It also produced better growth for students with academic, behavioral, or both risk factors.The Success for All curriculum produced less growth compared to the Reading Mastery curriculum but was superior to the literature-based curriculum. Implications are discussed.

This study examined the association between infant still-face response and assessments of maternal behavior taken outside the still-face procedure (SFP). We also addressed the contributions of risk status and infant difficultness. Forty-one adolescent mother–infant dyads (high risk), and thirty-five adult mother–infant dyads (low risk) were seen when infants were 6 months old. Home visits were carried out to obtain maternal ratings of infant difficultness and to conduct observations of maternal interactive behavior. The SFP was conducted at the university two weeks later. Infant still-face response was coded for positive affect, negative affect and self-soothing behavior. Regression analyses revealed that maternal behavior was associated with negative affect and self-soothing behavior. In both cases risk status significantly moderated these effects. Infant difficultness significantly moderated the association between maternal behavior and self-soothing behavior, and marginally moderated the link between maternal behavior and negative affect.

Several research studies have attempted to prospectively identify children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) using screening instruments. While it has been possible to pick up unrecognised cases using screens, no instrument has yet proved sufficiently robust to recommend universal screening. However, autism screens can play an important role in improved surveillance for ASD and other developmental disorders. There are important differences between the development of screening instruments in research studies and the use of screens as part of routine clinical surveillance. Screening for a developmental disorder raises clinical issues for parents and professionals, including those relating to the concept of 'risk status', certainty of diagnosis, advice about management and the availability of appropriate services. One positive by-product of screening studies will be improvements in the training and knowledge of primary care health practitioners about early signs of ASD, hopefully leading to improved clinic...

This study examined decision reliability associated with estimates of risk status for 114 first grade students. The study focused on social behaviors as measured by the School Social Behavior Scales (SSBS) and Social Skills Rating System (SSRS). Overall, the decision reliability between the two measures designed to assess social behaviors was moderate when social behaviors were rated by the teacher and low when assessed by alternative raters (i.e., teacher versus parent). Screening practices that include alternative assessment methods (such as interviews and observations) should be considered by special services personnel in addition to traditional standardized procedures.

This guidance paper from the European Psychiatric Association (EPA) aims to provide evidence-based recommendations on early intervention in clinical high risk (CHR) states of psychosis, assessed according to the EPA guidance on early detection. The recommendations were derived from a meta-analysis of current empirical evidence on the efficacy of psychological and pharmacological interventions in CHR samples. Eligible studies had to investigate conversion rate and/or functioning as a treatment outcome in CHR patients defined by the ultra-high risk and/or basic symptom criteria. Besides analyses on treatment effects on conversion rate and functional outcome, age and type of intervention were examined as potential moderators. Based on data from 15 studies (n = 1394), early intervention generally produced significantly reduced conversion rates at 6- to 48-month follow-up compared to control conditions. However, early intervention failed to achieve significantly greater functional improvements because both early intervention and control conditions produced similar positive effects. With regard to the type of intervention, both psychological and pharmacological interventions produced significant effects on conversion rates, but not on functional outcome relative to the control conditions. Early intervention in youth samples was generally less effective than in predominantly adult samples. Seven evidence-based recommendations for early intervention in CHR samples could have been formulated, although more studies are needed to investigate the specificity of treatment effects and potential age effects in order to tailor interventions to the individual treatment needs and risk status.

The purpose of this randomized controlled trial was to evaluate elementary-aged students’ writing fluency growth in response to (a) instructional practices, (b) sex differences, and (c) student’s initial level of writing fluency. Third-grade students (n=133) in three urban elementary schools were randomly assigned to either an individualized performance feedback condition (n=46), a practice-only condition (i.e., weekly writing practice; n = 39), or an instructional control condition (n = 48) for 8 weeks. Findings included support for use of performance feedback as an instructional component in general education classrooms (Hedges’ g = 0.66), whereas simple practice with curriculum-based measurement in written expression did not produce growth significantly greater than standard instructional practices. The hypothesis that girls write significantly more than boys was supported. However, girls and boys did not differ in their rate of growth. Finally, students’ initial risk status in writing fluency did not differentially predict growth in writing fluency over the course of the study. Implications for incorporating feedback as a basic component of intervention in writing are discussed.

Este artículo analiza la relación entre el apego, el autoconcepto y los problemas de comportamiento en niños/as de 6 a 12 años, provenientes de familias en riesgo psicosocial medio, caracterizadas por situaciones de desventaja socioeconómica (N = 102) y de familias normalizadas (N = 114) de la isla de Tenerife (España). Todos asistían a un programa de intervención llevado a cabo en ludotecas o en colegios. Los participantes produjeron narrativas sobre las figuras de apego, valoraron su autoconcepto en diferentes ámbitos, y finalmente sus educadores evaluaron la presencia de problemas de comportamiento de tipo internalizado y externalizado. Los resultados muestran que las dificultades en las relaciones de apego y un menor autoconcepto se relacionan positivamente con problemas de comportamiento de tipo externalizado así como con problemas cognitivos y sociales. Estas relaciones estuvieron moderadas por el estatus de riesgo familiar demostrando la mayor vulnerabilidad de los niños y niñas de familias en riesgo para presentar problemas de comportamiento que pueden afectar a su desarrollo.

The present study examined parent-infant interaction quality as a potential family mechanism through which the combination of perinatal and sociodemographic risks predicts cognitive development in LBW, VLBW, and full-term infants. Preterm LBW, VLBW and full-term infant-mother dyads were assessed when infants were 6 and 12 months post-term. Of the 117 infants seen at 6 months, 84 (72%) returned at 12 months (44 FT, 20 LBW, 20 VLBW). Level of neonatal risk was coded based on birthweight, Apgar scores, length of hospitalization and intubation, and presence of respiratory complications. At 6 months, mothers and infants were observed playing an interactional game which was scored for degree of reciprocity and engagement, and at 12 months, infant cognitive skills were assessed. Results indicated that, although maternal sociodemographic characteristics did not moderate the relation between neonatal risk and cognitive outcomes, quality of parent-infant interaction mediated the relation between neonatal risk and cognitive development. Reciprocal and engaging dyadic interactions significantly predicted higher cognitive scores, controlling for neonatal and maternal risks and the interaction between risks.

SUMMARY Women who care for an older family member while also caring for a child under 18 years old living at home are known as sandwiched generation caregivers. These caregivers are at risk for health and psychosocial problems due to competing family role demands, and their children are at risk for poor adaptive outcomes due to their mothers' risk status. Mutual help was hypothesized to reduce caregiver risk, and thus, to promote resilience among caregivers' children. Eighty-seven caregivers were randomized into two, time-limited, mutual help conditions and a no-intervention control condition, and then one child from each family was assessed at posttest and at a 6-month follow-up. At posttest, children of caregivers participating in a mutual help group reported a significant decrease in depressive symptoms and the negative impact of caregiving, and were found to exhibit increases in global functioning and social competence. In addition, the effects for social competence and the negative impact of caregivi...

The current study examined the effects of high-risk pregnancies on the adaptation process of parents of full-term healthy infants. Gender similarities and differences were also addressed to determine the adaptation process of parents who experience a high-risk pregnancy. The sample consisted of 68 high-risk and 59 low-risk pregnancy couples, making a total of 254 new parents. Questionnaires measuring general issues related to the parental adaptation process as well as several specific components dealing with parental role attainment were administered. An effect of risk status and gender was detected on the parental adaptation process. The experience of high obstetrical risks also appeared to have an effect on the perception of life changes and on the development of a sense of competence among parents. Moreover, the findings demonstrated that the gender of the parent contributed to parental experience. Women experienced significantly more life changes than did men. Mothers also differed from fathers in the...

Thirty‐seven low‐income adolescent mother‐infant pairs who were participating in a short term early intervention program were observed during teaching episodes two times over a six month period. Independent of teaching and play assessments, clinical determinations of maternal risk status were made based on detailed home visitation notes and observations. Consistently, maternal risk status was significantly associated with more sensitive parenting behaviors including responsiveness to infant cues and to infant distress, social and emotional growth fostering behaviors and cognitive growth fostering behaviors.