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Hyperactivity is one of the core features of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and yet there is evidence that hyperactive behavior in children with ADHD is not ubiquitous and could be a compensatory response to high cognitive demands. No research has yet objectively measured hyperactive behavior in young children who are demonstrating early signs of ADHD or examined the role of emotional state on hyperactivity levels.The current study measured motor activity using actigraphy during baseline, cognitive inhibition (Flanker task), and emotion arousing (Impossibly Perfect Circles task) conditions in 95 children aged 4–7 years old with developmental difficulties, including emerging symptoms of ADHD. We examined the relationship between objectively recorded activity, parent-rated hyperactivity problems, using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), and cognitive inhibition task performance.Parent ratings of hyperactivity (but not inattention) symptoms were positively related to recorded hyperactivity, and this relationship was specific to activity measured during the cognitive inhibition task. Impaired cognitive inhibition performance was related to increased measured movement and this association was strongest in children who were rated as having the highest levels of hyperactive behavior.These findings confirm theoretically predicted associations between objectively recorded hyperactivity and impaired executive functioning and support the notion that hyperactivity in children emerges in response to high cognitive demands. The results encourage further investigation into the role of hyperactivity as a transdiagnostic dimension that can explain variation within and between different types of diagnostic classifications.

Children adopted from public care are more likely to experience emotional and behavioural problems. We investigated two aspects of emotion recognition that may be associated with these outcomes, including discrimination accuracy of emotions and response bias, in a mixed-method, multi-informant study of 4-to-8-year old children adopted from local authority care in the UK (N = 42). We compared adopted children’s emotion recognition performance to that of a comparison group of children living with their birth families, who were matched by age, sex, and teacher-rated total difficulties on the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ, N = 42). We also examined relationships between adopted children’s emotion recognition skills and their pre-adoptive histories of early adversity (indexed by cumulative adverse childhood experiences), their parent- and teacher-rated emotional and behavioural problems, and their parents’ coded warmth during a Five Minute Speech Sample. Adopted children showed significantly worse facial emotion discrimination accuracy of sad and angry faces than non-adopted children. Adopted children’s discrimination accuracy of scared and neutral faces was negatively associated with parent-reported behavioural problems, and discrimination accuracy of angry and scared faces was associated with parent- and teacher-reported emotional problems. Contrary to expectations, children who experienced more recorded pre-adoptive early adversity were more accurate in identifying negative emotions. Warm adoptive parenting was associated with fewer behavioural problems, and a lower tendency for children to incorrectly identify faces as angry. Study limitations and implications for intervention strategies to support adopted children’s emotion recognition and psychological adjustment are discussed.

Impaired facial emotion recognition is a transdiagnostic risk factor for a range of psychiatric disorders. Childhood behavioral difficulties and parental emotional environment have been independently associated with impaired emotion recognition; however, no study has examined the contribution of these factors in conjunction. We measured recognition of negative (sad, fear, anger), neutral, and happy facial expressions in 135 children aged 5–7 years referred by their teachers for behavioral problems. Parental emotional environment was assessed for parental expressed emotion (EE) – characterized by negative comments, reduced positive comments, low warmth, and negativity towards their child – using the 5-minute speech sample. Child behavioral problems were measured using the teacher-informant Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). Child behavioral problems and parental EE were independently associated with impaired recognition of negative facial expressions specifically. An interactive effect revealed that the combination of both factors was associated with the greatest risk for impaired recognition of negative faces, and in particular sad facial expressions. No relationships emerged for the identification of happy facial expressions. This study furthers our understanding of multidimensional processes associated with the development of facial emotion recognition and supports the importance of early interventions that target this domain.

Children adopted from public care are more likely to experience emotional and behavioural problems. We investigated two aspects of emotion recognition that may be associated with these outcomes, including discrimination accuracy of emotions and response bias, in a mixed-method, multi-informant study of 4-to-8-year old children adopted from local authority care in the UK (N = 42). We compared adopted children's emotion recognition performance to that of a comparison group of children living with their birth families, who were matched by age, sex, and teacher-rated total difficulties on the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ, N = 42). We also examined relationships between adopted children's emotion recognition skills and their pre-adoptive histories of early adversity (indexed by cumulative adverse childhood experiences), their parent- and teacher-rated emotional and behavioural problems, and their parents' coded warmth during a Five Minute Speech Sample. Adopted children showed significantly worse facial emotion discrimination accuracy of sad and angry faces than non-adopted children. Adopted children's discrimination accuracy of scared and neutral faces was negatively associated with parent-reported behavioural problems, and discrimination accuracy of angry and scared faces was associated with parent- and teacher-reported emotional problems. Contrary to expectations, children who experienced more recorded pre-adoptive early adversity were more accurate in identifying negative emotions. Warm adoptive parenting was associated with fewer behavioural problems, and a lower tendency for children to incorrectly identify faces as angry. Study limitations and implications for intervention strategies to support adopted children's emotion recognition and psychological adjustment are discussed.

Background\ud The mental health consequences of school closure, social isolation, increased financial and emotional stress, and greater exposure to family conflicts are likely to be pronounced for primary school children who are known to be vulnerable. Data from prior to the pandemic are needed to provide robust assessments of the impact of COVID‐19 on vulnerable children.\ud \ud Method\ud The present study capitalises on an ongoing study of primary school children (4–8 years) identified as ‘at‐risk’ for mental health problems by teachers. We collected mental health and socio‐economic data prior to the pandemic and re‐assessed this cohort (n = 142) via researcher‐led video calls during the pandemic to evaluate the social and emotional impacts of COVID‐19 for these families.\ud \ud Results\ud Mental health problems, particularly anxiety, increased significantly in these children. Parental mental health difficulties (anxiety and depression) were also prevalent. There were higher reports of financial stress during lockdown amongst low‐income families previously identified as living in poverty, prior to the COVID‐19 pandemic. Financial strain was found to indirectly predict increases in child mental health problems through parental mental health.\ud \ud Conclusion\ud These findings show that the pandemic exacerbated mental health problems in already vulnerable children. These negative outcomes were explained by financial stress (e.g., lost employment, loss of income and inability to pay bills), which was negatively linked to parental mental health.

Adoptees’ mental health problems in childhood and later life are well described, but little attention has been paid to domestically adopted children’s emotional and behavioral problems and neurocognitive profiles. The aim of this study was to describe the neurocognitive profiles of domestically adopted children in the UK and their parent- and teacher-rated emotional and behavioral problems. Forty-five children (M age = 75.96 months, SD = 12.98; 51.1% female) who were placed for adoption from public care at a M age of 22.14 months (SD = 14.21) completed a battery of age standardized neurocognitive tests, and adoptive parents and school teachers rated their emotional and behavioral problems. Children had more emotional and behavioral problems than the general population and over a fifth scored low (> 1 SD below the expected range for their age) in 5/6 neurocognitive tasks. Children who scored low on the non-verbal reasoning task were more likely to have more parent- and teacher-rated behavioral problems, and children’s performance on the inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility tasks were associated with parent-rated behavioral problems. Children’s verbal reasoning scores were positively associated with both parent- and teacher-rated emotional problems. Children who were adopted later in childhood scored significantly lower in non-verbal reasoning. Although longitudinal studies are needed to clarify the nature of neurocognitive functioning as a marker for later mental health problems, our findings underscore the importance of using comprehensive assessments to better recognize adopted children’s difficulties and inform appropriate intervention initiatives.

Childhood conduct problems have been associated with reduced autonomic arousal to negative cues indicative of an insensitivity to aversive stimuli, with mixed evidence in response to positive cues. Autonomic arousal to affective stimuli has traditionally been measured through galvanic skin responses and heart-rate, despite evidence that pupillometry is more reliable and practically beneficial (i.e., no wires are attached to the participant). The current study is the first to examine abnormal pupillary responsivity to affective stimuli as a biomarker for childhood conduct problems. We measured pupil reactivity to negative, positive and neutral images in 131 children aged 4–7 years, who were referred by their teachers for being at risk of future psychopathology. We assessed relationships between pupil response to the images and teacher-rated scores on the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), which indexed child conduct problems and their overlapping emotional, behavioural and social difficulties. Reduced pupil dilation to negative images was associated with significantly increased conduct, hyperactivity, emotional and peer problems, as well as reduced prosocial behaviour. Composite scores for disruptive behaviour and emotional difficulties both uniquely predicted blunted pupil response to negative threat stimuli; there were no relations with pupil responses to positive images. These findings highlight that blunted pupil responsivity to negative stimuli serves as a biomarker for early disruptive behavioural problems and affective difficulties. Pupillometry offers an inexpensive, fast and non-intrusive measure to help identify children who are showing early disruptive behaviour or experiencing affective difficulties, which can provide opportunities for preventative intervention to avoid further psychopathology. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1007/s10802-020-00620-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Childhood conduct problems are an important public health issue as these children are at-risk of adverse outcomes. Studies using diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging (dMRI) have found that conduct problems in adults are characterised by abnormal white-matter microstructure within a range of white matter pathways underpinning socio-emotional processing, while evidence within children and adolescents has been less conclusive based on non-specific diffusion tensor imaging metrics. Fixel-based analysis (FBA) provides measures of fibre density and morphology that are more sensitive to developmental changes in white matter microstructure. The current study used FBA to investigate whether childhood conduct problems were related both cross-sectionally and longitudinally to microstructural alterations within the fornix, inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus (IFOF), inferior longitudinal fasciculus (ILF), superior longitudinal fasciculus (SLF), and the uncinate fasciculus (UF). dMRI data was obtained for 130 children across two time-points in a community sample with high levels of externalising difficulties (age: time-point 1 = 9.47 – 11.86 years, time-point 2 = 10.67 −13.45 years). Conduct problems were indexed at each time-point using the Conduct Problems subscale of the parent-informant Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). Conduct problems were related to lower fibre density in the fornix at both time-points, and in the ILF at time-point 2. We also observed lower fibre cross-section in the UF at time-point 1. The change in conduct problems did not predict longitudinal changes in white-matter microstructure across time-points. The current study suggests that childhood conduct problems are related to reduced fibre-specific microstructure within white matter fibre pathways implicated in socio-emotional functioning.

Some aspects of psychopathy may be underpinned by a deficit in processing emotional \ud information, although there is evidence that this impairment only emerges when the affective \ud cues are not central to ongoing goal-directed behaviour. However, this hypothesis has not been \ud explored previously in relation to autonomic reactivity to emotional stimuli. The current study \ud investigated this in a large (N =174) community sample by examining changes in pupil \ud diameter, a measure of autonomic nervous system activity, while participants viewed images \ud that were either neutral in content or contained highly arousing/emotional content. Participants’ \ud attentional focus was manipulated across two tasks, such that participants either focused on \ud whether the image contained emotional content (emotion-focus) or whether there were people \ud present in the image (alternate-focus). Psychopathy was conceptualised via the Triarchic model \ud of boldness, meanness and disinhibition. As expected, the arousing images caused greater pupil \ud dilation compared to neutral images. However, the magnitude of this dilation was not moderated \ud by any aspect of psychopathy regardless of the participant’s attentional focus. It may be that \ud reduced pupil reactivity to emotional stimuli is only expressed at high levels of psychopathy \ud not normally found in community samples, or that participants with high traits of psychopathy \ud in the community were still able to sufficiently attend to the emotional components of the \ud images to overcome any autonomic deficits regardless of their attentional focus. Further \ud research is needed to explore these possibilities.

The neuropeptide oxytocin (OT) has been found to play an important role in a variety of social behaviours and social cognition in particular. The social salience hypothesis of OT suggests that OT shifts attention towards socially relevant stimuli, which offers an explanation for improvements on social cognition measures following OT administration. Pupil dilation occurs with increasing attentional resource allocation and previous research has found that OT administration led to an increase in pupil diameter in response to social stimuli relative to placebo (PL), thereby suggesting increased social attention. The current study aimed to investigate the effects of OT on pupillary responses to more naturalistic social stimuli in a larger sample. Ninety-four male participants took part in the double-blind, placebo controlled, mixed-design study, in which they self-administered either an OT or PL nasal spray before viewing naturalistic dynamic facial expressions of emotion (happy, sad, fear and anger). Contrary to prediction, there was no effect of OT administration on pupil diameter. The results are discussed in light of the social salience hypothesis and with reference to the methodological differences between studies.

Psychopathic individuals show a range of affective processing deficits, typically associated with the interpersonal/affective component of psychopathy. However, previous research has been inconsistent as to whether psychopathy, within both offender and community populations, is associated with deficient autonomic responses to the simple presentation of affective stimuli. Changes in pupil diameter occur in response to emotionally arousing stimuli and can be used as an objective indicator of physiological reactivity to emotion. This study used pupillometry to explore whether psychopathic traits within a community sample were associated with hypo-responsivity to the affective content of stimuli. Pupil activity was recorded for 102 adult (52 female) community participants in response to affective (both negative and positive affect) and affectively neutral stimuli, that included images of scenes, static facial expressions, dynamic facial expressions and sound-clips. Psychopathic traits were measured using the Triarchic Psychopathy Measure. Pupil diameter was larger in response to negative stimuli, but comparable pupil size was demonstrated across pleasant and neutral stimuli. A linear relationship between subjective arousal and pupil diameter was found in response to sound-clips, but was not evident in response to scenes. Contrary to predictions, psychopathy was unrelated to emotional modulation of pupil diameter across all stimuli. The findings were the same when participant gender was considered. This suggests that psychopathy within a community sample is not associated with autonomic hypo-responsivity to affective stimuli, and this effect is discussed in relation to later defensive/appetitive mobilisation deficits.