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The impact of COVID-19 stressors on young children and families may differ based on pre-pandemic factors, including family race/ethnicity, financial stability, and pre-existing child developmental or social-emotional difficulties. The authors draw from their work with families with toddlers and preschool-aged children to explore experiences of the pandemic on families and how perceived stress has changed over time. They also demonstrate unique experiences of families by examining the impact of COVID-related stress across race. Addressing areas where additional supports are likely needed to support families with young children is a focus. [This article was co-written by the Michigan Collaborative for Infant Mental Health Research, University of Michigan.]

Background Home visiting programs are effective in improving maternal-child health, and higher therapeutic alliance is associated with improved program retention and outcomes. Black, single, low-income mothers have a higher risk for poorer health outcomes in pregnancy and postpartum and for early termination of therapeutic services. Objective To examine associations between clinician and client alliance and social, economic, and racial demographics. Methods Mothers (N = 71) who were pregnant or had an infant (age < 24 m) receiving Infant Mental Health (IMH) services through community health service agencies and their clinicians (N = 50) completed the Scale to Assess Therapeutic Relationships (clinicians: STAR-C, clients: STAR-P) at 3-, 6-, 9-, and 12 months, and provided demographic information. Results Survival analysis showed those with higher alliance ratings, both client and clinician ratings, at the 3-month time-point were more likely to remain in treatment longer (for clients est = -1.67, p = .0017; for clinician est = -.75, p = .031). Controlling for clinician experience and frequency of reflective supervision, Black clinicians had higher alliance ratings than white clinicians, (b = 3.1 (1.6), p = .049). Neither clinician-client racial match nor client marital status predicted alliance. Black clinicians' ratings of alliance did not vary by client race, but white clinicians reported weaker alliance with their Black, relative to white, clients ([beta] = .40, p = .045). Conclusions Weaker alliance reported by white clinicians with Black clients, coupled with a lack of client-race related differences for Black clinicians, suggests white clinician racial bias may be important to consider in regards to program retention and health disparities., Author(s): Chioma Torres [sup.1] , Katherine L. Rosenblum [sup.2] [sup.4] , Jennifer M. Jester [sup.2] , Megan M. Julian [sup.2] , Larissa N. Niec [sup.3] , Maria Muzik [sup.2] [sup.4] [...]

Maternal oxytocin is connected to aspects of parenting including sensitivity, warmth, positive affect, and affectionate touch. Oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) polymorphisms are associated with circulating oxytocin levels, altered brain activity, and parenting behaviors. This study aimed to replicate prior work on OXTRsingle-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) rs1042778 and rs53576 in relation to maternal sensitivity, explore associations with other aspects of parenting (i.e., negative parenting), evaluate observational and self-report measures of parenting in relation to OXTR SNPs, and examine whether childhood trauma exposure moderates the relation between OXTR SNPs and parenting. Mothers (N = 100) were observed during 2 teaching interaction tasks with their 7-month-old infant, completed questionnaire and interview measures related to parenting and trauma history, and provided saliva specimens to derive OXTRgenotypes. Mothers with OXTR rs1042778 TT genotypes demonstrated lower behavioral sensitivity, lower engagement, higher intrusiveness, and more frequent frightened/frightening behavior than mothers with TG or GG genotypes. Genotype interacted with childhood trauma history such that mothers who had experienced childhood trauma were more likely to demonstrate frightened/frightening behavior if they had the TT genotype on rs1042778 relative to the TG or GG genotype; however, small cell sizes for this interaction suggest replication is warranted. Contrary to expectations, mothers with the TT genotype on rs1042778 self-reported that they had less impaired bonding than mothers with TG or GG genotypes. Results are discussed with respect to prior work with oxytocin in lower versus higher risk samples, and the potential role of mothers' self-awareness in explaining discrepancies between results from observational versus self-report measures of parenting.

One of the major questions of human development is how early experience impacts the course of development years later. Children adopted from institutional care experience varying levels of deprivation in their early life followed by qualitatively better care in an adoptive home, providing a unique opportunity to study the lasting effects of early deprivation and its timing. The effects of age at adoption from institutional care are discussed for multiple domains of social and behavioral development within the context of several prominent developmental hypotheses about the effects of early deprivation (cumulative effects, experience-expectant developmental programming, and experience-adaptive developmental programming). Age at adoption effects are detected in a majority of studies, particularly when children experienced global deprivation and were assessed in adolescence. For most outcomes, institutionalization beyond a certain age is associated with a step-like increase in risk for lasting social and behavioral problems, with the step occurring at an earlier age for children who experienced more severe levels of deprivation. Findings are discussed in terms of their concordance and discordance with our current hypotheses, and speculative explanations for the findings are offered.

The impact of COVID-19 stressors on young children and families may difer based on pre-pandemic factors, including family race/ethnicity, financial stability, and pre-existing child developmental or social--emotional difficulties. The authors draw from their work with families with toddlers and preschool-aged children to explore experiences of the pandemic on families and how perceived stress has changed over time. They also demonstrate unique experiences of families by examining the impact of COVID-related stress across race. Addressing areas where additional supports are likely needed to support families with young children is a focus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study is a post-adoption follow-up of social–emotional interventions in St. Petersburg, Russian Federation Baby Homes (BHs). Children previously resided in BHs and received Care as Usual (CAU, N = 220), Training Only (TO, N = 94), or Training plus Structural Changes (T + SC, N = 45). This study examined intervention effects 0–6.5 years post-adoption to the United States, at age 9 months to 7 years old. Adoptive parents completed questionnaires on their child's social and behavioral development. Intervention graduates had better attachment security, less indiscriminate friendliness, and fewer behavior problems than CAU graduates. Children who had longer exposure to intervention conditions had better attachment security, but poorer executive function, externalizing and internalizing problems, and competence. Thus, although postinstitutionalized children were generally functioning in the normal range in early childhood and effect sizes were small, a social–emotional intervention in institutions is associated with modest benefits to attachment and behavior problems and apparent decrements to executive function. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We review a series of interrelated studies on the development of children residing in institutions (i.e., orphanages) in the Russian Federation or placed with families in the USA and the Russian Federation. These studies rely on a single population, and many potential parameters that typically vary in the literature are similar across studies. The conceptual focus is on the role of early caregiver-child interactions and environmental factors that influence those interactions in children's development. Generally, children residing in institutions that provided minimal caregiver-child interactions displayed delayed physical, cognitive, and social-emotional development. Children and adolescents adopted from such institutions at 18 months of age or older had higher rates of behavioral and executive function problems, even many years after adoption. An intervention that improved the institutional environment by increasing the quality of caregiver-child interactions-without changes in nutrition, medical care, sanitation, and safety-led to substantial increases in the physical, cognitive, and social-emotional development of resident children with and without disabilities. Follow-up studies of children in this intervention who were subsequently placed with USA and Russian families revealed some longer-term benefits of the intervention. Implications are discussed for theoretical understanding of the role of early caregiver-child interactions in development as well as for practice and policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study assessed social skills in post-institutionalized (PI) children with respect to age at adoption, age at assessment, and gender. Parent ratings of social skills (Social Skills Rating System) and behavior problems (Child Behavior Checklist) were obtained for 214 children and 127 adolescents who were adopted from socially-emotionally depriving Russian institutions. Results showed that children adopted before 18 months of age have better social skills than those adopted after this age; those assessed in childhood demonstrate better social skills than those assessed in adolescence. PI females, especially later-adopted adolescents, have particularly poor social skills. Children with poor social skills tend to have higher rates of behavior problems. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]