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Early-onset disruptive, aggressive, and antisocial behavior is persistent, can become increasingly serious as children grow older, and is difficult to change. In 2007, our group proposed a theoretical model highlighting the interplay between neurobiological deficits and cognitive and emotional functioning as mediators of the link between genetic influences and early social adversity, on the one hand, and antisocial behavioral problems in childhood, on the other. In this article, we review the post-2007 evidence relevant to this model. We discuss research on genetics/epigenetics, stress/arousal regulation, and emotion and executive functioning in support of the argument that antisocial children, especially those who persist in engaging in antisocial behavior as they grow older, have a range of neuropsychological characteristics that are important in explaining individual differences in the severity and persistence of antisocial behavior. Current clinical practice tends not to acknowledge these individual neuropsychological risks factors or to target them for intervention. We argue that aggressive and disruptive behavior in childhood should be regarded as a neurodevelopmental problem and that intervening at the level of mediating neuropsychological processes represents a promising way forward in tackling these serious behavioral problems. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Psychology, Volume 73 is January 2022. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

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.

Impaired emotion recognition is a transdiagnostic risk factor for a range of psychiatric disorders. It has been argued that improving emotion recognition may lead to improvements in behaviour and mental health, but supportive evidence is limited. We assessed emotion recognition and mental health following a brief and targeted computerised emotion recognition training in children referred into an intervention program because of severe family adversity and behavioural problems (n = 62; aged 7–10). While all children continued to receive their usual interventions, only children impaired in emotion recognition (n = 40) received the emotion training. Teachers blind to whether or not children had received the training rated children’s mental health problems before and 6 months after the training. Participants who received the emotion training significantly improved their recognition of negative and neutral facial expressions. Although both groups showed improved behaviour at follow-up, the reduction in behavioural problems was only significant in children who received the emotion training. Post-training emotion recognition scores predicted mental health problems 6 months later independently of initial emotion recognition ability and severity of behavioural problems. The results are consistent with the view that targeting emotion recognition can improve longer term functioning in individuals with disruptive behaviour, although further research using fully randomised designs is needed before causal conclusions can be drawn with confidence. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1007/s00787-020-01652-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Impaired empathy has been associated with aggression in children, adolescents and adults, but results have been contradictory for the preschool period. Impaired inhibitory control also increases the risk of aggression, and possibly moderates empathy-aggression associations. The current study investigated whether empathy and inhibitory control are associated with aggression in toddlerhood. Furthermore, we aimed to clarify the role of inhibitory control in empathy and aggression, specifically, whether inhibitory control moderates the association between empathy and aggression. During a laboratory visit at age 30 months (N = 103), maternal reports of physical aggression were obtained and child inhibitory control was examined using a gift delay task. Empathy was examined by obtaining behavioral observations and recording physiological responses (heart rate response and respiratory sinus arrhythmia response) to an empathy-eliciting event (i.e., simulated distress). Reduced inhibitory control was associated with more aggression. Behavioral and physiological indicators of empathy were not associated with aggression. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed an interaction effect of heart rate response to distress simulation with inhibitory control in the prediction of aggression. Post hoc analyses indicated a negative association between heart rate response and aggression when inhibitory control was high, but a positive association was found in toddlers who demonstrated low inhibitory control. These results suggest that children are less aggressive when they have both high levels of empathy and inhibitory control. Therefore, both empathy and inhibition are important targets for interventions aiming to reduce or prevent aggression at a young age.

Research indicates that the misinterpretation of other’s emotions or intentions may lead to antisocial behaviour. This study investigated emotion and intention recognition in children with behavioural problems and examined their relationship and relations with behaviour problem severity. Participants were 7–11 year old children with behavioural problems (n = 93, mean age: 8.78, 82.8% male) who were taking part in an early intervention program and typically developing controls (n = 44, mean age: 9.82, 79.5% male). Participants completed emotion recognition and Theory of Mind tasks. Teachers and parents rated children’s emotional and behavioural problems. Children with behavioural problems showed impaired emotion and intention recognition. Emotion recognition and intention recognition were positively related and inversely associated with behavioural problem severity and, independently of one another, predicted behavioural problems. This study is the first to show that children with behavioural problems are impaired in identifying others’ emotions as well as intentions. These social cognitive processes were found to be related and inversely associated with severity of behavioural problems. This has important implications for intervention and prevention programmes for children with behavioural difficulties. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1007/s10802-019-00594-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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.

Research indicates that low self-esteem and impaired emotion recognition are risk factors for antisocial behaviour (ASB). Self-esteem and emotion recognition are essential for successful social interaction and previous research suggests that self-esteem and emotional intelligence are positively related. However, to our knowledge the relationship between these two risk factors for ASB has not been explored in children with behavioural problems. Thus, this study investigated self-esteem and emotion recognition, their relationship with one another and with behavioural problem severity. Participants were 8–11 year olds with behavioural problems (BP; n = 78) who were taking part in an early intervention program, and typically developing controls (TD; n = 54). Participants completed a self-esteem questionnaire and a computerised emotion recognition task. Teachers and parents rated children’s emotional and behavioural problems. BP participants had significantly lower self-esteem and exhibited an impairment in emotion recognition. Self-esteem and emotion recognition were positively related and inversely associated with behavioural problem severity and they predicted behaviour problems independently of one another. This is the first study to show that self-esteem and emotion recognition are related processes in children with behavioural problems and that both predict behavioural problems. This has important implications for the development of intervention strategies.

Difficulties in facial emotion recognition (FER) are associated with a range of mental health and antisocial presentations in adolescents and adults. Externalising behaviours in children are often one of the earliest signs of risk for the development of such difficulties. This article systematically reviews the evidence (from both group and correlational studies) for whether there is a relationship between FER and externalising behaviours in pre-adolescent children (aged 12 and under), both across and within externalising behaviour domains (hyperactivity, conduct problems, callous-unemotional traits, and aggression). Four electronic databases were searched producing 1,296 articles. Articles were included if they used validated measures of FER and externalising behaviours. Sixteen articles met criteria for inclusion in the review. Overall, the results suggested FER problems are present in ADHD, CP and callous-unemotional presentations, and in samples of children with higher levels of externalising problems rather than in community samples. However, there was no consistent evidence for specific emotions being implicated in the studies reviewed. Clinically, the findings suggest that FER difficulties are commonly associated with externalising behaviours, and hence this review offers some support that FER deficits could be a relevant target of intervention for externalising behaviours. However, more longitudinal studies are required, that control for other variables that might underlie FER difficulties (e.g. IQ or basic Theory of Mind abilities), to inform our knowledge of whether FER difficulties are a causal factor in externalising behaviours.

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.

Parental beliefs, parenting behavior, and precursors of theory of mind have been related uniquely to each other and to early aggression, but have not yet been studied simultaneously. The present study combined these risk factors in the prediction of aggression during toddlerhood using a sample of 152 mother-child dyads. At 20 months, mothers' parental beliefs (parental self-efficacy and perceived parental impact) were examined with the Parental Cognitions and Conduct Toward the Infant Scale. Maternal parenting behavior (sensitivity, intrusiveness, and successful positive engagement) was observed during free play and teaching tasks, and children's precursors of theory of mind were assessed using a visual perspectives task and an imitation task. At 30 months, child aggression was examined using the Child Behavior Checklist. A regression analysis indicated that lower parental self-efficacy and lower imitation skills predicted more aggressive behavior. When estimating the indirect effects using bootstrapping, a final model was found indicating that lower perceived parental impact was related to less successful positive engagement, which, in turn, was associated with children's poorer imitation abilities which predicted more aggressive behavior. It can be concluded that aggression during toddlerhood is predicted significantly by interrelated parental beliefs, parenting behavior, and children's early social cognitive abilities.

Although emotional responses are theorized to be important in the development of empathy, findings regarding the prediction of early empathic behavior by infant behavioral and physiological responses are mixed. This study examined whether behavioral and physiological responses to mild emotional challenge (still face paradigm and car seat task) in 118 infants at age 6 months predicted empathic distress and empathic concern in response to an empathy‐evoking task (i.e, experimenter's distress simulation) at age 20 months. Correlation analyses, corrected for sex and baseline levels of physiological arousal, showed that stronger physiological and behavioral responses to emotional challenge at age 6 months were positively related to observed empathic distress, but not empathic concern, at age 20 months. Linear regression analyses indicated that physiological and behavioral responses to challenge at 6 months independently predicted empathic distress at 20 months, which suggests an important role for both physiological and behavioral emotional responses in empathy development. In addition, curvilinear regression analyses showed quadratic associations between behavioral responses at 6 months, and empathic distress and empathic concern at 20 months, which indicates that moderate levels of behavioral responsivity predict the highest levels of empathic distress and empathic concern.

Childhood disruptive behaviour has been linked to later antisocial and criminal behaviour. Emotion recognition and empathy impairments, thought to be caused by inattention to the eye region, are hypothesised to contribute to antisocial and criminal behaviour. This is the first study to simultaneously examine emotion recognition and empathy impairments, their relationship, and the mechanism behind these impairments, in children with disruptive behaviour. We hypothesised that children with disruptive behaviour would exhibit negative emotion recognition and cognitive and affective empathy impairments, but that these impairments would not be due to reduced attention to the eye region. We expected these emotion impairments to be driven by disruptive behaviour. We also expected a relationship between emotion recognition and cognitive empathy only. Ninety-two children with disruptive behaviour, who were participating in a police crime prevention programme and rated by their schoolteacher using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (DB; mean age 8.8 years, 80% male), took part. There was a comparison group of 58 typically developing children (TD; mean age 9.7 years, 78% male). All children completed emotion recognition and empathy tasks, both with concurrent eye tracking to assess social attention. Not only were DB children significantly impaired in negative emotion and neutral emotion recognition, and in cognitive and affective empathy compared to the TD children, but severity of disruptive behaviour also predicted intensity of emotion impairments. There were no differences in social attention to the eye region. Negative emotion recognition and empathy impairments are already present in an identifiable group of children displaying disruptive behaviour. These findings provide evidence to encourage the use of targeted interventions.

Prenatal risk, temperamental negative affect, and specific cognitive abilities have all individually been identified as predictors of behavior problems during early childhood, but less is known about their interplay in relation to aggression during toddlerhood. This study examined the main and interaction effects of prenatal risk, negative affect, inhibitory control, attention, and vocabulary in the prediction of aggression in 150 children (75 boys). During pregnancy, a cumulative risk index was calculated based on the presence of 10 well-established maternal risk factors, such as prenatal substance use, maternal psychiatric disorder, and financial problems. Negative affect was measured at 6 and 20 months using maternal report. Child cognition was examined at 30 months using laboratory tasks for inhibitory control and attention, and a questionnaire was administered to assess vocabulary. In addition, mothers reported on their children's aggressive behavior at 30 months. Higher prenatal risk and negative affect at 20 months and, to a lesser extent, at 6 months were related to more aggression at 30 months. Poorer inhibitory control and, to a lesser extent, vocabulary at 30 months also predicted higher levels of aggressive behavior. Two-way interaction effects were found for cumulative risk and inhibitory control, negative affect (at 20 months) and inhibitory control, and negative affect (at 6 months) and vocabulary: aggressive behavior was most pronounced when combinations of high prenatal risk, high negative affect, and poor cognition were present. These results suggest that the impact of prenatal risk and child temperament depends in part on child's cognitive development during toddlerhood.

Prenatal risk and a lack of inhibitory control have consistently been related to the development of physical aggression in older children. This study examined whether inhibitory control mediated the relation between prenatal risk and aggression in infants and toddlers. The role of gender in this mediation model was also examined. The sample consisted of 161 mother-child dyads (83 boys). A prenatal cumulative risk score was created from a number of well-established risk factors including maternal psychopathology, substance use, and social and socioeconomic disadvantages. At 12 months, children performed an inhibitory control task. Physical aggression was assessed through maternal reports at 12 and 20 months of age. Results showed that higher prenatal risk was associated with more physical aggression. Inhibitory control mediated this association at both 12 and 20 months: higher prenatal risk was related to lower inhibitory control, which in turn led to higher aggression. At 20 months, gender moderated the mediation effect: the mediating role of inhibitory control was only found for girls. These results suggest that even before 2 years of age, inhibitory control is an important construct involved in the relation between prenatal risk and physical aggression.

Objectives: Previous studies have found that oxytocin (OXT) can improve the recognition of emotional facial expressions; it has been proposed that this effect is mediated by an increase in attention to the eye-region of faces. Nevertheless, evidence in support of this claim is inconsistent, and few studies have directly tested the effect of oxytocin on emotion recognition via altered eye-gaze Methods: In a double-blind, within-subjects, randomized control experiment, 40 healthy male participants received 24 IU intranasal OXT and placebo in two identical experimental sessions separated by a 2-week interval. Visual attention to the eye-region was assessed on both occasions while participants completed a static facial emotion recognition task using medium intensity facial expressions. Results: Although OXT had no effect on emotion recognition accuracy, recognition performance was improved because face processing was faster across emotions under the influence of OXT. This effect was marginally significant (pConclusions: These findings suggest that OXT-induced enhanced facial emotion recognition is not necessarily mediated by an increase in attention to the eye-region of faces, as previously assumed. We discuss several methodological issues which may explain discrepant findings and suggest the effect of OXT on visual attention may differ depending on task requirements. (JINS, 2017, 23, 23–33)

Objective:Emotion recognition is an important aspect of emotion processing, which is needed for appropriate social behavior and normal socialization. Previous studies in adults with antisocial personality disorder or psychopathy, in those convicted of criminal behavior, or in children with conduct disorder show impairments in negative emotion recognition. The present study investigated affective facial and prosody recognition in a sample of children at high risk of developing future criminal behavior.Methods:Participants were 8- to 12-year-old children at high risk of developing criminal behavior (N=219, 83.1% boys) and typically developing controls (N=43, 72.1% boys). The high-risk children were recruited through an ongoing early intervention project of the city of Amsterdam, that focuses on the underage siblings or children of delinquents, and those failing to attend school. Facial and vocal recognition of happy, sad, angry, and fear was measured with the Facial Emotion Recognition (FER) test and the prosody test of the Amsterdam Neuropsychological Tasks (ANT), respectively.Results:The high-risk group was significantly worse in facial affect recognition and had particular problems with fear and sadness recognition. No hostile attribution bias was found. The high-risk group did not differ from controls in affective prosody recognition but needed significantly more time to recognize emotions.Conclusions:The emotion-specific deficits found in forensic and clinical populations are already present in a sample of children at high risk of developing future criminal behavior. These findings help us understand a possible underlying mechanism of antisocial behavior that could provide directions for tailored interventions. (JINS, 2019, 25, 57–64)

We tested the hypothesis that high activity levels in infancy would predict self-regulatory problems and later symptoms of attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in a longitudinal study of British families (N = 321). Infants’ activity levels were assessed at 6 months, using 3 informants’ reports from the Infant Behavior Questionnaire (IBQ) and ActiGraphs during baseline, attention, and restraint tasks. At a mean of 33 months, the children were assessed on self-regulatory tasks; at a mean of 36 months, 3 informants reported symptoms of ADHD. At a mean of 7.0 years, the children were assessed on executive function tasks; 3 informants reported on the child's symptoms of ADHD; and diagnoses of disorder were obtained using the Preschool Age Psychiatric Assessment. Informants’ reports of high activity levels at 6 months predicted ADHD symptoms in early childhood and diagnoses of ADHD with clinical impairment at age 7. The IBQ activity scale was also associated with the children's later performance on self-regulation tasks in early and middle childhood. Activity level in infancy reflects normal variation and is not a sign of psychopathology; however, these findings suggest that further study of the correlates of high activity level in infancy may help identify those children most at risk for disorder.

Conduct disorder (CD) is an important marker of ADHD clinical and cognitive impairment and neurodevelopmental multimorbidity. It is also predictive of poor psychiatric and functional outcomes. Although traditionally considered as a consequence of ADHD, association of ADHD and CD can be explained at multiple levels—in terms of enriched familial/genetic risks, higher levels of psychosocial adversity, a likely different pattern of cognitive and neural correlates that involve emotional processes components, earlier temperamental risk characteristics, and additional neurodevelopmental burden such as language impairments and lower cognitive ability. The presence of CD does not alter current ADHD guideline recommendations on treatment but should be taken into account when making decisions upon the intensity and nature of follow-up.

The concept of maternal reflective functioning (RF) has been gaining increasing interest as a possible intermediate mechanism in associations between a wide range of psychosocial risk factors and poor child outcomes. The purpose of the present study was to determine which psychosocial risk factors are linked to prenatal RF in a high-risk (HR) group of primiparous women. Differences in prenatal RF between the HR group and a low-risk (LR) control group also were examined. The sample consisted of 162 women (M = 22.22 years, SD = 2.39; 83 classified as HR). RF was coded from the Pregnancy Interview (A. Slade, 2007a). Risk status was assessed by means of the Mini-International Neuropsychiatric Interview-plus (M.I.N.I.-plus; D.V. Sheehan et al., 1997) and several questionnaires. HR women demonstrated significantly lower RF quality than did the LR group. Regression analyses indicated that maternal education, size of social support network, and substance use during pregnancy were the strongest predictors of prenatal RF for the HR group. The results suggest that maternal RF potentially could be an important target for those prevention and intervention programs that aim to reduce adverse psychosocial development in offspring of HR mothers.

Callous-unemotional (CU) traits are thought to characterize children exhibiting persistent and severe conduct problems (CPs). Reward and punishment sensitivity have often been investigated, yet executive function problems have mostly been studied in adults. Moreover, the level of co-occurring CPs is important to take into account. Therefore, the current study investigated differences in reward responsivity, punishment sensitivity, and executive functioning (EF) between four subgroups of general community boys ( N = 346, Mage = 14.01 years, SD = 1.19): high CU/high CP, low CU/high CP, high CU/low CP, and low CU/low CP. Boys with high CU/high CP showed significantly more EF problems, but similar reward and punishment sensitivity as low CU/high CP boys. Boys with high CU/low CP did not differ from low CU/low CP boys. Severity of executive function problems appears to distinguish boys who show a combination of CU-traits and CPs from boys with CPs alone.

Oxytocin (OXT) has previously been implicated in a range of prosocial behaviors such as trust and emotion recognition. Nevertheless, recent studies have questioned the evidence for this link. In addition, there has been relatively little conclusive research on the effect of OXT on empathic ability and such studies as there are have not examined the mechanisms through which OXT might affect empathy, or whether OXT selectively facilitates empathy for specific emotions. In the current study, we used eye-tracking to assess attention to socially relevant information while participants viewed dynamic, empathy-inducing video clips, in which protagonists expressed sadness, happiness, pain or fear. In a double-blind, within-subjects, randomized control trial, 40 healthy male participants received 24 IU intranasal OXT or placebo in two identical experimental sessions, separated by a 2-week interval. OXT led to an increase in time spent fixating upon the eye-region of the protagonist's face across emotions. OXT also selectively enhanced self-reported affective empathy for fear, but did not affect cognitive or affective empathy for other emotions. Nevertheless, there was no positive relationship between eye-gaze patterns and affective empathy, suggesting that although OXT influences eye-gaze and may enhance affective empathy for fear, these two systems are independent. Future studies need to further examine the effect of OXT on eye-gaze to fully ascertain whether this can explain the improvements in emotional behavior.

The study examined the relation between reward and punishment sensitivity and antisocial behavior (ASB) in male adolescents. We compared Behavioral Inhibition/Behavioral Activation System (BIS/BAS) Scale scores in adolescent male offenders (n = 85) and non-offenders (n = 50), and explored the relation between BIS/BAS and measures associated with ASB (psychopathy, conduct problems and alcohol use) within the whole group of adolescents, and offending frequency in the offenders. Between group analyses indicated heightened BAS (reward sensitivity; specifically the drive to seek rewards) and lowered BIS (punishment sensitivity) in the offenders compared to the non-offenders. Regression analyses indicated that traits associated with reward seeking (BAS Drive and/or Fun Seeking) positively predicted psychopathic traits, conduct problems and alcohol use. In contrast, response to reward (BAS Reward Responsiveness) was negatively associated with psychopathy and conduct problems. Reduced punishment sensitivity (BIS) was associated with psychopathy only. The findings suggest that BAS reward traits are useful in understanding ASB and emphasize the importance of examining dimensions of reward processing in relation to different aspects of ASB in adolescents.

Aims: The purpose of this research was to test and compare associations between participation in organised activities and indicators of hazardous drinking between young offenders and young non-offenders. Methods: Two groups of 13–18 year-old males were recruited in Cardiff, UK: 93 young offenders and 53 non-offenders from secondary schools matched on estimated IQ, sex and socioeconomic status. Indicators of hazardous drinking were measured using the Fast Alcohol Screening Test (FAST). Organised activity participation and externalising behaviour was measured by the Youth Self Report. The Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence was also administered. Results: Young offenders participated in fewer organised activities and had higher FAST scores than non-offenders. Young offenders and non-offenders significantly differed on mean FAST scores if they participated in no organised activities but not if they participated in at least one team sport. Externalising behaviour problems were unrelated to participation in organised activities. Conclusions: Although young offenders were less likely to have participated in organised activities, for them, participation in a team sport was associated with less hazardous drinking. Vulnerable youths who might benefit most from sporting activities actually access them the least. Future research should identify the different barriers to participation that they face.

BACKGROUND: The developmental taxonomic theory proposes that there are two subtypes of antisocial behaviour. The first is a neurodevelopmental disorder which emerges in early childhood and follows a life-course persistent course, whereas the second emerges in adolescence, remits in early adulthood and reflects peer processes such as mimicry of antisocial peers. The aim of this review was to evaluate the developmental taxonomic theory in the light of recent empirical research.METHODS: We conducted a comprehensive literature review comparing these subtypes of antisocial behaviour based on searches on PubMed and other scientific databases covering the period from 1993 to 2013. We focused on research encompassing psychiatric epidemiology, personality assessment, neuropsychology, neuroendocrinology, genetics, and structural and functional neuroimaging. Sixty one empirical studies were identified that investigated one of these forms of antisocial behaviour separately or explicitly compared childhood-onset and adolescence-onset forms of antisocial behaviour.RESULTS: Empirical research provides support for the hypothesis that life-course persistent antisocial behaviour is a neurodevelopmental disorder which emerges in the transactions between individual vulnerabilities and environmental adversity. In contrast to the developmental taxonomic theory, however, empirical findings suggest that severe antisocial behaviour that emerges in adolescence frequently has a negative prognosis and is rarely limited to the adolescent period. In addition, both forms of antisocial behaviour are associated with emotion processing deficits, changes in brain structure and function, alterations in cortisol secretion, and atypical personality traits (such as increased callous-unemotional traits).CONCLUSIONS: We conclude that the developmental taxonomic theory is in need of revision, as differences between life-course persistent and adolescence-onset forms of antisocial behaviour appear to be quantitative, rather than qualitative, in nature. In addition, evidence is accumulating that adolescence-onset antisocial behaviour may also be a neurodevelopmental disorder. To account for the similarities between these groups, despite the differences in their age-of-onset, we propose that the quality of the child's early environment moderates the relationship between individual vulnerabilities and the age-of-onset of antisocial behaviour.

In a prospective longitudinal study of a representative community sample (N = 264), mothers' references to infants' mental states were coded during a topic-sharing task in the home at 6 months. Joint attention behaviour was assessed in the laboratory at 12 months. Individual joint attention skills (gaze following, gaze alternating, and declarative pointing) were significantly inter-correlated, with a single factor accounting for 68% of the variance. Mothers' references to infants' mental states at 6 months predicted infants' joint attention at 12 months. The association was not explained by sociodemographic characteristics of the family, the mother's mental state, or by the quantity or acoustic properties of her speech. However, variability in pitch of maternal speech was an independent predictor of the infants' later joint attention skills. Taken together, these findings suggest that mothers' infant-directed speech fosters infants' attentive participation in topic-sharing interactions, which in turn provide an important arena in which joint attention skills develop over the first year of life.

BackgroundA deficit in affective rather than cognitive empathy is thought to be central to psychopathic traits. However, empirical evidence for empathy deficits in adolescents with psychopathic traits is limited. We investigated the concurrent and prospective effects of psychopathic traits on affective and cognitive trait empathy in late adolescence.MethodsA community sample of 107 males and 126 females who were approximately 16-year olds at Time 1 participated in four annual waves. Sex-specific classes of adolescents' psychopathic traits were created using Latent Class Analyses. Subsequently, we investigated class differences in level and development of empathy.ResultsFor both sexes, Latent Class Analyses produced two classes: one class with low and one with moderate levels of psychopathic traits. Consistent with our hypothesis, for both sexes, adolescents with moderate levels of psychopathic traits reported lower mean levels of affective empathy than adolescents with low levels of psychopathic traits. In addition, female adolescents with moderate psychopathic traits reported lower mean levels of cognitive empathy. Male adolescents showed a trend in this direction. No differences between classes were found in development of empathy, which increased over years.ConclusionsThis is the first study to show that male and female adolescents with higher levels of psychopathic traits have lower levels of affective empathy not only concurrently but also prospectively over a 3-year period. Females additionally showed a similar pattern on cognitive empathy. In this community sample, developmental results suggest that adolescents with higher levels of psychopathic traits have relative rather than absolute empathy deficits.

Emotion processing difficulties are observed in antisocial individuals exhibiting serious antisocial behavior. This study examined emotion processing in 40 male juvenile offenders (JOs) and 52 male controls by measuring startle reflex responses to aversive sounds during the passive viewing of affective and neutral images. JOs as a group exhibited reduced startle-elicited blinks across all slide categories compared to normal controls. Moreover, within the offender group those with more conduct disorder symptoms and higher levels of psychopathic traits displayed reduced startle amplitudes compared to lower-scoring offenders. The finding that startle magnitudes were inversely related to severity of conduct problems supports a dimensional or continuous approach to understanding externalizing disorders. Reductions in amygdala activity could lead to blunted startle magnitudes. The current findings not only provide further evidence that antisocial children have a general defensive motivational system dysfunction and present with impairments in neural systems that subserve emotion processing, but also show for the first time that those with more severe conduct problems have reduced startle responses compared to those who are less severely affected. The implications of these findings for interventions with JOs are discussed.

Background: Empathy deficits are hypothesized to underlie impairments in social interaction exhibited by those who engage in antisocial behaviour. Social attention is an essential precursor to empathy; however, no studies have yet examined social attention in relation to cognitive and affective empathy in those exhibiting antisocial behaviour. Methods: Participants were 8-12 year-old children at high risk of developing criminal behaviour (N=114, 80.7% boys) and typically developing controls (N=43, 72.1% boys). The high-risk children were recruited through an ongoing early identification and intervention project of the city of Amsterdam, focusing on the underage siblings or children of delinquents and those failing primary school. Video clips with neutral and emotional content (fear, happiness and pain) were shown while heart rate (HR), skin conductance level (SCL) and skin conductance responses (SCRs) were recorded to measure affective empathy. Answers to questions about emotions in the clips were coded to measure cognitive empathy. Eye tracking was used to evaluate visual scanning patterns towards social relevant cues (eyes and face) in the clips. Results: The high-risk group did not differ from the control group in social attention and cognitive empathy, but showed reduced HR to pain and fear, and reduced SCL and SCRs to pain. Conclusions: Children at high risk of developing criminal behaviour show impaired affective empathy but unimpaired social attention and cognitive empathy. The implications for early identification and intervention studies with antisocial children are discussed.

This study examined whether prenatal reflective functioning (RF) was related to mothers’ interactive style across contexts with their 6-month-old infants (M age = 6.02 months, SD = 0.41, 54% boys), and to what extent quality of prenatal RF could account for the influence of accumulated risk on maternal interactive behavior. Accumulated risk was defined as the sum-score of a selection of risk factors that have been associated with sub- optimal infant development. Mother–infant dyads (N = 133) were observed during free play, two teaching tasks, and the Still-Face Paradigm (SFP). Better prenatal RF was asso- ciated with more positive maternal behavior in all settings and less negative behavior dur- ing teaching and SFP reengagement. Accumulated risk and prenatal RF predicted shared variance in maternal interactive behavior (with unique predictive effects observed only for RF on sensitivity during teaching and SFP play, and for accumulated risk on sensitivity and positive engagement during SFP play, and internalizing-helplessness during SFP reen- gagement). Accumulated risk had an indirect effect on maternal sensitivity during teaching and SFP play through prenatal RF. These findings suggest not only that RF may be tar- geted prenatally to improve mother–infant interactions, but also that enhancing RF skills may ameliorate some of the negative consequences from more stable perinatal risk factors that influence parent–child interactions.

Poor fear conditioning is a correlate of violent offending in adults, but there is no evidence concerning juvenile offenders. Our aim was to compare emotional learning in juvenile offenders and controls and establish whether crime rate is related to seriousness of emotional learning problems. To this end, emotional learning was assessed in 42 juvenile offenders by measuring skin conductance responding (SCR) during fear conditioning. Compared to controls, juvenile offenders showed lower conditioned SCRs to visual stimuli associated with a subsequent aversive stimulus and the magnitude of the SCR during fear acquisition was inversely associated with the number of their recorded offences. These findings suggest that juvenile offenders have impairments in the neural systems that subserve emotional learning. The implication is that using punitive measures to control persistent offenders is unlikely to be effective in an identifiable group of juvenile offenders.

This study tested the hypothesis that 12-month-old infants’ use of force against peers is associated with known risk factors for violence. We conducted a prospective longitudinal study, which included laboratory observations of firstborn British infants ( N = 271) during simulated birthday parties. No gender differences in aggressiveness were observed. The infants’ observed aggressiveness was significantly correlated with mothers’ mood disorder during pregnancy and with mothers’ history of conduct problems. Infants’ observed aggressiveness was correlated with parents’ ratings of infants’ anger and aggression, which were also predicted by mothers’ mood disorder and history of conduct problems. Our findings indicate that infants at risk for serious aggression can already be identified when the motor ability to use physical force first enters the human repertoire.

This study examined neurobiological and behavioral stress reactivity in children who had been prenatally exposed to tobacco. Neurobiological stress reactivity was measured using salivary cortisol and alpha-amylase levels at five different time points throughout a stressful neuropsychological test session, which involved a competition against a videotaped opponent. Participants (mean age: 10.6 years, SD 1.3) were 14 prenatally exposed (PE) children, 9 children with disruptive behavior problems (DBD), and 15 normal controls (NC). For cortisol responses, no significant differences between the three groups were observed. Normal controls, however, had significantly higher alpha-amylase levels than PE-children throughout the test session, and their alpha-amylase levels also increased throughout the session, whereas these remained low and stable for PE-children. Alpha-amylase levels and trajectory of PE-children were similar to those observed for DBD-children. PE-children also showed significantly increased behavioral stress reactivity compared to NC-children, and neurobiological and behavioral stress reactivity were inversely related in PE-children, again similar to what was observed for DBD-children. These results support the hypothesis that prenatal smoking may lead to long-lasting neurobiological and behavioral changes in exposed offspring.

The developmental taxonomic theory proposes that neurodevelopmental factors play a critical role in the etiology of early-onset conduct disorder, whereas adolescent-onset conduct disorder arises as a result of social mimicry of deviant peers. Recent studies have challenged this theory by demonstrating that adolescents with both early- and adolescent-onset forms of conduct disorder show impaired emotional learning and abnormal neural activation during facial expression processing. The present study extends this work by investigating brain structure in both subtypes of conduct disorder.Voxel-based morphometry was used to compare gray matter volumes in four regions of interest (amygdala, insula, anterior cingulate, and orbitofrontal cortex) in male adolescents with early-onset (N=36) or adolescent-onset (N=27) conduct disorder and in healthy comparison subjects (N=27). Whole-brain structural analyses were also performed.The combined conduct disorder group displayed gray matter volume reductions in the bilateral amygdala, extending into the insula, relative to healthy comparison subjects. Separate comparisons between healthy subjects and each conduct disorder subgroup revealed lower amygdala volume in both subgroups and reduced right insula volume in the adolescent-onset subgroup. Regression analyses within the conduct disorder subjects alone demonstrated a negative correlation between conduct disorder symptoms and right insula volume.The results demonstrate that gray matter volume reductions in brain regions involved in processing socioemotional stimuli are associated with conduct disorder, regardless of age of onset. Brain structural abnormalities may contribute to the emergence of adolescent-onset as well as early-onset conduct disorder.

Executive functioning (EF) deficits have been implicated in antisocial behavior. EF constitutes a broad selection of functions, and it is yet to be determined what specific aspects of EF are associated with antisocial behavior. This study examines IQ, EF, and related decision-making processes in young males involved with the criminal justice system and their age-matched male controls. The Risky Choice Task (RCT), the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST), and tests taken from the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery (CANTAB) assessing spatial working memory, planning, and set-shifting ability were administered. Young offenders showed lower estimated IQ scores and perseveration of responding, as indicated by performance on the WCST. There were also specific EF impairments, such as problems in working memory and planning (CANTAB). Finally, young offenders showed more risky decision-making than controls did, particularly after a small win. The results on the RCT suggest altered reward mechanisms in young offenders, whereas the findings also support the notion of EF difficulties related to dorsolateral and ventromedial prefrontal cortex functioning. The implications of these findings for interventions with young offenders are discussed.

Background: We examined whether conduct disorder (CD) is associated with deficits in facial expression recognition and, if so, whether these deficits are specific to the early-onset form of CD, which emerges in childhood. The findings could potentially inform the developmental taxonomic theory of antisocial behaviour, which suggests that early-onset and adolescence-limited forms of CD are subject to different aetiological processes. Method: Male adolescents with either early-onset CD (n = 42) or adolescence-onset CD (n = 39), and controls with no history of serious antisocial behaviour and no current psychiatric disorder (n = 40) completed tests of facial expression and facial identity recognition. Dependent measures were: (a) correct recognition of facial expressions of anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise, and (b) the number of correct matches of unfamiliar faces. Results: Relative to controls, recognition of anger, disgust, and happiness in facial expressions was disproportionately impaired in participants with early-onset CD, whereas recognition of fear was impaired in participants with adolescence-onset CD. Participants with CD who were high in psychopathic traits showed impaired fear, sadness, and surprise recognition relative to those low in psychopathic traits. There were no group differences in facial identity recognition. Conclusions: Both CD subtypes were associated with impairments in facial recognition, although these were more marked in the early-onset subgroup. Variation in psychopathic traits appeared to exert an additional influence on the recognition of fear, sadness and surprise. Implications of these data for the developmental taxonomic theory of antisocial behaviour are discussed.

BackgroundChildren with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are thought to be at higher risk of psychopathy. Early biological and social adversity may contribute to this risk.AimsTo examine psychopathy traits in ADHD.MethodIn a sample of children with ADHD who had reached adolescence, total psychopathy and ‘emotional-dysfunction’ scores (e.g. callousness, lack of affect) were assessed using the Hare Psychopathy Checklist–Youth Version.ResultsA total of 156 (79%) eligible families participated. Total psychopathy and emotional-dysfunction scores were elevated in comparison to published UK norms but none scored in the clinical range for psychopathy. Adjusting for associated conduct problems, total psychopathy scores were associated with maternal smoking during pregnancy, emotional-dysfunction scores were associated with birth complications, and neither was associated with family adversity.ConclusionsChildren with ADHD show psychopathy traits but are not ‘psychopaths’. Early adversity, indexed by pre- or perinatal adversity but not family factors, appears to be associated.

Background Previous studies have reported lower basal cortisol levels and reduced cortisol responses to stress in children and adolescents with conduct disorder (CD). It is not known whether these findings are specific to early-onset CD. This study investigated basal and stress-induced cortisol secretion in male participants with early-onset and adolescence-onset forms of CD. Methods Forty-two participants with early-onset CD, 28 with adolescence-onset CD, and 95 control subjects participated in the study. They collected saliva across the day to assess their cortisol awakening response and diurnal rhythm. Subsequently, salivary cortisol was measured before, during, and after a psychosocial stress procedure designed to elicit frustration. Cardiovascular activity and subjective mood states were also assessed during stress exposure. Results There were no group differences in morning cortisol levels or the size of the cortisol awakening response. Basal cortisol levels in the evening and at 11 am during the laboratory visit were higher in both CD subgroups relative to control subjects. In contrast, cortisol and cardiovascular responses to psychosocial stress were reduced in both CD subgroups compared with control subjects. All groups reported similar increases in negative mood states during stress. Conclusions Our findings suggest that group differences in cortisol secretion are most pronounced during stress exposure, when participants with CD show cortisol hyporeactivity compared with control subjects. There was no evidence for reduced basal cortisol secretion in participants with CD, but rather increased secretion at specific time points. The results do not support developmentally sensitive differences in cortisol secretion between CD subtypes.

Childhood-onset antisocial behavior is an important predictor of chronic and serious forms of antisocial behavior in later life. Both biological and social factors are involved in the development of abnormal behavior. We examine the underlying role of stress-response systems in the link between early social adversity and juvenile antisocial behavior, and propose that children with genetically and/or perinatally based neurobiological deficits have problems in activating these systems and therefore experience difficulties in regulating affect and behavior. Underactivity or attenuated reactivity of the stress-response systems may predispose antisocial individuals to seek out stimulation or take risks, and thereby explain deficits in learning and socialization. Further investigations of neurobiological functioning in antisocial children might not only indicate which children are more likely to persist in behaving antisocially but also guide the development of new interventions. Copyright © 2008 Association for Psychological Science.

Contains fulltext : 81906.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Closed access) Testosterone, estradiol, and progesterone levels were measured in the second trimester of pregnancy in maternal serum and amniotic fluid, and related to direct observations of gender-related play behavior in 63 male and 63 female offspring at age 13 months. During a structured play session, sex differences in toy preference were found: boys played more with masculine toys than girls (d = .53) and girls played more with feminine toys than boys (d = .35). Normal within-sex variation in prenatal testosterone and estradiol levels was not significantly related to preference for masculine or feminine toys. For progesterone, an unexpected significant positive relationship was found in boys between the level in amniotic fluid and masculine toy preference. The mechanism explaining this relationship is presently not clear, and the finding may be a spurious one. The results of this study may indicate that a hormonal basis for the development of sex-typed toy preferences may manifest itself only after toddlerhood. It may also be that the effect size of this relationship is so small that it should be investigated with more sensitive measures or in larger populations.

Patterns of low hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) activity have been observed in antisocial groups. As conflicting results have been reported in children and adolescents, the aim of this study was to further investigate HPA activity in antisocial behavior by studying the relationship between the diurnal cortisol cycle, as well as the cortisol awakening response (CAR), and antisocial behavior in male adolescents. The diurnal cortisol cycle and the CAR during the first hour after awakening were compared between 12- to 14-year-old boys who attended a delinquency diversion program (DP), with and without a disruptive behavior disorder (DBD) (respectively DP+; n=24 and DP-; n=65), and matched normal controls (NC; n=32). The DP+ group, but not the DP- group, showed a significantly slower decrease of cortisol during the diurnal cycle than the NC group. Furthermore, the DP+ group had significantly lower cortisol levels in the first hour after awakening as compared with the NC group. The results indicate altered HPA activity in delinquent boys with a DBD. Etiological mechanisms, directions for future research, and clinical implications are discussed.

Children with persistent antisocial and aggressive behavior are diagnosed as having disruptive behavior disorder. The authors review evidence that antisocial children, and especially those who persist with this behavior as they grow older, have a range of neurobiological characteristics. It is argued that serotonergic functioning and stress-regulating mechanisms are important in explaining individual differences in antisocial behavior. Moreover, low fear of punishment and physiological underactivity may predispose antisocial individuals to seek out stimulation or take risks and may help to explain poor conditioning and socialization. The authors propose a theoretical model highlighting the interplay between neurobiological deficits and cognitive and emotional functioning as mediators of the link between early adversity and antisocial behavior problems in childhood. Implications for intervention programs are discussed.

Antisocial behavior that begins in childhood predicts chronic and serious antisocial behavior in adulthood. Antisocial children are impaired in how they perceive, experience, and regulate emotion, particularly fear and sadness, and the neurobiological systems that process aversive emotional information, particularly the stress response systems in the paralimbic system, are compromised. As a result, children may have a difficult temperament, impaired cognitive abilities, or different levels of emotional reactivity. These characteristics, in turn, increase the risk that children have poor social relationships and make decisions that increase the likelihood that their antisocial behavior becomes stable and pervasive. In this article, I clarify the role of emotion impairments in children's antisocial behavior. I also argue that investigating these emotional functions can help identify which children are more likely to persist in behaving antisocially and guide the development of new interventions.

Objective: Patterns of low autonomic arousal have consistently been related to delinquency and disruptive behavior disorders (DBD) in children and adolescents. Findings on another stress regulating mechanism, the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis, have been inconsistent, which may partly be due to not considering specific stress reactivity measures. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to investigate the relationship between disruptive behavior in male adolescents and their HPA and autonomic reactivity to a standard public speaking task (PST). Method: Responsivity to the PST of cortisol, heart rate (HR), skin conductance level (SCL) and self-reported negative feelings was measured, and compared between 12and14-year-old boys who attended a delinquency diversion program (DP), with and without DBD (DP+, n=22 and DP-, n=49, resectively), and matched normal controls (NC, n=30). DBD diagnoses were based on a structured psychiatric interview. Results: The DP+ group, but not the DP- group, showed a significantly decreased cortisol and HR response during the PST as compared with the NC group. No significant effects were found for SCL. All subjects connoted the task negatively. Conclusions: The results indicate that low cortisol and HR responsivity to stress may be a neurobiological marker for delinquent boys with DBD, but not for those without DBD. Directions for future research and clinical implications are discussed.

Background: Differential responses in terms of gender and antisocial behaviour in emotional reactivity to affective pictures using the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) have been demonstrated in adult and adolescent samples. Moreover, a quadratic relationship between the arousal (intensity) and valence (degree of unpleasantness) has been suggested. The picture perception methodology has rarely been applied to middle school-aged children. We examined the subjective ratings of emotional reactivity in children for: i) the relationship between arousal and valence, ii) gender differences, and iii) its association with measures of antisocial behaviour. Method: Twenty-seven IAPS pictures were selected to cover a wide range of affective content and were individually administered to a non-referred community sample of 659 7–11-year-old children using a paper-and-pencil version. Concurrent symptoms of conduct disorder, oppositional defiance and psychopathy were collected from multiple sources (teacher-, parent- and self-report). Results: A quadratic relationship between arousal and valence, similar to that previously reported in adults, was demonstrated. A gender difference was found for valence ratings, with girls rating aversive pictures more unpleasant than boys. No gender differences for arousal ratings were found. A significant difference was found between groups scoring above and below cut-off scores on measures of antisocial behaviour. Children above cut-off reported lower arousal to unpleasant pictures, but higher arousal to pleasant pictures. Conclusions: We confirmed that a paper-and-pencil version of the IAPS for evaluating emotion response to affectively valent and arousing stimuli can be used in school settings and that comparable gender differences in emotional reactivity can be found in children. The differential emotional reactivity of children above cut-off on measures of antisocial behaviour suggested these symptoms to be associated with a combination of increased reward and decreased punishment sensitivity.

Background Evidence suggests that reactive and proactive aggression can be distinguished on the basis of teacher-rating scales. In this article a newly developed parent-rated questionnaire that aims to distinguish between reactive and proactive aggression is evaluated with regard to its structure and validity. Method In study 1, a confirmatory factor analysis was performed on the data of 442 children aged 6–12 years of a general population. Study 2 examined the relations between the two forms of aggression and hostile intentions, expected outcome of aggression, ADHD symptoms and callous-unemotional traits in a sample of 40 normal and 40 disruptive behaviour disordered boys aged 8–12 years. Results The confirmatory factor analysis showed that the two-factor model, unlike a singlefactor model, produced a reasonable fit to the data. The results of study 2 showed that the correlations between the different variables and reactive aggression differed from the correlations with proactive aggression in ways that were consistent with theoretical definitions and earlier findings. Conclusion These results, in addition to those of earlier studies using teacher-rating scales, suggest that it is possible to make a valid distinction between reactive and proactive aggression using this newly developed parent-rated questionnaire.

Objective Basal cortisol and cortisol stress responsivity are valuable biological characteristics of children with disruptive behavior disorder (DBD). In this study, the predictive value of cortisol to outcome of intervention was investigated. Method Basal cortisol levels and cortisol levels under stress were studied in 22 children with DBD before the start of a psychotherapeutic treatment. The disruptive behavior of the child was assessed before treatment and after cessation (9 months later). Results Children with DBD with relatively high and low basal cortisol levels differed in the severity of problem behavior at pretreatment, with the low basal cortisol group having more severe problems. During stress, children with DBD showed either increasing or decreasing cortisol values. Although these cortisol responsivity groups were similar in the severity of behavioral problems at pretreatment, the behavioral problems of the group with high cortisol stress responsivity were significantly lower after the intervention than the behavioral problems of the group with low cortisol stress responsivity. Conclusions In children with DBD, the basal cortisol level was related to the severity of behavioral problems at pretreatment but not to the severity of behavioral problems after treatment. The cortisol response pattern during stress was related to treatment outcome.

Background: Patterns of low heart rate, skin conductance and cortisol seem to characterise children with disruptive behaviour disorder (DBD). Until now, the startle paradigm has not been used in DBD children. We investigated whether DBD children, like adult psychopaths, process emotional stimuli in an abnormal way. Method: Twenty-one DBD and 33 normal control children viewed a series of 27 positive, neutral and negative slides. Startle probes were presented unpredictably during slide presentations and eye blink reflexes were measured. Results: DBD and control children showed a similar linear relationship between slide valence and startle magnitude, but the startle-elicited blinks of the DBD children were significantly lower for all categories of slides. Moreover, the more delinquent the DBD children were, the lower their startle responses during unpleasant states. Conclusions: The results suggest a deficit in neurophysiological fear modulation. The implications of the findings for the fearlessness theory of antisocial behaviour are discussed.