journal article
LitStream Collection
Home
doi: 10.1111/1469-7610.00046pmid: 12120853
Background: Questions remain concerning the `effects' of parenting on behavioural/emotional problems in children. This annotation discusses recent findings concerning the parenting `effects' literature and identifies areas in need of further research. Method: The review begins by examining theories and definitions of parenting, and then considers research findings on the predictors of parent–child relationships and their effects on behavioural/emotional adjustment in children. Evidence for causal processes are then examined in light of findings emphasizing the need to consider the impact of larger systems on child's well‐being, bi‐directional processes in parent–child interactions, and alternative hypotheses suggested by behavioural genetics. Results: Different kinds of evidence suggest strong links between parent–child relationship quality and children's well‐being, but difficulties remain for drawing causal connections. The need for greater integration among research traditions and the need for theory development are highlighted. In addition, although a substantial and robust research base exists on parent–child relationships, the applicability of these findings to clinical settings is uncertain. Conclusions: Substantial progress has been made in our understanding of the nature of parent–child relationships and their developmental effects, but a number of basic conceptual and methodological and clinical questions continue to need rigorous study.
Cottrell, David; Boston, Paula
doi: 10.1111/1469-7610.00047pmid: 12120854
Background: Systemic family therapy has become a widely used intervention in child and adolescent mental health services over the last twenty years. Methods: This paper reviews the development of systemic family therapy, briefly describes the theory and techniques associated with the most prominent contemporary strands of systemic practice, and examines the empirical justification for using systemic family therapies with children and adolescents. Results: There is a paucity of well‐designed randomised controlled trials of systemic therapies with children and adolescents and those trials that do exist evaluate older structural and strategic therapies. Methodological limitations of existing research include the use of unrepresentative participants, small sample sizes and wide age ranges. There is a lack of credible no‐treatment or alternative treatment controls, tests of clinical as opposed to statistical significance, and conceptually relevant outcome measures that examine underlying interactional mechanisms. The term `family therapy' encompasses a wide range of interventions and it is not always clear what treatment intervention has been delivered. Nevertheless, there is good evidence for the effectiveness of systemic family therapies in the treatment of conduct disorders, substance misuse and eating disorders, and some support for their use as second‐line treatments in depression and chronic illness. Conclusions: Systemic family therapy is an effective intervention for children and adolescents but further well‐designed outcome studies are needed using clearly specified, manualised forms of treatment and conceptually relevant outcome measures.
doi: 10.1111/1469-7610.00048pmid: 12120855
Background: High expressed emotion (EE) predicts worse clinical course for a number of disorders. High EE is more frequent in parents of disordered children than normal controls. It is uncertain whether EE and its components are disorder‐specific, whether EE is more closely related to parent characteristics or child characteristics, and whether EE predicts clinical course independently of clinical variables that reflect severity of disorder. EE has not been investigated in adolescent depression. Method: The 57 participants in this study were a sub‐sample of a longitudinal study of the clinical course of depression. Adolescents and parents were recruited from consecutive referrals to all psychiatric outpatient clinics and inpatient units in a geographic catchment area. The association between EE and one‐year clinical outcome of major depressive disorder was tested and associations between EE and characteristics of the adolescent, the parent, and the family were examined. Results: EE was independent of socio‐demographic characteristics, comorbid diagnoses, and parental depression. High EE was associated with worse adolescent social functioning according to either adolescent or parent report. High EE was associated with the presence of more depression symptoms. Low EE predicted major depression remission in participants without comorbid attention‐deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), but this association was not independent of the association between social functioning and depression remission. Conclusions: The findings indicate a need to examine possible protective effects of low EE. Relationships between EE, social functioning, and depression persistence and remission require further examination.
Barrett, Paula; Shortt, Alison; Healy, Lara
doi: 10.1111/1469-7610.00049pmid: 12120856
Background: Limited research has been conducted investigating parent and child behaviour during family interactions in families who have a child with obsessive‐compulsive disorder (OCD). While a number of authors in the field of childhood OCD have suggested possible parent and child behaviours that are characteristic of these families, few studies have attempted to explore these in a methodologically sound approach. Method: This study compared the observed behaviours of parents and children in families whose children were diagnosed with OCD, to families whose children were diagnosed with other anxiety disorders, externalising disorders and no clinical problems. During family discussions, parent and child behaviours and affect were coded using a Likert‐scale system. Family members were rated on behavioural dimensions of control, warmth, doubt, avoidance, confidence, positive problem solving, and rewarding independence. Results: Results indicated that parents and children in the OCD group could be clearly differentiated from families in the other groups based on parent and child behaviour. Mothers and fathers of OCD children were less confident in their child's ability, less rewarding of independence, and less likely to use positive problem solving. Children in the OCD group showed less positive problem solving, less confidence in their ability to solve the problem, and they displayed less warmth during their interactions with their parents. Conclusions: Parents and children in families where there is a child with OCD behave in a different manner during family interactions to other families. These findings offer interesting and important exploratory information relating to observed parent and child behaviour across different clinical and non‐clinical groups. Limitations of this study are addressed and directions for further research are discussed.
Côté, Sylvana; Tremblay, Richard E. ; Nagin, Daniel; Zoccolillo, Mark; Vitaro, Frank
doi: 10.1111/1469-7610.00050pmid: 12120857
Background: The objective of the present study was to describe the development of boys and girls during the elementary‐school years on three dimensions that conceptually and empirically represent risk for maladjustment. Method: Every year between kindergarten and grade six, teachers rated the impulsivity, fearfulness, and helpfulness dimensions among a sample of 1,865 children representative of kindergarten boys and girls in the province of Québec (Canada) in 1986–87. A group‐based trajectory method was used to 1) identify groups of boys and girls following distinct‐level trajectories of behaviours (on each dimension) during the elementary‐school years; 2) estimate the proportion of children in each of the identified trajectory groups; and 3) estimate the patterns of consistency and variations in trajectories. Results: The results indicated that the best models comprised three distinct‐level trajectory groups on fearfulness and helpfulness (a low, moderate, and high group) and four distinct‐level trajectory groups on impulsivity. The helpfulness and fearfulness trajectory groups were generally more stable than the impulsivity groups. The broad patterns of development were similar across sexes. However, there were more boys on the higher impulsivity trajectories and low helpfulness trajectory, while there were more girls on the high fearfulness trajectory. Conclusion: We found that behavioural consistency over middle childhood varied across trajectory groups and across dimensions, and we identified sex differences in the distribution of children in the different trajectory groups that may reflect gender‐specific risks for psychopathology.
Plomin, Robert; Price, Thomas S. ; Eley, Thalia C. ; Dale, Philip S. ; Stevenson, Jim
doi: 10.1111/1469-7610.00051pmid: 12120858
Background: We investigated associations between behaviour problems and verbal and nonverbal cognitive abilities at 2, 3 and 4 years of age both for the entire distribution and for the lowest 5% and 10% of the verbal and nonverbal cognitive disabilities. Methods: A community sample of 4,000 pairs of twins born in England and Wales in 1994 and 1995 was assessed by their parents at 2, 3 and 4 years using the Revised Rutter Parent Scale for Preschool Children (RRPSPC, behaviour problems), the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory (MCDI, verbal development), and the Parent Report of Children's Abilities (PARCA, nonverbal cognitive development). Results: For the entire sample, behaviour problem scores were modestly associated with lower MCDI and PARCA scores – correlations were less than .30. Similarly modest effect sizes were found for relationships between behaviour problem scores and the lowest 5% and 10% of the MCDI and of the PARCA distributions. Associations were stronger for nonverbal than for verbal development, increased from 2 to 3 to 4 years, and, at the extremes of the distributions, were stronger for boys than for girls. Multivariate genetic analyses indicated that both genetic and shared environmental factors mediate the links between behaviour problems and cognitive development both for the total distribution and for the extremes. Genetic links may be stronger for the extremes than for the total sample. Conclusions: We conclude that, in this community sample of young children, associations between behaviour problems and verbal and nonverbal cognitive development are generally modest for the entire distribution and are no greater at the extremes than expected on the basis of the associations for the entire distribution.
Young, Arlene R. ; Beitchman, Joseph H. ; Johnson, Carla; Douglas, Lori; Atkinson, Leslie; Escobar, Michael; Wilson, Beth
doi: 10.1111/1469-7610.00052pmid: 12120859
Background: The long‐term academic consequences of childhood language impairment are both theoretically and clinically important. An unbiased appraisal of these outcomes, however, requires carefully designed, longitudinal research. Method: A group of children first identified as having speech and/or language impairment in a community‐based, longitudinal study at 5 years of age and matched controls were re‐examined during young adulthood (age 19). A comprehensive battery of speech and language, cognitive and achievement tests, psychiatric interviews, and questionnaires were completed by subjects, their parents and teachers. Results: While children with early speech problems showed only a few academic differences from controls in young adulthood, early language impaired (LI) young adults lagged significantly behind controls in all areas of academic achievement, even after controlling for intelligence. Further, rates of learning disabilities (LD) were significantly higher in the LI group than both the controls and community base rates. Concurrent individual difference variables, including phonological awareness, naming speed for digits, non‐verbal IQ, verbal working memory, and executive function, all contributed unique variance to achievement in specific areas. Conclusion: Early LI rather than speech impairment is clearly associated with continued academic difficulties into adulthood. These results speak to the need for intensive, early intervention for LI youngsters.
Ropar, Danielle; Mitchell, Peter
doi: 10.1111/1469-7610.00053pmid: 12120860
Background: Evidence suggests that individuals with autism may not attend to contextual information (conceptual or perceptual) when processing stimuli (Frith 1989; Shah & Frith, 1983). Method: We investigated the role of prior knowledge and perspective cues when judging the shape of a slanted circle in individuals with and without autism. Individuals adjusted a shape on a computer screen to appear the same as a slanted circle. Results: Participants in all groups (autistic, moderate learning difficulties, children aged 9 years and adults) exaggerated circularity. Strikingly, however, individuals with autism were unique in exaggerating circularity significantly far less when perspective cues surrounding the slanted circle were eliminated. Prior knowledge that the shape was a slanted circle provoked a strong exaggeration effect in participants without autism, but not in those with autism. Conclusions: Perhaps classifying the stimulus as a `circle' was sufficient to provoke a strong exaggeration effect in those without (but not with) autism. In this domain, we show that perception in autism may be less influenced by prior knowledge, and therefore less `top‐down'.
Green, Dido; Baird, Gillian; Barnett, Anna L. ; Henderson, Leslie; Huber, Jörg; Henderson, Sheila E.
doi: 10.1111/1469-7610.00054pmid: 12120861
Background: The aims of this study were to measure objectively the extent and severity of motor impairment in children with Asperger's syndrome and to determine whether the motor difficulties experienced by such children differed in any way from those classified as having a Specific Developmental Disorder of Motor Function (SDD‐MF). Criteria derived from ICD 10‐R were used to identify 11 children with Asperger's syndrome and a matched group of 9 children with a Specific Developmental Disorder of Motor Function. Children in both groups were required to have a verbal IQ of 80 or greater on the WISC IIIR. Method: The Autism Diagnostic Interview (Revised; Lord, Rutter, & LeCouteur, 1994) was used to identify features of AS in the first group and to exclude them in the latter. The Movement Assessment Battery for Children (Henderson & Sugden, 1992) provided a standardised test of motor impairment. A Gesture Test based on that by Cermak, Coster, and Drake (1980) was used to assess the child's ability to mime the use of familiar tools and to imitate meaningless sequences of movements. Results: All the children with Asperger's syndrome turned out to meet our criterion for a diagnosis of motor impairment, five of the six most severely motor impaired children in the whole study being from this group. Performance of the Asperger group was also slightly poorer on the Gesture Test. The profile of performance on each test was examined in detail but no evidence of group differences in the pattern of impairment was found. Conclusions: This study is consistent with others suggesting a high prevalence of clumsiness in Asperger's syndrome. Our findings also attest to the widespread prevalence of motor impairment in developmental disorders and the problems such co‐morbidity poses for attempts to posit discrete and functionally coherent impairments underlying distinct syndromes.
Showing 1 to 10 of 15 Articles