The current study examines the link between the experience of divorce in childhood and several indices of adjustment in adulthood in a large community sample of women. Results replicated previous research on the long-term correlation between parental divorce and depression and divorce in adulthood. Results further suggested that parental divorce was associated with a wide range of early risk factors, life course patterns, and several indices of adult adjustment. Regression analyses indicated that the long-term correlation between parental divorce and depression in adulthood is explained by quality of parent–child and parental marital relations (in childhood), concurrent levels of stressful life events and social support, and cohabitation. The long-term association between parental divorce and experiencing a divorce in adulthood was partly mediated through quality of parent–child relations, teenage pregnancy, leaving home before 18 years, and educational attainment.

Social phobia is a common psychiatric problem in children and adolescents that has recently gained serious attention in clinical practice and research. This article describes the clinical presentation of social phobia and reviews several emergent areas of related research to social phobia in children and adolescents. We begin with a summary of research regarding the developmental pathways of childhood social anxiety into social phobia, highlighting normative developmental factors, behavioral inhibition, pathophysiology, genetics, and parenting/environmental factors. This is followed by a critical review of findings from studies providing evidence for and against the existence of subtypes of social phobia. Common comorbid disorders and sequelae of social phobia in children and adolescents are discussed, bringing to attention the critical need for effective treatments, the current status of which is reviewed in the final section. In sum, this review demonstrates that through research in multiple disciplines, scientists are now developing a better understanding of the risk and protective factors of social phobia in children and adolescents, ultimately leading to improvements in primary prevention and intervention efforts for children at serious risk for long-term problems with education, employment, social relationships, and independent adult functioning.

The social, behavioural, and school adjustment of 41 9-year-old children in long-term residential group care in Greece was compared with that of children of the same sex and age brought up in two-parent families. Observational, interview, and questionnaire measures were employed. Observations in school classrooms showed that compared with their classmates, the group care children were more inattentive, participated less often in the classroom activities, were more likely to be passive, and tended to be involved in alternative and nonproductive activities. In the playground, they rarely interacted with non-institutional children. On both parent and teacher scales the group care children showed significantly more overall disturbance. The boys showed poor task involvement in the classroom and more emotional difficulties, conduct problems, and hyperactivity, whereas the between-group differences for girls were statistically significant only for emotional disturbance and poor task involvement in the classroom. Both boys and girls in long-term residential care showed less harmonious, confiding relationships with peers than those reared in families, and were more affection-seeking with teachers.

The psychological consequences of trauma on 28 Swedish children were examined 1 year and 3 years after a bus accident in western Norway in 1988. Symptoms were assessed by the Impact of Event Scale (IES), semi-structured interviews, and a questionnaire developed for this study. At the 1-year follow-up, large proportions of the sample had symptoms of Intrusion and Avoidance (IES) and symptoms of general psychological distress, but no clinically significant symptoms were observed at the 3-year follow-up. Girls and children who experienced loss in the accident were characterised by high levels of Intrusion, whereas passenger trauma and age were unrelated to the outcome. A bidirectional relationship was observed between the mothers' and the children's symptoms over time, whereas the fathers' symptoms were unrelated to the children's symptoms. The clinical implications of the study are that symptoms in all children of traumatised families deserve attention during the first year post-trauma, and that objective risk indicators (age, sex, and types of trauma) do not provide sufficient information to identify children at risk.

In order to find out whether parents and teachers report depressive symptoms in children with self-reported depression and which features are connected with sought psychiatric care, a sample of 5682 prepubertal children was assessed with the Children's Depression Inventory (CDI), the Rutter A2 scale (RA) and Rutter B2 scale (RB). In stepwise regression analysis of parent report, depressed mood, unpopularity, social withdrawal, disobedience, inattentiveness, and stealing were associated with high CDI scores. The items of the teacher report associated with high CDI scores included poor school performance, restlessness, somatic complaints, unresponsiveness, being bullied, and absenteeism from school. Although the parents and teachers readily saw and reported depressive symptoms in children, only for a small minority of children with multiple depressive symptoms had psychiatric care been sought or even considered. The symptoms associated with sought psychiatric care for depressed children were somatic (soiling, asthma) and behavioural (disobedient, restless). The results indicate that a large number of children with multiple depressive symptoms are left without necessary psychiatric assessment and help.

A community sample of 405 adolescents were given the Youth Self-Report Form (YSR) and the Children's Negative Cognitive Errors Questionnaire (CNCEQ). Both regression and group comparison analyses, using the full sample and a subset of extreme scorers, respectively, indicated that internalising problems were specifically associated with the various forms of cognitive distortions assessed, namely, selective abstraction, personalising, overgeneralisation, and catastrophising. Furthermore, they displayed a curvilinear relationship; as the severity of internalising problems increased, the magnitude of cognitive distortions grew positively at a quadratic rate, displaying a U-shaped upward curve. However, in view of the potential measurement bias of CNCEQ toward internalising problems, the conclusion was qualified. Although our results found some specific event/schema-linked cognitive distortions that distinguished internalising from externalising problems, we could not conclude that the latter were free from any other event/schema-linked cognitive distortions that the CNCEQ might have failed to elicit.

Abbreviations: CNCEQ: Children's Negative Cognitive Errors Questionnaire; YSR: Youth Self-Report Form.

The phenotypic and genetic interrelationships underlying ADHD symptomatology assessed by various instruments were examined on a sample of 735 male and 819 female same-sex twin pairs, aged 8 to 16 years, participating in the first phase of the Virginia Twin Study of Adolescent Behavioral Development (VTSABD). Multivariate analyses were applied to parental and teacher ratings from an investigator-based interview, the CAPA, and three questionnaires (the CBCL and the Rutter Parent and Teacher Scales). Results from patterns of intercorrelations and factor analyses of maternal measures suggested that at the phenotypic level, these assessed the same underlying behavioural construct, which differed from other emotional and behavioural constructs. However, genetic analyses showed that in addition to a common factor underlying the expression of ADHD as assessed across the range of measures, additional genetic factors were identified that were method- and rater-specific. The findings suggest that although the investigator-based interview and the behavioural checklists tap similar aspects of ADHD behaviour, there is additional rater-specific variance.

This study examined the effects of a student-mediated conflict resolution program on primary school (junior kindergarten to grade 5) playground aggression. Mediation teams of grade 5 students (approximately age 10) participated in 15 hours of training according to the model developed by Cunningham, Cunningham, and Martorelli (1997). Following baseline observations, mediation was introduced onto the playgrounds of three schools according to a multiple baseline design. Mediators successfully resolved approximately 90% of the playground conflicts in which they intervened. Direct observations suggest that the student mediation program reduced physically aggressive playground behavior by 51% to 65%. These effects were sustained at 1-year follow-up observations. Teacher and mediator satisfaction questionnaires provided strong support for impact, feasibility, and acceptability of this program.

Research on theory of mind began in the context of determining whether chimpanzees are aware that individuals experience cognitive and emotional states. More recently, this research has involved various groups of children and various tasks, including the false belief task. Based almost exclusively on that paradigm, investigators have concluded that although “normal” hearing children develop theory of mind by age 5, children who are autistic or deaf do not do so until much later, perhaps not until their teenage years. The present study explored theory of mind by examining stories told by children who are deaf and hearing (age 9–15 years) for statements ascribing behaviour-relevant states of mind to themselves and others. Both groups produced such attributions, although there were reliable differences between them. Results are discussed in terms of the cognitive abilities assumed to underlie false belief and narrative paradigms and the implications of attributing theory of mind solely on the basis of performance on the false belief task.

Several twin studies of children and adolescents have found significant heritability of depressive symptoms. In contrast, the sole adoption study of biologically related and biologically unrelated adopted siblings found no evidence for genetic influence. The present study attempts to confirm these results in middle childhood using two adoption designs. The sample, from the Colorado Adoption Project, included 180 adopted children (77 with adoptive siblings) and their biological and adoptive mothers, and 227 nonadopted children (93 with biological siblings) and their mothers. Mothers reported their own neuroticism, and children's depressive symptoms were reported by the parents and by the children themselves. For both the sibling adoption and the parent-offspring designs heritability was negligible, shared environment modest, and nonshared environment substantial, irrespective of child gender. Although the power of the sibling data is low, the combined findings from the two designs suggest that genetic effects on depressive symptoms in childhood may be somewhat smaller than previously estimated in twin studies.

Boys with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD, N=50), Specific Learning Disorder (LD, N=45), combined Specific Learning Disorder and ADHD (LD/ADHD, N=25), and controls (N=51) completed effortful and automatic information processing tasks based on Treisman and Gelade's (1980) “information integration theory”. ADHD and LD/ADHD subjects did not differ from controls at baseline or under feedback and reward conditions, suggesting that they were investing similar levels of mental effort in the tasks. The LD group had a superior performance in the effortful task and an inferior performance in the automatic task compared with the other groups at baseline. The data suggest a potential method of distinguishing primary LD from learning difficulties that occur secondary to ADHD.

The purpose of the present study was to identify clinically relevant subtypes of aggressive children based on measures of children's self-systems and significant others' perceptions of relationship quality. In a sample of aggressive second- and third-graders, a cluster analysis of these children's perceptions of support and significant others' (mother, teacher, and peers) perceptions of relationship quality revealed one subgroup in which self- and other-ratings were both below the group mean (concordant-negative), one in which both were above the sample mean (concordant-positive), and one in which they were discrepant (high child-report and low other-report). All three clusters were rated as more aggressive than controls. However, children in the discrepant group were rated as considerably more aggressive and delinquent than those in the two concordant clusters, who did not differ from each other on measures of internalizing and externalizing behaviors. Results are discussed from an attachment perspective and in terms of the clinical significance of this self–other discrepancy.

The gender self-concept profiles of 128 adolescents (107 males) whose persistent behaviour problems led to suspension from school were investigated. Establishing the students' percentile ratings in the 11 subscales of the Self-Description Questionnaire overcame previous methodological weaknesses. For boys and girls Physical Appearance, Opposite-sex Relationships, and Honesty and Trustworthiness were in the average range, but Parent Relationships, General Self, and General School self-concepts were low. Only girls were low for Same-sex Relationships and Emotional Stability. The profiles suggest that boys' antisocial behaviours are associated with striving for a masculine self-image, but girls' antisocial behaviours are associated with greater social marginalisation. The issues of multi-focused interventions, prosocial role models, the particular needs of girls, and the relationship between self-control, self-enhancement, and reputation enhancement theories are discussed.

This paper reviews the management of schizophrenia occurring during childhood and adolescence. It considers the clinical features of the disorder particular to its early onset before providing a practical framework for assessment and treatment based upon a critical review of the available literature. A multi-modal approach to treatment encompassing the individual and their family is adopted with the roles of pharmacological, psychological, and environmental interventions all considered. The place of the newer “atypical” antipsychotic agents and the likelihood that they will soon become the first-line drugs of choice is particularly discussed.

Forty-two (42) children (mean age 10.6 years) from mainstream public (N=22) and therapeutic schools (N=20) completed performance tasks assessing executive and motivational influences on motor responses. In a separate protocol, children underwent physiologic challenges of paced breathing and supine to standing postural change, while heart rate was continuously monitored.

Executive control was associated with vagal modulation of respiratory driven, high-frequency heart-rate variability (t=2.20, p<.03), whereas motivational control was associated with sympathetic modulation of posturally driven, low-frequency heart-rate variability (t=−2.22, p<.03). These findings supported a two-factor solution of inhibitory control derived in a previous study.

Recent research with adults by Pennebaker and his colleagues has found that emotional disclosure through writing about stressful events appears to have significant benefits in terms of psychological and physical health outcomes. This report describes a controlled trial of emotional disclosure, adapted for school children, with the major hypothesis that the repeated description of negative events will have beneficial effects on measures of mental health, attendance, and school performance. The sample consisted of children aged 8–13 years from four schools, a primary and a secondary school both from a suburban and an inner-city area. Children were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: writing about negative events, writing about nonemotional events, and a non-writing control group. Children in all groups were seen four times during a single week and were then followed up after 2 months with measures of health and school performance. The intervention was well received by both schools and children, and the scripts written by the emotional and nonemotional writing groups differed in content in the predicted ways. Contrary to expectation, there was little evidence of a specific effect of emotional disclosure, and several possible reasons for this are discussed. Nevertheless, there was a general reduction in symptom measures, indicating that children may have benefited from their involvement in the study. Although there are several possible explanations for our findings, they indicate that it is both feasible and potentially valuable to give children opportunities to engage in discussion about sources of stress and their reactions to them.

The developmental sequelae of infant failure to thrive (FTT) were examined in an unreferred group of 6-year-olds with a history of severe nonorganic growth retardation, sampled from a 1-year birth cohort in an inner-city area of South London. Children who failed to thrive in infancy (weight below the third centile for at least 3 months) and their pairwise matched comparisons were originally studied at 15 months, and 42 cases and 42 controls (89.5% of the sample) were followed up. At 6 years, previously growth-retarded children were considerably smaller than matched comparisons, in terms of body mass index (BMI), and height and weight for age z scores. History of FTT explained substantial variance in weight and BMI at 6 years, with maternal height also contributing to variation in height for age. Child cognitive functioning at 6 years was examined using the McCarthy Scales: cases had more limited quantitative and memory skills than comparisons, but there was no intergroup variation in general cognitive performance. In contrast to analyses of physical development, failure to thrive did not account for cognitive functioning; maternal IQ was the sole significant predictor of performance on all indices of child cognitive abilities. At 15 months, earlier growth faltering was linked to limitations in mental development, but these findings were not confirmed by the follow-up data: the timing of FTT was not related to cognitive abilities at 6 years. Results correspond to past research indicating that nonorganic failure to thrive is associated with persistent limitations in physical stature. There was little evidence of cognitive disadvantage for case group children at school age, suggesting that the adverse effects of early malnutrition on cognitive functioning appear to diminish over time.

The purpose of the current study was to build on the emerging effort to produce a meaningful typology of child behavior for school-aged children. The Behavior Assessment System for Children (BASC) Parent Rating Scales for Children (PRS-C) norming data were collected for 2029 6- to 11-year-old children at 116 sites representing various regions of the United States. The PRS-C has 130 items that are rated by the parent on a 4-point scale of frequency, ranging from “never” to “almost always”. The Ward method of cluster analysis was used to identify the initial centroids or cluster seeds in this norming sample. An iterative clustering method, a K-means procedure, was used to refine the Ward cluster solution. A nine-cluster solution was selected based on both rational and empirical considerations. The resulting clusters were labeled adapted, physical complaints/worry, average, well-adapted, minimal problems, attention problems, internalizing, general psychopathology-severe, and disruptive behavior problems. The nine-cluster solution is similar to those of Achenbach (1991), Thompson, Kronenberger, and Curry (1989), and other researchers. At the same time, some significant differences exist. The resulting typology points the way toward future cluster studies of child psychopathology and normal behavioral development by delineating additional research and theoretical directions.

The aim of this longitudinal sibling adoption study was to estimate genetic and environmental components of variance in parent- and child-reported measures of the family environment (parental negative affect, negative control, and achievement orientation). Participants included 85 adoptive and 106 nonadoptive sibling pairs from the Colorado Adoption Project. Parents and children completed annual assessments of the family environment when the children were 10, 11, and 12 years old, and genetic and environmental parameter estimates were derived. Genetic influences were found for parent-reported negativity and warmth and child-reported achievement orientation, suggesting child genetic effects on these measures of the family environment. Shared environmental influences were found for parent-reported negativity, inconsistent discipline, warmth, and child-reported positivity. Nonshared environmental variance was substantial for children's ratings, but modest for parents' ratings.

The twin study literature contains inconsistencies regarding both the estimates of genetic, shared, and nonshared environmental influence on delinquency and sex differences in the etiological influences on delinquency. Additionally, little is known about assortative mating and cultural transmission effects on delinquency. The present study was aimed at examining the etiology of delinquency in adolescence and examining assortative mating and transmission effects. To this end, we applied the social homogamy structural equation model to self-reported delinquency data from 486 families with 17-year-old male and female twins. We expected stronger shared environmental influences on delinquency among girls than boys and stronger environmental than genetic effects on adolescent delinquency in general. The results indicated nonsignificant sex differences in the estimates of genetic and environmental influences on delinquency. The best-fitting model suggested that 18%, 56%, and 26% of the variance in delinquency among both boys and girls is associated with additive genetic, nonshared environmental, and shared environmental factors, respectively. This finding was consistent with our expectation that environmental factors play an important role in adolescent delinquency. Parental cultural effects accounted for a small part of the transmission of delinquency within families while assortative mating was, in part, accounted for by cultural and social background factors. Future work should focus on identifying important environmental factors related to delinquency.