Risky decision-making in children with and without ADHD: A prospective study

Learning from past decisions can enhance successful decision-making. It is unclear whether difficulties in learning from experience may contribute to risky decision-making, which may be altered among individuals with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). This study follows 192 children with and without ADHD aged 5 to 10 years for approximately 2.5 years and examines their risky decision-making using the Balloon Emotional Learning Task (BELT), a computerized assessment of sequential risky decision-making in which participants pump up a series of virtual balloons for points. The BELT contains three task conditions: one with a variable explosion point, one with a stable and early explosion point, and one with a stable and late explosion point. These conditions may be learned via experience on the task. Contrary to expectations, ADHD status was not found to be related to greater risk-taking on the BELT, and among younger children ADHD status is in fact associated with reduced risk-taking. In addition, the typically-developing children without ADHD showed significant learning-related gains on both stable task conditions. However, the children with ADHD demonstrated learning on the condition with a stable and early explosion point, but not on the condition with the stable and late explosion point, in which more pumps are required before learning when the balloon will explode. Learning during decision-making may be more difficult for children with ADHD. Because adapting to changing environmental demands requires the use of feedback to guide future behavior, negative outcomes associated with childhood ADHD may partially reflect difficulties in learning from experience.     

Interpretation bias in preschool children at risk for anxiety: a prospective study

A story-stem paradigm was used to assess interpretation bias in preschool children. Data were available for 131 children. Interpretation bias, behavioral inhibition (BI), and anxiety were assessed when children were aged between 3 years 2 months and 4 years 5 months. Anxiety was subsequently assessed 12 months, 2 years, and 5 years later. A significant difference in interpretation bias was found between participants who met criteria for an anxiety diagnosis at baseline, with clinically anxious participants more likely to complete the ambiguous story-stems in a threat-related way. Threat interpretations significantly predicted anxiety symptoms at 12-month follow-up, after controlling for baseline symptoms, but did not predict anxiety symptoms or diagnoses at either 2-year or 5-year follow-up. There was little evidence for a relationship between BI and interpretation bias. Overall, the pattern of results was not consistent with the hypothesis that interpretation bias plays a role in the development of anxiety. Instead, some evidence for a role in the maintenance of anxiety over relatively short periods of time was found. The use of a story-stem methodology to assess interpretation bias in young children is discussed along with the theoretical and clinical implications of the findings.     

The development of prosocial behaviors in young children: a prospective population-based cohort study

Researchers know relatively little about the normative development of children's behaviors aimed at alleviating distress or discomfort in others. In this article, the authors aim to describe the continuity and discontinuity in the degree to which young children in the general population are reported to exhibit specific prosocial behaviors. Data came from the Québec Longitudinal Study of Child Development. Consistent with Hay's model of prosocial development, the results show that there were about as many children who stopped exhibiting prosocial behaviors between 29 and 41 months of age as there were children who started doing so during this period. Further, gender differences (girls > boys) in prosocial behaviors are either emerging or at least increasing in magnitude, with girls being more likely to start and boys being more likely to stop exhibiting these behaviors between 29 and 41 months of age. Consistent with the early-onset hypothesis, children who exhibit prosocial behaviors at 17 months of age are less likely to stop exhibiting the same behaviors between 29 and 41 months of age. Otherwise, if they did not exhibit prosocial behaviors at 29 months of age, they are also more likely to start doing so in the following year.     

Cognitive predictors of posttraumatic stress disorder in children: results of a prospective longitudinal study

The present study explored whether cognitive factors specified in the Ehlers and Clark model (Behav. Res. Ther. 38 (2000) 319) of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) predict chronic PTSD in children who had experienced a road traffic accident. Children were assessed at 2 weeks, 3 months, and 6 months after the accident. Data-driven processing during the accident, negative interpretation of intrusive memories, alienation from other people, anger, rumination, thought suppression and persistent dissociation at initial assessment predicted PTSD symptom severity at 3 and 6 months. On the basis of sex and stressor severity variables, 14% of the variance of PTSD symptoms at 6 months could be explained. The accuracy of the prediction increased to 49% or 53% when the cognitive variables measured at initial assessment or 3 months, respectively, were taken into account.     

Effect of speech task on intelligibility in dysarthria: a case study of Parkinson's disease

This study assessed intelligibility in a dysarthric patient with Parkinson's disease (PD) across five speech production tasks: spontaneous speech, repetition, reading, repeated singing, and spontaneous singing, using the same phrases for all but spontaneous singing. The results show that this speaker was significantly less intelligible when speaking spontaneously than in the other tasks. Acoustic analysis suggested that relative intensity and word duration were not independently linked to intelligibility, but dysfluencies (from perceptual analysis) and articulatory/resonance patterns (from acoustic records) were related to intelligibility in predictable ways. These data indicate that speech production task may be an important variable to consider during the evaluation of dysarthria. As speech production efficiency was found to vary with task in a patient with Parkinson's disease, these results can be related to recent models of basal ganglia function in motor performance.     

Young adult outcome of children with "situational" hyperactivity: a prospective,controlled follow-up study

To examine the importance of symptom pervasiveness in ADHD, we conducted a prospective, 12-year follow-up study of boys (ages 6–12) considered hyperactive at school and home (Pervasive ADHD), boys considered hyperactive by teachers but not parents (School Only ADHD), boys considered hyperactive by parents but not teachers (Home Only ADHD), and nonhyperactive comparisons. Follow-up was completed on 82–94% participants. Clinicians interviewed participants and their parents, blind to childhood status. At follow-up, antisocial disorder was significantly more prevalent among Pervasive and School Only ADHD (29% for both) than Home Only ADHD (0%) and comparisons (8%). In a similar manner, severity of behavioral problems distinguished groups (Pervasive, School > Home, comparisons), as did educational attainment and academic performance (poorest for Pervasive and School). These findings stress the validity of teacher reports in the diagnosis of ADHD.     

Predicting remembering and forgetting of autobiographical memories in children and adults: a 4-year prospective study

Preservation and loss to forgetting of autobiographical memories is a focus in both the adult and developmental literatures. In both, there are comparative arguments regarding rates of forgetting. Children are assumed to forget autobiographical memories more rapidly than adults, and younger children are assumed to forget more rapidly than older children. Yet few studies can directly inform these comparisons: few feature children and adults, and few prospectively track the survival of specific autobiographical memories over time. In a 4-year prospective study, we obtained autobiographical memories from children 4, 6, and 8 years, and adults. We tested recall of different subsets of the events after 1, 2, and 3 years. Accelerated rates of forgetting were apparent among all child groups relative to adults; within the child groups, 4- and 6-year-olds had accelerated forgetting relative to 8-year-olds. The differences were especially pronounced in open-ended recall. The thematic coherence of initial memory reports also was a significant predictor of the survival of specific memories. The pattern of findings is consistent with suggestions that the adult distribution of autobiographical memories is achieved as the quality of memory traces increases (here measured by thematic coherence) and the rate of forgetting decreases.     

Child and familial pathways to academic achievement and behavioral adjustment: a prospective six-year study of children with and without ADHD

This longitudinal study examined familial and child predictors of academic achievement and behavioral adjustment. Participants included 115 children with ADHD and 59 normative comparisons. Data analyses spanned three assessment waves from elementary- through secondary-school grades. We evaluated the degree to which child and familial factors present during middle school mediated relationships between childhood ADHD, subsequent academic achievement, and behavioral adjustment during high school. We found that emotional and behavioral well-being of ADHD children during middle school mediated relations between childhood ADHD and adverse academic and behavioral outcomes during high school. In addition, familial factors in middle school years predicted the behavioral adjustment of children in both the ADHD and non-ADHD groups. Academic achievement during high school was strongly associated with previous achievement levels. Our results provide support for tailoring preventive interventions to the unique needs of children with ADHD and their parents at various stages of adolescent development.     

Angry and aggressive behavior across three generations: a prospective,longitudinal study of parents and children

This investigation examined intergenerational continuities in both angry, aggressive parenting and also the angry, aggressive behavior of children and adolescents. Data from 75 G2 youth (26 men, 49 women, M = 22-years old), their mothers (G1), and their G3 children (47 boys, 28 girls, M = 2.4-years old) were included in the analyses. The prospective, longitudinal design of the study, which included observational and multiinformant measures, overcame many of the methodological limitations found in much of the earlier research on intergenerational transmission. The results demonstrated a direct connection between observed G1 aggressive parenting and observed G2 aggressive parenting from 5 to 7 years later. G2 aggressive behavior as an adolescent and G3 aggressive behavior as a child were related to parenting behavior but not directly to one another. The results were consistent with a social learning perspective on intergenerational continuities in angry and aggressive behaviors.     

Coping as a personality process: a prospective study

The study tested the proposition that coping is personality in action under stress. Using a stressful medical school entrance examination, the study examined (a) whether neuroticism emerged in coping patterns over time and (b) whether the influence of neuroticism on coping accounted for changes in anxiety and examination performance. Fifty premedical students reported their coping efforts at 35 days before, 10 days before, and 17 days after the examination. They provided daily reports of anxiety for 35 days surrounding the examination. Neuroticism influenced coping efforts and increases in daily anxiety under stress. Two types of coping, wishful thinking and self-blame, explained over half the relationship between neuroticism and increases in preexamination anxiety. Consistent with previous research, neither neuroticism nor specific coping efforts influenced examination performance.     

Complex prospective memory in children with ADHD.

The ability to remember intentions (prospective memory) is fundamental to the organization of goal-directed actions in everyday life. Successful prospective remembering involves forming, retaining, initiating, and executing an intention. Although previous research has demonstrated prospective memory impairments in children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), this has largely focused on the intention initiation and execution stages. In this study, we investigate the performance of 20 children with ADHD and 20 matched controls at each of the four stages of prospective memory, using a computer multitask paradigm. Results suggest that children with ADHD may demonstrate difficulties forming delayed intentions, as indicated by impulsive planning, and that this may have further implications for the retention and implementation of these delayed intentions. While children with ADHD showed comparable multitask switching, this appeared to be at the expense of intention execution as they made more performance errors than controls. Implications for day-to-day functioning are discussed.     

Posttraumatic growth after childbirth: a prospective study

A growing body of research has examined the potential for positive change following challenging and traumatic events, this is known as posttraumatic growth (PTG). Childbirth is a valuable opportunity to extend previous work on PTG as it allows the role of different variables to be considered prospectively. The aim of this study was to prospectively examine correlates of PTG after birth, including sociodemographic and obstetric variables, social support and psychological distress, using a prospective, longitudinal design. A total of 125 women completed questionnaires during their third trimester of pregnancy and 8 weeks after birth. At least a small degree of positive change following childbirth was reported by 47.9% of women; however, average levels of growth were lower than generally reported in other studies. A regression model of age, type of delivery, posttraumatic stress symptoms during pregnancy and general distress after birth significantly predicted 32% of the variance in growth after childbirth. The strongest predictors of growth were operative delivery (β 0.23-0.30) and posttraumatic stress symptoms in pregnancy (β 0.32). These findings emphasise the importance of assessing pre-event characteristics when considering the development of PTG after a challenging event.     

What predicts fathers' involvement with their children? A prospective study of intact families

This study used longitudinal data from the National Child Development Study to explore factors associated with aspects of fathers' involvement with their children at age 7, 11 and 16 years in intact families. Father involvement was predicted by different factors at different ages but generally it was continuous and multidimensional, and strongly associated with mother involvement. Low parental socio‐economic status and child behaviour problems were negatively related to father involvement at age 7. With older children, father involvement was inversely related to family size and poor school performance. Financial difficulties in the family were not related to father involvement at either age. Domestic tension was negatively related to certain aspects of fathers' involvement with younger children. Father's education was generally related to father's involvement but maternal employment was only related to low father‐interest in child's education at age 7 and 11 years.     

Manifest needs of prospective counselors: a comparative study

Mean performances of 81 prospective counselors on each of the Edwards Personal Preference Schedule (EPPS; Edwards, 1959) needs were analyzed and statistically compared with performances of elementary school counselors, other school counselors, urban college students, professional women, Roman Catholic sisters, and the 1959 EPPS norm samples. Performances of the men and women in the prospective counselor group were similar. Men had a significantly higher need for achievement and dominance, but the significance did not reach .01. Two EPPS needs, intraception and nurturance, consistently differentiated the prospective counselor group. Comparisons across samples indicated that prospective counselors were most similar to the two counseling samples and, for the female subgroup of prospective counselors, to the sample of professional women. Largest across-sample differences were found between the female prospective counselors and the Roman Catholic sisters, between the female prospective counselors and norm samples of female college students and female adults, and between the male prospective counselors and the male adult norm sample.     

Development of disruptive behaviors in young children: A prospective population‐based cohort study

We know relatively little about the development of disruptive behaviors (DBs), and gender differences therein. The objective of this study was to describe the continuity and discontinuity in the degree to which young children in the general population are reported to exhibit specific DBs over time. Data came from the Québec Longitudinal Study of Child Development. First, the results show that relatively few children exhibit DBs on a frequent basis at 41 months of age. Second, the results show that a majority of children who exhibit a particular DB on a frequent basis at 41 months of age did not do so 1 year earlier. In addition, a majority of children who exhibited a particular DB on a frequent basis at 29 months of age no longer do so 1 year later. Third, gender differences in DBs (boys > girls) are either emerging or at least increasing in magnitude between 29 and 41 months of age. Consistent with the canalization of the behavioral development principle, children who exhibited DBs on a frequent basis at 29 months of age are less likely to stop doing so in the following year if they had exhibited the same behaviors at 17 months of age.