Newborns are able to neurally discriminate between speech and nonspeech right after birth. To date it remains unknown whether this early speech discrimination and the underlying neural language network is associated with later language development. Preterm-born children are an interesting cohort to investigate this relationship, as previous…

The aim of this study was to determine the effect of sleep quality of postpartum women on perception of insufficient milk and attitude to breastfeeding. The research was designed as a cross-sectional study. It was carried out with 347 mothers in a university hospital between December 2021 and July 2022. Data was collected via a personal…

The purpose of the current study was to use the infant sibling design to explore whether proband traits of autism and ADHD could provide information about their infant sibling's temperament. This could help us to gain information about the extent to which infant temperament traits are differentially associated with autism and ADHD traits. We used…

Loneliness has been associated with several adverse psychosocial outcomes in childhood and adolescence. The present study aimed to investigate feelings of loneliness and social dissatisfaction in school-aged typically-developing (TD) siblings of children with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD). For this purpose, 118 siblings of children with ASD…

Maintaining sound reproductive health is crucial for achieving and sustaining optimal overall well-being. Reproductive health encompasses various physical, emotional, and social factors that significantly impact an individual's quality of life. The present study used a descriptive-correlational research design to determine and explore the…

Developmental disability rates may vary by the season or month in which children are born. However, the seasonal mechanisms, such as climate, underlying these variations are unclear. Previous studies focused on high-latitude regions, leaving this climate hypothesis only partially tested. We analyzed rates of developmental disabilities in 3- to…

Ongoing disturbances in parental psychological functioning are proposed as one of the mechanisms linking maternal PPD and adverse child development. We examined the effect of maternal PPD on mothers' and fathers' parenting stress and depressive symptoms at child age five. Depressive symptoms and parenting stress were assessed using self-report…

Substantial evidence supports comprehensive sex education programs as effective means of promoting adolescent sexual health, but evidence on the effect of state-level sex education policy is inconclusive. Multiple states in the U.S. afford local authority in school policy, and existing literature calls for investigation of the impact of local…

In this review, we will investigate the pathways linking education and health to understand why education appears to improve health in some settings or among certain populations, and not in others, as well as to inform recommendations about how best to target investments in education to maximize the benefits to health. We will seek to answer the…

Sub-Saharan Africa exhibits higher fertility and lower education than other world regions. Economic and demographic theory posit that these phenomena are linked, with slow fertility decline connected to slow education growth among both adults and children. Using microdata from 33 African countries, this paper documents the co-evolution of adult…

The present study examines the link between children's number of older siblings and their cognitive development, as measured by executive function (EFs) skills and verbal skills (VIQ) in a sample of 1,302 4-year-old children (54% boys) living in rural Pakistan. Specifically, we investigate whether the links between the number of older siblings and…

This study tested the hypothesis that exposure of children prior to their third birthday to procedures requiring general anesthesia is associated with an increased incidence of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in later life. This study employed a nested, 1:2 matched-case control study design using ASD cases identified in a population-based birth…

Children of teen mothers have worse academic, labor market, and behavioral outcomes in the United States, but it is not clear whether these poor outcomes are caused by having a young mother or driven by selection into teen motherhood. Understanding the reasoning behind poor child outcomes is important for designing effective policies to improve…

Intellectual performance is highly heritable and robustly predicts lifelong health and success but the earliest manifestations of genetic effects on this asset are not well understood. This study examined whether early executive function (EF) or verbal performance mediate genetic influences on subsequent intellectual performance, in 561 U.S.-based…

The sex bias in autism diagnosis suggests the involvement of sex-specific endocrine mechanisms during prenatal development, but these hormones affect health throughout life. Therefore, the current study examined the association of autism and autistic traits with conditions and symptoms related to the sex-steroid system in adult women. In total,…