This study examined whether childhood interparental conflict moderated the mediational pathway involving adolescent exposure to interparental conflict, their negative emotional reactivity to family conflict, and their psychological problems in a sample of 235 children (M[subscript age] = 6 years). Significant moderated-mediation findings indicated…

Although professional development is widely used to improve the impacts of early childhood education, little is known about the conditions under which such interventions promote child outcomes. This study applies newly developed methods for quantifying intervention impact heterogeneity to understand whether educators' collective workplace stress…

Findings are presented on a U.K. study of 41 gay father families, 40 lesbian mother families, and 49 heterosexual parent families with an adopted child aged 3-9 years. Standardized interview and observational and questionnaire measures of parental well-being, quality of parent-child relationships, child adjustment, and child sex-typed behavior…

This study attempted to establish and quantify the connections between parenting, offspring psychosocial adjustment, and the epigenome. The participants, 35 African American young adults (19 females and 16 males; age = 17-29.5 years), represented a subsample of a 3-wave longitudinal 15-year study on the developmental trajectories of low-income…

Fifteen-year-old adolescents (N = 109) in a longitudinal study of child development were recruited to examine differences in DNA methylation in relation to parent reports of adversity during the adolescents' infancy and preschool periods. Microarray technology applied to 28,000 cytosine-guanine dinucleotide sites within DNA derived from buccal…

An estimated 200 million children worldwide experience various forms of disability. This critical review extrapolates from existing literature in 2 distinct areas of scholarship: one on individuals with disabilities in disaster, and the other on children in disaster. The extant literature suggests that various factors may contribute to the…

Methods are needed for quantifying the potency and differential effects of risk factors to identify at-risk groups for theory building and intervention. Traditional methods for constructing war exposure measures are poorly suited to "unpack" differential relations between specific types of exposure and specific outcomes. This study of…

Working within the developmental science research framework, this study sought to capture a dynamic and complex view of student mobility. Second- through fifth-grade data (N = 1,003, predominantly Caucasian) were drawn from a longitudinal study, and growth curve analyses allowed for the examination of mobility effects within the context of other…

The role of psychological interpretations in the relationship between low socioeconomic status (SES) and physiological responses was tested. One hundred high school students (ages 15-19) watched videos of ambiguous and negative life situations, and were interviewed about their interpretations. Lower SES was associated with greater threat…

This multi-method study sought to identify parameters of developmental change and stability of child reaction patterns to interparental conflict in the context of family relations in a sample of 223 6-year-old children and their parents followed over the course of one year. Consistent with the sensitization hypothesis, interparental withdrawal and…

Children, aged 9-10, and their mothers described how they coped with stress, and mothers completed a questionnaire that assessed parenting dimensions. Results indicated that children from families with high levels of maternal support and low levels of family structure used the greatest variety of coping strategies, and children of supportive…

Interviewed 170 Cambodian refugee youth and 80 of their mothers living in Portland, Oregon, regarding posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and the stress of war, resettlement, and recent life events. A consistent relationship between earlier war trauma, resettlement stress, and symptoms of PTSD was found. In contrast, the strongest relationship to…

Examined continuity and discontinuity in maternal sensitivity of 135 disadvantaged mothers and their first-born children from 6 and 24 months to 42 months. Results indicate that sources of stress originating from the child or environment result in decreased sensitivity over time, whereas sources of support increase sensitivity.(RJC)

Interviews, HOME inventories, and videotapes of home observations were used to obtain information from adolescent and nonadolescent mothers with four-month-old infants on (1) the mothers' childcare network, (2) stressful life events since the infant's birth, and (3) parenting behaviors. (PCB)

Responses of 1- to 2 1/2-year-old children as bystanders to naturally occurring and simulated expressions of anger and affection by others were recorded by mothers trained as observers. Expressions of anger frequently caused distress in the children. Distress responses were significantly more likely when physical attack occurred. Overt signs of…