Objective: The present study examined the role of family experiences in the early development and maintenance of oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) symptoms in preschool-age children with behavior problems. Method: Participants were 199 3-year-old children with behavior problems who took part in 4 annual child and family assessments. Results:…

Objective: Knowledge of acculturative processes and their impact on immigrant families remains quite limited. Acculturative family distancing (AFD) is the distancing that occurs between immigrant parents and their children and is caused by breakdowns in communication and cultural value differences. It is a more proximal and problem-focused…

Objective: To examine the associations among mental health problems, maternal monitoring and permissiveness, mother-daughter communication and attachment, and sexual behaviors among African American girls receiving outpatient psychiatric care. Youths with mental health problems report higher rates of HIV-risk behavior than do their peers, and…

The authors examined changes over a 1-year period in mothers' attributions for child behavior and child oppositional behavior among 53 mothers and nonproblem sons and 44 mothers and sons with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Boys averaged 8 years of age (SD = 11 months) at Time 1. Families were primarily of European Canadian…

This study was a randomized clinical trial of Project Support, an intervention designed to reduce conduct problems among children exposed to intimate partner violence. Participants were 66 families (mothers and children) with at least 1 child exhibiting clinical levels of conduct problems. Families were recruited from domestic violence shelters.…

Applied structural equation modeling to twin data to assess impact of genetic and environmental factors on children's behavioral and emotional functioning. Applied models to maternal ratings of behavior of 515 monozygotic and 749 dizygotic twin pairs. Importance of genetic, shared, and specific environmental factors for explaining variation was…

This study examined associations between televised news regarding risk for future terrorism and youth outcomes and investigated the effects of training mothers in an empirically based approach to addressing such news with children. This approach--Coping and Media Literacy (CML)--emphasized modeling, media literacy, and contingent reinforcement and…

Tested the hypothesis that sequenced patterns of interaction in which mothers deferred control to their sons and sons assumed control would discriminate high- and low-problem single mother-son dyads. In high-problem dyads, compared to low, mothers' submissive communication was more likely to elicit sons' dominant communication and sons' dominant…

A community-based intervention program was tested with 181 children ages 6-12 and their mothers exposed to intimate partner violence during the past year. A sequential assignment procedure allocated participants to 3 conditions: child-only intervention, child-plus-mother intervention (CM), and a wait-list comparison. A 2-level hierarchical linear…

Examined the combined influence of child characteristics and parent characteristics on parental perceptions. Results revealed a significant interaction, indicating that the combination of high maternal depression with high levels of child noncompliant behavior was associated with more perceived child maladjustment. (Author/BL)

Examined mother-child dyads (N=52) in a training program to modify aggressive child behavior. Obtained several measures of mother-child interaction and compared them between dyads that succeeded and dyads that did not. Results indicated unsuccessful mothers were more aversive and indiscriminate in their use of aversive behavior toward their…

Found that 64% of 50 children aged 7-12 years with sickle cell disease had parent-reported behavior problem. Internalizing types of behavior problems and diagnoses were most frequent. Maternal anxiety accounted for 16-33% of variance in mother-reported internalizing and externalizing behavior problems, respectively, and child pain-coping…

Applied latent growth curve methodology to study of patterns of change in client resistance during parent training therapy of 68 mothers of children with confirmed conduct problems. Pretherapy maternal characteristics of inept discipline and antisocial behavior predicted chronically high levels of resistance. Lack of negative curvature of…

Bidirectional relationship between life events and self-reported depression was examined across a one-year period. Results describe a complex relationship between stress and depression and suggest that the relationship between stress and depression is moderated by type of stress. (BF)

The present investigation was designed to evaluate whether mothers' emotion experience, autonomic reactivity, and negatively biased appraisals of their toddlers' behavior and toddlers' rates of misbehavior predicted overreactive discipline in a mediated fashion. Ninety-three community mother-toddler dyads were observed in a laboratory interaction,…