Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-5xszh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T19:24:56.631Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Transactional relations between caregiving stress, executive functioning, and problem behavior from early childhood to early adolescence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2016

Linda L. Lagasse*
Affiliation:
Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island
Elisabeth Conradt
Affiliation:
University of Utah
Sarah L. Karalunas
Affiliation:
Oregon Health & Science University
Lynne M. Dansereau
Affiliation:
Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island
Jonathan E. Butner
Affiliation:
University of Utah
Seetha Shankaran
Affiliation:
Wayne State University School of Medicine
Henrietta Bada
Affiliation:
University of Kentucky College of Medicine
Charles R. Bauer
Affiliation:
University of Miami
Toni M. Whitaker
Affiliation:
University of Tennessee
Barry M. Lester
Affiliation:
Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Linda L. LaGasse, Brown Center for the Study of Children at Risk, Warren Alpert Medical School, Brown University, and Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island, 101 Dudley Street, Providence, RI 02905; E-mail: Linda_Lagasse@brown.edu.

Abstract

Developmental psychopathologists face the difficult task of identifying the environmental conditions that may contribute to early childhood behavior problems. Highly stressed caregivers can exacerbate behavior problems, while children with behavior problems may make parenting more difficult and increase caregiver stress. Unknown is: (a) how these transactions originate, (b) whether they persist over time to contribute to the development of problem behavior and (c) what role resilience factors, such as child executive functioning, may play in mitigating the development of problem behavior. In the present study, transactional relations between caregiving stress, executive functioning, and behavior problems were examined in a sample of 1,388 children with prenatal drug exposures at three developmental time points: early childhood (birth to age 5), middle childhood (ages 6 to 9), and early adolescence (ages 10 to 13). Transactional relations differed between caregiving stress and internalizing versus externalizing behavior. Targeting executive functioning in evidence-based interventions for children with prenatal substance exposure who present with internalizing problems and treating caregiving psychopathology, depression, and parenting stress in early childhood may be particularly important for children presenting with internalizing behavior.

Type
Special Issue Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abidin, R. (1983). The Parenting Stress Index manual. Charlottesville, VA: Pediatric Psychology Press.Google Scholar
Achenbach, T. (1991). Integrative guide for the 1991 CBCL/4–18, YSR, and TRF Profiles. Burlington, VT: University of Vermont, Department of Psychiatry.Google Scholar
Anderson, P. (2002). Assessment and development of executive function (EF) during childhood. Child Neuropsychology, 8, 7182.Google Scholar
Anderson, V. A., Anderson, P., Northam, E., Jacobs, R., & Catroppa, C. (2001). Development of executive functions through late childhood and adolescence in an Australian sample. Developmental Neuropsychology, 20, 385406.Google Scholar
Bagner, D. M., Sheinkopf, S. J., Miller-Loncar, C., LaGasse, L. L., Lester, B. M., Liu, J., et al. (2009). The effect of parenting stress on child behavior problems in high-risk children with prenatal drug exposure. Child Psychiatry & Human Development, 40, 7384.Google Scholar
Bauer, C. R., Langer, J. C., Shankaran, S., Bada, H. S., Lester, B., Wright, L. L., et al. (2005). Acute neonatal effects of cocaine exposure during pregnancy. Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, 159, 824834.Google Scholar
Bauer, C. R., Shankaran, S., Bada, H. S., Lester, B., Wright, L. L., Krause-Steinrauf, H., et al. (2002). The Maternal Lifestyle Study: Drug exposure during pregnancy and short-term maternal outcomes. American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, 186, 487495.Google Scholar
Beck, A., Steer, R., & Brown, G. (1996). Beck Depression Inventory (2nd ed.). San Antonio, TX: Psychological Corporation.Google Scholar
Biederman, J., Monuteaux, M. S., Doyble, A. E., Seidman, L. J., Wilens, T. E., Ferrero, F., et al. (2004). Impact of executive function deficits and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) on academic outcomes in children. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 72, 757766.Google Scholar
Blair, C., Granger, D. A., Willoughby, M., Mills-Koonce, R., Cox, M., Greenberg, M. T., et al. (2011). Salivary cortisol mediates effects of poverty and parenting on executive functions in early childhood. Child Development, 82, 19701978 Google Scholar
Blair, C., Raver, C. C., Berry, D. J., & Family Life Project Investigators (2014). Two approaches to estimating the effect of parenting on the development of executive function in early childhood. Developmental Psychology, 50, 554565.Google Scholar
Bridgett, D. J., Burt, N. M., Laake, L. M., & Oddi, K. B. (2013). Maternal self-regulation, relationship adjustment, and home chaos: Contributions to infant negative emotionality. Infant Behavior and Development, 36, 534547.Google Scholar
Bridgett, D. J., Oddi, K. B., Laake, L. M., Murdock, K. W., & Bachmann, M. N. (2013). Integrating and differentiating aspects of self-regulation: Effortful control, executive functioning, and links to negative affectivity. Emotion, 13, 4763.Google Scholar
Brooks-Gunn, J., & Duncan, G. J. (1997). The effects of poverty on children. Future Child, 7, 5571.Google Scholar
Brown, C. H., Wang, W., Kellam, S. G., Methen, B. O., Petras, H., Toyinbo, P., et al. (2008). Methods for testing theory and evaluating impact in randomized field trials: Intent-to-treat analyses for integrating the perspectives of person, place and time. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 95(Suppl. 1), S74S104.Google Scholar
Calkins, S. D., Blandon, A. Y., Williford, A. P., & Keane, S. P. (2007). Biological, behavioral, and relational levels of resilience in the context of risk for early childhood behavior problems. Development and Psychopathology, 19, 675700.Google Scholar
Carlson, S. M. (2005) Developmentally sensitive measures of executive function in preschool children. Developmental Neuropsychology, 28, 595616.Google Scholar
Carlson, S. M., & Moses, L. J. (2001). Individual differences in inhibitory control and children's theory of mind. Child Development, 72, 10321053.Google Scholar
Chambers, R., Lo, B. C. Y., & Allen, N. B. (2008). The impact of intensive mindfulness training on attentional control, cognitive style, and affect. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 32, 303322.Google Scholar
Choe, D. E., Olson, S. L., & Sameroff, A. J. (2013). Effects of early maternal distress and parenting on the development of children's self-regulation and externalizing behavior. Development and Psychopathology, 25, 437453.Google Scholar
Combs-Ronto, L. A., Olson, S. L., Lunkenheimer, E. S., & Sameroff, A. J. (2009). Interactions between maternal parenting and children's early disruptive behavior: Bidirectional associations across the transition from preschool to school entry. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 37, 11511163.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Conduct Problems Prevention Research Group. (1992). A developmental and clinical model for the prevention of conduct disorder: The FAST Track Program. Development and Psychopathology, 4, 509527.Google Scholar
Conradt, E., Sheinkopf, S. J., Lester, B. M., Tronick, E., LaGasse, L. L., Shankaran, S., et al. (2013). Prenatal substance exposure: Neurobiologic organization at 1 month. Journal of Pediatrics, 163, 989994.Google Scholar
Cragg, L., & Nation, K. (2009). Shifting development in mid-childhood: The influence of between-task interference. Developmental Psychology, 45, 14651479.Google Scholar
Crone, E. A., Wendelken, C., Donohue, S., van Leijenhorst, L., & Bunge, S. A. (2006). Neurocognitive development of the ability to manipulate information in working memory. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 103, 93159320.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
De Luca, C. R., Wood, S. J., Blair, V., Buchanan, J. A., Proffitt, T. M., Mahony, K., et al. (2003). Normative data from the CANTAB: I. Development of executive function over the lifespan. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 25, 242254.Google Scholar
Derogatis, L. (1993). Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI): Administration, scoring and procedures manual (3rd ed.). Minneapolis, MN: National Computer Systems.Google Scholar
Derryberry, D. (2002). Attention and voluntary self-control. Self and Identity, 1, 105111.Google Scholar
Dishion, T. J., Patterson, G. R., & Kavanagh, K. (1992). An experimental test of the coercion model: Linking theory, measurement, and intervention. In McCord, J. & Tremblay, R. (Eds.), Preventing antisocial behavior: Interventions from birth through adolescence (pp. 253282). New York: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Eigsti, I. M., Zayas, V., Mischel, W., Shoda, Y., Ayduk, O., Dadlani, M. B., et al. (2006). Predicting cognitive control from preschool to late adolescence and young adulthood. Psychological Science, 17, 478484.Google Scholar
Eisenberg, N., Fabes, R. A., Shepard, S. A., Guthrie, I. K., Murphy, B. C., & Reiser, M. (1999). Parental reactions to children's negative emotions: Longitudinal relations to quality of children's social functioning. Child Development, 70, 513534.Google Scholar
Eisenberg, N., Valiente, C., Spinrad, T. L., Liew, J., Zhou, Q., Losoya, S. H., et al. (2009). Longitudinal relations of children's effortful control, impulsivity, and negative emotionality to their externalizing, internalizing, and co-occurring behavior problems. Developmental Psychology, 45, 9881008.Google Scholar
Eysenck, M. W., Derakshan, N., Santos, R., & Calvo, M. G. (2007). Anxiety and cognitive performance: Attentional control theory. Emotion, 7, 336353.Google Scholar
Fanti, K. A., & Henrich, C. C. (2010). Trajectories of pure and co-occurring internalizing and externalizing problems from age 2 to age 12: Findings from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care. Developmental Psychology, 46, 11591175.Google Scholar
Fisher, P. A., Lester, B. M., DeGarmo, D. S., Lagasse, L. L., Lin, H., Shankaran, S., et al. (2011). The combined effects of prenatal drug exposure and early adversity on neurobehavioral disinhibition in childhood and adolescence. Development and Psychopathology, 23, 777788.Google Scholar
Fray, P., Robbins, T., & Sahakian, B. (1996). Neuorpsychiatric applications of CANTAB. International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 11, 329336.Google Scholar
Fried, P. A., James, D. S., & Watkinson, B. (2001) Growth and pubertal milestones during adolescence in offspring prenatally exposed to cigarettes and marijuana. Neurotoxicology and Teratology, 23, 431436.Google Scholar
Friedman, N. P., Miyake, A., Robinson, J. L., & Hewitt, J. K. (2011). Developmental trajectories in toddlers’ self-restraint predict individual differences in executive functions 14 years later: A behavioral genetic analysis. Developmental Psychology, 47, 14101430.Google Scholar
Garon, N., Bryson, S. E., & Smith, I. M. (2008). Executive function in preschoolers: A review using an integrative framework. Psychological Bulletin, 134, 3160.Google Scholar
Goodman, S. H., & Gotlib, I. H. (1999). Risk for psychopathology in the children of depressed mothers: A developmental model for understanding mechanisms of transmission. Psychological Review, 106, 458490.Google Scholar
Granic, I., & Patterson, G. R. (2006). Toward a comprehensive model of antisocial development: A dynamic systems approach. Psychological Review, 113, 101131.Google Scholar
Green, M. F., Nuechterlein, K. H., Gold, J. M., Barch, D. M., Cohen, J., Essock, S., et al. (2004). Approaching a consensus cognitive battery for clinical trials in schizophrenia: The NIMH-Matrics conferences to select cognitive domains and test criteria. Biological Psychiatry, 56, 201207.Google Scholar
Hofmann, W., Friese, M., Schmeichel, B. J., & Baddeley, A. D. (2011). Working memory and self-regulation. In Vohs, K. D. & Baumeister, R. F. (Eds.), Handbook of self-regulation: Research, theory, and applications (2nd ed., pp. 204225). New York: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Hollingshead, A. B. (1975). Four-Factor Index of Social Status. Unpublished manuscript, Yale University.Google Scholar
Hughes, C., & Ensor, R. (2011). Individual differences in growth in executive function across the transition to school predict externalizing and internalizing behaviors and self-perceived academic success at 6 years of age. Journal of Experimental & Child Psychology, 108, 663676.Google Scholar
Joormann, J., & Gotlib, I. H. (2008). Updating the contents of working memory in depression: Interference from irrelevant negative material. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 117, 182192.Google Scholar
Kalkut, E. L., Han, S. D., Lansing, A. E., Holdnack, J. A., & Delis, D. C. (2009). Development of set-shifting ability from late childhood through early adulthood. Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology, 24, 565574.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kendler, K. S., & Neale, M. C. (2010). Endophenotype: A conceptual analysis. Molecular Psychiatry, 15, 789797.Google Scholar
Kishiyama, M. M., Boyce, W. T., Jimenez, A. M., Perry, L. M., & Knight, R. T. (2009). Socioeconomic disparities affect prefrontal function in children. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 21, 11061115.Google Scholar
Klimes-Dougan, B., Lee, C. Y., Ronsaville, D., & Martinez, P. (2008). Suicidal risk in young adult offspring of mothers with bipolar or major depressive disorder: A longitudinal family risk study. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 64, 531540.Google Scholar
Kochanska, G. (1997). Mutually responsive orientation between mothers and their young children: Implications for early socialization. Child Development, 68, 94112.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kochanska, G., Murray, K. T., & Harlan, E. T. (2000). Effortful control in early childhood: Continuity and change, antecedents, and implications for social development. Developmental Psychology, 36, 220–32.Google Scholar
Kochanska, G., Murray, K. T., Jacques, T. Y., Koenig, A. L., & Vandegeest, K. A. (1996). Inhibitory control in young children and its role in emerging internalization. Child Development, 67, 490507.Google Scholar
Kuntsi, J., Neale, B. M., Chen, W., Faraone, S. V., & Asherson, P. (2006). The IMAGE project: Methodological issues for the molecular genetic analysis of ADHD. Behavioral Brain Functions, 2, 27.Google Scholar
LaGasse, L., Seifer, R., Wright, L., Lester, B., Tronick, E., Bauer, C., et al. (1999). The Maternal Lifestyle Study (MLS): The caretaking environment of infants exposed to cocaine/opiates. Pediatric Research, 45, 247A.Google Scholar
Leark, R., Dupuy, T., Greenberg, L., Corman, C., & Kindschi, C. (1996). T.O.V.A. professional manual (Version 7.0). Los Alamitos, CA: Universal Attention Disorders.Google Scholar
Lee, K., Bull, R., & Ho, R. M. (2013). Developmental changes in executive functioning. Child Development, 84, 19331953.Google Scholar
Lehto, J., Juujärvi, P., Kooistra, L., & Pulkkinen, L. (2003). Dimensions of executive functioning: Evidence from children. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 21, 5980.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lester, B., Bada, H., Bauer, C., Shankaran, S., Whitaker, T., LaGasse, L., et al. (2014). Maternal Lifestyle Study in four sites in the United States, 1993–2011 (ICPSR34312-v2). Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research. Retrieved from http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR34312.v2 Google Scholar
Lester, B., Bagner, D., Liu, J., LaGasse, L., Seifer, R., Bauer, C., et al. (2009). Infant neurobehavioral dysregulation: Behavior problems in children with prenatal substance exposure. Pediatrics, 124, 13541361.Google Scholar
Little, R. J. A. (1998). A test of missing completely at random for multivariate data with missing values. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 83, 11981202.Google Scholar
Loe, I. M., Feldman, H. M., & Huffman, L. C. (2014). Executive function mediates effects of gestational age on functional outcomes and behavior in preschoolers. Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, 35, 323333.Google Scholar
Luciana, M., Conklin, H. M., Hooper, C. J., & Yarger, R. S. (2005). The development of nonverbal working memory and executive control processes in adolescents. Child Development, 76, 697712.Google Scholar
Luthar, S., Cicchetti, D., & Becker, B. (2000). The construct of resilience: A critical evaluation and guidelines for future work. Child Development, 71, 543562.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Martel, M. M., Nigg, J. T., Wong, M. M., Fitzgerald, H. E., Jester, J. M., Puttler, L. I., et al. (2007). Childhood and adolescent resiliency, regulation, and executive functioning in relation to adolescent problems and competence in a high-risk sample. Development and Psychopathology, 19, 541563.Google Scholar
Masten, A. S. (2001). Ordinary magic: Resilience processes in development. American Psychologist, 56, 227238.Google Scholar
McDonald, R. P., & Ho, M. H. (2002). Principles and practice in reporting structural equation analyses. Psycholological Methods, 7, 6482.Google Scholar
Messinger, D., & Lester, B. M. (2005) Prenatal substance exposure and human development. In Fogel, A. & Shanker, S. (Eds.), Human development in the 21st century: Visionary policy ideas from systems scientists. Bethesda, MD: Council on Human Development.Google Scholar
Miller, M., & Hinshaw, S. P. (2010). Does childhood executive function predict adolescent functional outcomes in girls with ADHD? Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 38, 315326.Google Scholar
Miller, M., Loya, F., & Hinshaw, W. P. (2013). Executive functions in girls with and without childhood ADHD: Developmental trajectories and associations with symptom change. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 54, 10051015.Google Scholar
Miyake, A., Friedman, N. P., Emerson, M. J., Witzki, A. H., Howerter, A., & Wager, T. D. (2000). The unity and diversity of executive functions and their contributions to complex “frontal lobe” tasks: A latent variable analysis. Cognitive Psychology, 41, 49100.Google Scholar
Murray, K. T., & Kochanska, G. (2002). Effortful control: Factor structure and relation to externalizing and internalizing behaviors. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 30, 503514.Google Scholar
Muthen, B., & Muthen, L. (2012). Mplus user's guide (7th ed.). Los Angeles: Author.Google Scholar
Nigg, J. T. (2006). Temperament and developmental psychopathology. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 47, 395422.Google Scholar
Ochsner, K. N., & Gross, J. J. (2005). The cognitive control of emotion. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 9, 242249.Google Scholar
Ochsner, K. N., Silvers, J. A., & Buhle, J. T. (2012). Functional imaging studies of emotion regulation: A synthetic review and evolving model of the cognitive control of emotion. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1251, E1E24.Google Scholar
Ornstein, T. J., Iddon, J. L., Baldacchino, A. M., Sahakian, B. J., London, M., Everitt, B. J., et al. (2000). Profiles of cognitive dysfunction in chronic amphetamine and heroin abusers. Neuropsychopharmacology, 23, 113126.Google Scholar
Petersen, S. E., & Posner, M. I. (2012). The attention system of the human brain: 20 years after. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 35, 7389.Google Scholar
Reitz, E., Dekovic, M., & Meijer, A. M. (2006). Relations between parenting and externalizing and internalizing problem behaviour in early adolescence: Child behaviour as moderator and predictor. Journal of Adolescence, 29, 419436.Google Scholar
Rhoades, B. L., Greenberg, M. T., & Domitrovich, C. E. (2009). The contribution of inhibitory control to preschoolers’ social-emotional competence. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 30, 310320.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Romer, D., Betancourt, L., Giannetta, J., Broadsky, N., Farah, M., & Hurt, H. (2009). Executive cognitive functions and impulsivity as correlates of risk taking and problem behavior in preadolescents. Neuropsychologia, 47, 29162926.Google Scholar
Rothbart, M. K., Sheese, B. E., Rueda, M. R., & Posner, M. I. (2011). Developing mechanisms of self-regulation in early life. Emotion Review, 3, 207213.Google Scholar
Rueda, M. R., Posner, M. I., & Rothbart, M. K. (2005). The development of executive attention: Contributions to the emergence of self-regulation. Developmental Neuropsychology, 28, 573594.Google Scholar
Sahker, E., McCabe, J. E., & Arndt, S. (2015). Differences in successful treatment completion among pregnant and non-pregnant American women. Archives of Women's Mental Health. Advance online publication.Google Scholar
Schoemaker, K., Mulder, H., Dekovic, M., & Matthys, W. (2013). Executive functions in preschool children with externalizing behavior problems: A meta-analysis. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 41, 457471.Google Scholar
Shankaran, S., Bauer, C., Bada, H., Lester, B., Wright, L., & Katsikiotis, V. (1996). Maternal Lifestyle Study: Patterns of cocaine use in term pregnancy and effect on birth weight. Pediatric Research, 39, 279A.Google Scholar
Sheinkopf, S. J., LaGasse, L. L., Lester, B. M., Liu, J., Seifer, R., Bauer, C. R., et al. (2007). Vagal tone as a resilience factor in children with prenatal cocaine exposure. Development and Psychopathology, 19, 649673.Google Scholar
Shing, Y. L., Lindenberger, U., Diamond, A., Li, S. C., & Davidson, M. C. (2010). Memory maintenance and inhibitory control differentiate from early childhood to adolescence. Developmental Neuropsychology, 35, 679697.Google Scholar
Stoolmiller, M. (2001). Synergistic interaction of child manageability problems and parent-discipline tactics in predicting future growth in externalizing behavior for boys. Developmental Psychology, 37, 814825.Google Scholar
Stormshak, E. A., Bierman, K. L., McMahon, R. J., & Lengua, L. J. (2000). Parenting practices and child disruptive behavior problems in early elementary school. Conduct Problems Prevention Research Group. Journal of Clinical Child Psychology, 29, 1729.Google Scholar
Sulik, M. J., Blair, C., Mills-Koonce, R., Berry, D., Greenberg, M., & Family Life Project, I. (2015). Early parenting and the development of externalizing behavior problems: Longitudinal mediation through children's executive function. Child Development, 86, 15881603.Google Scholar
Thorell, L. B. (2007). Do delay aversion and executive function deficits make distinct contributions to the functional impact of ADHD symptoms? A study of early academic skill deficits. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 48, 10611070.Google Scholar
Wagner, N. J., Propper, C., Gueron-Sela, N., & Mills-Koonce, W. R. (2015). Dimensions of maternal parenting and infants’ autonomic functioning interactively predict early internalizing behavior problems. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology. Advance online publication.Google Scholar
Whitmer, A. J., & Banich, M. T. (2007). Inhibition versus switching deficits in different forms of rumination. Psychological Science, 18, 546553.Google Scholar
Willams, B. R., Ponesse, J. S., Schachar, R. J., Logan, G. D., & Tannock, R. (1999). Development of inhibitory control across the life span. Developmental Psychology, 35, 205213.Google Scholar
Williams, P. G., Suchy, Y., & Kraybill, M. L. (2010). Five-factor model personality traits and executive functioning among older adults. Journal of Research in Personality, 44, 485491.Google Scholar
Zelazo, P. D. (2004). The development of conscious control in childhood. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 8, 1217.Google Scholar
Zelazo, P. D., Muller, U., Frye, D., & Marcovitch, S. (2003). The development of executive function. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 68, 1127.Google Scholar
Zhou, Q., Chen, S., & Main, A. (2012). Commonalities and differences in the research on children's effortful control and executive function: A call for an integrated model of self-regulation. Child Development Perspectives, 6, 112121.Google Scholar