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Background Extant perinatal research utilizes retrospective reports on the prenatal environment, but there are limited data on the validity of retrospective data compared with prospective data. The current study examined the reliability of birth mothers’ memory of prenatal stress and distress and perinatal risks at 6-months postpartum with maternal reports gathered across each trimester of pregnancy and explored whether recall varied with maternal socioeconomic status. Methods Surveys were collected from 34 pregnant women (M age = 29.14, SD = 5.06 years, 83% non-Hispanic White) on stress, distress, and pregnancy complications at 12(T1), 26(T2), and 38(T3) weeks of pregnancy, and at 6-month post-partum asking the same questions but specifically about the pregnancy. Cohen’s kappa and Pearson’s correlations were used to investigate maternal recall at post-partum with prospective reports at T1, T2, T3 and an average score of T1, T2, and T3. Correlations were also examined separately for those with high and relatively lower socioeconomic status. Results Birth mothers’ recall was generally reliable. Retrospective reports were most strongly related to prospective reports in T1 for perceived stress, T1 and T3 for anxiety symptoms and exposure to toxins, but T3 for depressive symptoms. Recall of pregnancy complications best reflected the average score across trimesters (rather than specific trimesters). Women with higher socioeconomic status better recalled prenatal (di)stress, but women with relatively lower socioeconomic status better recalled exposure to toxins. Conclusion This study provides support for utilizing retrospective reports of maternal prenatal experiences at 6-months post-partum, with implications for interpretation of specific recalled phenotypes.

Background Adolescent substance use has long been a top public health priority. In Indiana, concerning recent trends show high rates of youth alcohol consumption coupled with increasing use of opioids, synthetic marijuana, and over-the-counter drugs. Based on research indicating that parent-based prevention efforts may be a particularly effective way to target adolescent substance use, and in a direct effort to address Indiana’s 2017 Strategic Plan to Address Substance Use, we conducted an applied research study targeting parents’ knowledge regarding adolescent substance use in Indiana. Methods This community-based applied research study included: (i) a needs assessment of Indiana Extension Educators’ concerns regarding adolescent substance use, (ii) creation and dissemination of an evidence-informed parent education program on adolescent substance use in collaboration with Purdue Extension (a key community stakeholder), and (iii) qualitative focus group discussions at the end of each program that assessed the challenges families face regarding adolescent substance use, the types of information and resources they wish they had, and the usefulness of our program. Results The needs assessment revealed that Indiana communities would most benefit from education regarding ways to spot and monitor substance use in teens, and strategies to communicate with teens about substance use. Additionally, Extension Educators thought that existing resources to tackle substance use largely did not match the needs of Indiana communities. Qualitative analysis of the focus group discussions across 8 pilot programs revealed five important themes: (1) The need for current, evidence-informed information regarding adolescent substance use among parents and youth-involved professionals in Indiana, (2) Concern regarding Indiana adolescents’ ease of access to substances and lack of healthy recreational activities, (3) Communicating with teens about substance use is crucial but difficult to implement, (4) Indiana communities’ need to prioritize funding for evidence-informed prevention programming, and (5) The need for community-based parent and caregiver support groups. Conclusions Overall, the program was well-received and participants indicated that there was a strong need for this programming in their communities, but suggested collaborating with schools or similar local community stakeholders to increase attendance. Findings from this pilot study can inform future community-based adolescent substance use prevention efforts state-wide.

The generalist genes specialist environment model, when applied to developmental psychopathology, predicts that genetic influences should explain variance that is shared across internalizing and externalizing problems, whereas environmental influences should explain variance that distinguishes the two overarching problem types. The present study is a direct test of this hypothesis, leveraging a sample of 708 twins and siblings (aged 10–18 years, 93% White) from the United States. Measures of severity of symptoms, regardless of type, and of directionality of symptoms – whether the adolescent tended to exhibit more externalizing or internalizing problems – were subjected to genetic (A), shared environmental (C), and nonshared environmental (E) (ACE) variance decompositions. As expected, severity of problems was under substantial genetic influence, but there were also significant shared and nonshared environmental influences. Contrary to the generalist genes specialist environment model, directionality of problem type was also under considerable genetic influence, with modest nonshared environmental influence. Findings corroborate existing evidence from other designs highlighting the role of familial influences (including generalist genes) in comorbidity of adolescent internalizing and externalizing problems, but suggest that the specialist environments hypothesis may not be the key factor in distinguishing problem type.

We aimed to assess comprehensively the prevalence of perinatal risks experienced by a potentially high-risk yet understudied population of children domestically adopted in the United States. Data are from participant report and medical records from mothers (n = 580) who completed a domestic adoption placement with nonrelatives at or near birth (Mean placement age = 7 days). We describe a comprehensive measure of perinatal risks, including divergences from previous assessment tools and the incorporation of multiple reporters, and report the prevalence of various types of perinatal risks. The prevalence of each specific risk factor was generally low, although several risks were more prevalent in this sample than estimates from nationally representative publicly available data. Nearly the entire sample (99%) experienced some type of risk exposure. Birth mothers who placed their children for adoption domestically in the US experience higher levels of perinatal risks than the national average, but not for all specific types of risk. Thus, the developmental trajectories of children adopted domestically may systematically differ from the general population to the extent that these specific perinatal risks impact development.

Adolescents’ reports of parental differential treatment have been linked to increased externalizing behaviors. The current study investigated whether adolescent self-esteem and sibling relationship characteristics (age-spacing and sibling relationship quality) moderated associations between parental differential treatment and later externalizing behavior. Data was gathered at two assessments from 708 sibling pairs (94% White; 51% male; same-gender pairs <4 years apart in age). Older/younger siblings were aged MAssessment1 = 13.5/12.1 and MAssessment2 = 16.2/14.7 years. We found that higher levels of maternal differential treatment predicted greater residualized gains in externalizing behavior among older siblings who were (a) the same age as their sibling or near-to and had low self-esteem or (b) three years older than their sibling and had higher self-esteem. Higher levels of paternal differential treatment predicted greater residual gains in externalizing for older siblings with wider age ranges (regardless of self-esteem), and among older siblings with high levels of self-esteem (regardless of age difference). Surprisingly, maternal differential treatment was protective in one case: for adolescents with low self-esteem who were at least three years older than their siblings, maternal differential treatment predicted reduced externalizing behaviors. Paternal differential treatment was protective for more youth than maternal differential treatment: older siblings with low self-esteem who experienced paternal differential treatment exhibited decreased externalizing behaviors across adolescence, regardless of age difference. The findings highlight the importance of self-esteem and sibling age-spacing as particularly salient contextual influences in older siblings’ perceptions of maternal and paternal differential treatment, and that maternal and especially paternal differential treatment does not always serve as a risk factor for externalizing problems.

The literature consistently shows an association between pubertal maturation and internalizing problems in girls. The association for boys is less clear. The present study examines genetic and environmental influences on the association between pubertal maturation and internalizing problems for boys and girls in two primarily Caucasian adolescent twin/sibling studies: The Swedish Twin study of CHild and Adolescent Development (706 same-sex twin pairs aged 13–14, M = 13.7 years, 50 % female), and the Nonshared Environment in Adolescent Development sample (US-based, 687 same-sex twin/sibling pairs aged 10–18, M = 13.6 years, 47 % female). For girls, more advanced pubertal maturation was associated modestly with more internalizing problems, and that association was entirely explained by shared environmental influences. For boys, the association between pubertal maturation and internalizing problems was weak and inconsistent. Results for girls were remarkably consistent across samples. Findings suggest that nongenetic mechanisms mediate the association between pubertal maturation and internalizing problems. Findings have implications for intervention such that environmental influences shared by twins/siblings may provide the best targets for intervention strategies designed to minimize the potential negative effects of pubertal maturation on internalizing symptoms in girls.

Father absence has a small but robust association with earlier age at menarche (AAM), likely reflecting both genetic confounding and an environmental influence on life history strategy development. Studies that have attempted to disambiguate genetic versus environmental contributions to this association have shown conflicting findings, though genomic-based studies have begun to establish the role of gene–environment interplay in the father absence/AAM literature. The purpose of this study was to replicate and extend prior genomic work using the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC), a prospective longitudinal cohort study (N = 2,685), by (a) testing if an AAM polygenic score (PGS) could account for the father absence/AAM association, (b) replicating G×E research on lin-28 homolog B (LIN28B) variation and father absence, and (c) testing the G×E hypothesis using the PGS. Results showed that the PGS could not explain the father absence/AAM association and there was no interaction between father absence and the PGS. Findings using LIN28B largely replicated prior work that showed LIN28B variants predicted later AAM in father-present girls, but this AAM-delaying effect was absent or reversed in father-absent girls. Findings are discussed in terms genetic confounding, the unique biological role of LIN28B, and using PGSs for G×E tests.

Several aspects of mother–child relationships are associated with children's internalizing problems. We examined longitudinal associations between mother–child conflict and children's internalizing problems in middle childhood. Specifically, we examined whether conflict and children's internalizing problems predict each other longitudinally in a sample of children from 3rd through 6th grade (N = 1,364) and their mothers using a cross-lagged panel model with random intercepts. In line with expectations, we found stable between-family differences in both mother–child conflict and children's internalizing problems. Contrary to expectations, we did not find that mother–child conflict and children's internalizing problems showed significant cross-lagged associations. However, mother–child conflict and children's internalizing problems had correlated errors at each wave, indicating that these two constructs covary with each other concurrently at multiple times across development, independent of stable between-family associations (i.e., as one increases, so does the other, and vice versa). The results of this study point to the importance of using statistical approaches that can disentangle between-family differences from within-family processes. In future studies, shorter time scales (e.g., weeks or months) may better capture dynamic associations between parent–child conflict and internalizing problems.

This study examined correspondence between timing (onset) and tempo (rate) of sexual maturation prospectively (average ages 11–16 years) measured by gonadal hormones and secondary sex characteristics (Tanner stage) using dual‐process models, and associations of these measures with substance use (SU) involvement in boys at age 16 years (N = 534, 77.5% White/22.5% Non‐White). All measures of timing were highly associated. Early Tanner stage timing often predicted slower increases in gonadal steroids, but not the reverse; patterns varied by ethnicity. Hormone and Tanner stage measures were similar earlier in development but diverged later in development. In White boys only, early timing of the pubertal rise in testosterone was associated with increased SU involvement, suggesting a physiological rather than psychosocial mechanism of association.

The present study examined the intergenerational transmission of internalizing and externalizing symptom severity, which indexes comorbidity, and symptom directionality, which indicates differentiation toward externalizing versus internalizing problems. Data are from 854 male and female, same-sex adult twin pairs born between 1926 and 1971 (32–60 years old, M = 44.9 years, SD = 4.9 years) from the Twin and Offspring Study in Sweden and their adolescent offspring (11–22 years old, M = 15.7 years, SD = 2.4 years, 52% female). Children-of-twins models revealed additive (9%) and dominant (45%) genetic and nonshared environmental (47%) influences on twins’ symptom severity, and additive genetic (39%) and nonshared environmental (61%) influences on twins’ symptom directionality. Both comorbid problems and preponderance of symptoms of a particular – internalizing versus externalizing – spectrum were correlated across parent and child generations, although associations were modest especially for directionality (i.e., transmission of specific symptom type). By interpreting findings alongside a recent study of adolescent twins, we demonstrate that the intergenerational transmission of symptom severity and symptom directionality are both unlikely to be attributable to genetic transmission, are both likely to be influenced by direct phenotypic transmission and/or nonpassive rGE, and the intergenerational transmission of symptom severity is also likely to be influenced by passive rGE.