Individuals who have suffered from child maltreatment tend to have difficulties learning to interpret and understand social and emotional cues from others (Pollak, 2004; Stuewig, 2005). As a result of these difficulties, such individuals are likely to have problems forming and maintaining positive relationships throughout their lives (Pollak, 2011). These disruptions in social processes are one of the main features emphasized in the new NIMH Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) framework for understanding mental disorders. Further, both child maltreatment and poor social communication abilities are related to the development of a host of negative health and behavior problems (Cervilla et al., 2007; Cicchetti & Toth, 1998; Lansford, Dodge, & Pettit, 2002; Shechner et al., 2011). Attention re-training paradigms that target biases toward emotional stimuli have shown promise as tools for intervention (Beard, Sawyer, & Hofmann, 2012). Such paradigms have been shown to alter emotion biases and attenuate negative symptoms associated with them, including anxiety (Amir, Beard, Burns, & Bomyea, 2009), depression (Hallion & Ruscio, 2011), and aggression (Penton-Voak et al., 2013). However, whether this type of intervention would aid in altering biases that result from child maltreatment has received little attention. The current proposal is a novel set of studies designed to provide training to allow the PI to further develop the skills necessary to secure a research faculty position and to further the development of this program of research. In addition, this proposal seeks to provide initial evidence that specific atypical emotion processes can be targeted for effective behavioral interventions among maltreated children. To achieve these goals, the two Specific Aims of this research are: 1) To determine whether allocation of attention to emotion cues is associated with social functioning among maltreated children and 2) To test a potential mechanism through which attentional processes can be altered in ways that improve children's regulation of social processes.
Child maltreatment is a serious public health concern in the United States that contributes substantially to morbidity and mortality and affects approximately 10% of children in the United States. Difficulties in social and emotional functioning that result from such aberrant early life experiences, such as those targeted by the NIH RDoC project, can lead to social withdrawal, interpersonal difficulties, development of psychopathology, and a host of other negative outcomes. The current project aims to 1) determine whether allocation of attention to emotion cues is associated with social functioning among maltreated children and 2) test a potential mechanism through which attentional processes can be altered in ways that improve children's regulation of social processes.
| Leitzke, Brian T; Pollak, Seth D (2016) Developmental changes in the primacy of facial cues for emotion recognition. Dev Psychol 52:572-81 |
