The aim of this RSA application is to expand the candidate's ability to understand the development, prevention, and treatment of two types of childhood disorders: conduct problems and depression. The candidate proposes two programs of research and a plan for professional development. The goal of the first program (NIMH R01-50907) is to identify developmental pathways leading to antisocial behavior from infancy to middle childhood. The first hypothesis is that parent-infant interaction in the first year, characterized by infant demandingness and maternal unresponsiveness, leads to coercive cycles of interaction at preschool-age, which in turn spread to relationships the child has with siblings, peers, and teachers at school-age. It is further hypothesized that the young child who as established a pattern of conduct problems, has been rejected by caregivers, and has shown coercive patterns of interaction with adults and siblings will more likely demonstrate a persistent pattern of conduct problems from ages 6-12. This model will be tested with a sample of 310, ethnically diverse boys from low-income families followed from infancy through school-age. The goal of the second program (NIMH PO1-56193) is to investigate selected attributes and mechanisms of emotion-regulatory kills in the offspring of mothers with childhood-onset depression (COD) that may contribute to the children's own risk for depressive disorders. The offspring in the COD group will be compared with two others: (1) the offspring of probands with childhood-onset anxiety disorder (AD), and (2) the offspring of probands with no childhood-onset disorder (NCOD). It is hypothesized that in COD families, there will be greater impairment in (1) the child's regulatory strategies, (2) maternal attributes, and (3) maternal parenting, in comparison to AD and NCOD families. An accelerated longitudinal design will be utilized so that group differences can be evaluated cross-sectionally and longitudinally from ages 1 to 9 during the five-year span of the project. Participants will include 132 offspring of COD, AD, and NCOD probands. The purpose of the RSA is to permit the candidate to conduct these two programs of research, to enhance his ability to train students, and to increase his professional development by broadening his knowledge of research design and methods, psychophysiology, cultural context, and intervention research.
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