Prenatal tobacco exposure (PTE) is the most common preventable risk for adverse developmental outcome, affecting more than 500,000 infants per year. PTE has been linked to an increased likelihood of ADHD and other childhood disruptive behavior disorders. Several studies have found externalizing behavior problems in tobacco-exposed (TE) children in early childhood, as young as 2-3 years of age (Day, 2000;Wakschlag, 2006a). Poor self-regulation (encompassing both executive control and emotion regulation) subserved by prefrontal systems likely underlies the development of externalizing behavior problems in childhood (Nigg &Casey, 2006), because PTE disrupts dopaminergic function that drives prefrontal neural systems, providing a link between PTE and externalizing symptomatology. The purpose of this exploratory R21 project is to characterize the impact of PTE on self-regulation and the relation to externalizing problem behaviors to better understand the pathways to later externalizing disorders. Self-regulatory abilities in young TE children will be investigated by following an existing NIDA-funded cohort whose prenatal tobacco exposure has been prospectively quantified and verified biochemically (DA014661). Children will be assessed at age 36 months, a point early in development when reliable and valid measures of executive control and emotion regulation are available (Carlson, 2005, 2007;Espy, in press;Kochanska 2000). To accurately and reliably measure executive control and emotion regulation, sophisticated latent variable models are used, where multiple, child-friendly tasks are selected as indices of each construct, and the common factor variance is determined to generate """"""""purer"""""""" latent construct variables that are less influenced by extraneous sources of variability (Miyake, 2000). TE children will demonstrate deficits in self-regulation, compared to non-exposed peers, and a dose- response relation will be observed. Clinically-relevant problem behaviors are assessed with state-of-the-art multi-method tools, the BASC-2 and DB-DOS (Wakschlag, 2005) and will be related to PTE via self-regulatory skills. Possible interactions with parenting and home environment quality will be explored. These relations will be considered controlling for other risk factors, including prenatal alcohol exposure, maternal self-regulation, and postnatal environmental tobacco exposure. The findings from this exploratory R21 project will help to better determine the mechanisms that underlie problem behaviors in young children that will inform efforts to develop targeted preventive interventions and public health campaigns in the longer term.

Public Health Relevance

Prenatal tobacco exposure (PTE) affects more than 500,000 infants per year, and has been linked to increased disruptive behavior in young children (Day, 2000;Wakschlag, 2006a). This project will examine the mechanisms underlying this link by examining self-regulation, or the ability to control behavior and emotions in prenatally tobacco-exposed and non-exposed preschool children. Understanding the specific deficits associated with PTE will drive development of targeted interventions for at-risk preschoolers, and improve public health efforts to assist women smokers to quit during pregnancy.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)
Type
Exploratory/Developmental Grants (R21)
Project #
5R21DA024769-02
Application #
7754131
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZRG1-BBBP-J (02))
Program Officer
Borek, Nicolette T
Project Start
2009-01-01
Project End
2011-12-31
Budget Start
2010-01-01
Budget End
2011-12-31
Support Year
2
Fiscal Year
2010
Total Cost
$182,531
Indirect Cost
Name
University of Nebraska Lincoln
Department
Psychology
Type
Schools of Arts and Sciences
DUNS #
555456995
City
Lincoln
State
NE
Country
United States
Zip Code
68588
Abdul Rahman, Aishah; Carroll, Daniel J; Espy, Kimberly Andrews et al. (2017) Neural Correlates of Response Inhibition in Early Childhood: Evidence From a Go/No-Go Task. Dev Neuropsychol 42:336-350
Wiebe, Sandra A; Clark, Caron A C; De Jong, Desiree M et al. (2015) Prenatal tobacco exposure and self-regulation in early childhood: Implications for developmental psychopathology. Dev Psychopathol 27:397-409
Chevalier, Nicolas; James, Tiffany D; Wiebe, Sandra A et al. (2014) Contribution of reactive and proactive control to children's working memory performance: Insight from item recall durations in response sequence planning. Dev Psychol 50:1999-2008
Chevalier, Nicolas; Kelsey, Kathleen M; Wiebe, Sandra A et al. (2014) The temporal dynamic of response inhibition in early childhood: an ERP study of partial and successful inhibition. Dev Neuropsychol 39:585-99
Wiebe, Sandra A; Fang, Hua; Johnson, Craig et al. (2014) Determining the impact of prenatal tobacco exposure on self-regulation at 6 months. Dev Psychol 50:1746-56
Chevalier, Nicolas; Huber, Kristina L; Wiebe, Sandra A et al. (2013) Qualitative change in executive control during childhood and adulthood. Cognition 128:1-12
Clark, Caron A C; Sheffield, Tiffany D; Chevalier, Nicolas et al. (2013) Charting early trajectories of executive control with the shape school. Dev Psychol 49:1481-93
Clark, Caron A C; Sheffield, Tiffany D; Wiebe, Sandra A et al. (2013) Longitudinal associations between executive control and developing mathematical competence in preschool boys and girls. Child Dev 84:662-77
Wiebe, Sandra A; Sheffield, Tiffany D; Andrews Espy, Kimberly (2012) Separating the fish from the sharks: a longitudinal study of preschool response inhibition. Child Dev 83:1245-61
Chevalier, Nicolas; Sheffield, Tiffany D; Nelson, Jennifer Mize et al. (2012) Underpinnings of the costs of flexibility in preschool children: the roles of inhibition and working memory. Dev Neuropsychol 37:99-118

Showing the most recent 10 out of 13 publications