The overall goal of this project is to investigate selected attributes and mechanisms of emotion regulatory skills in the young offspring of mothers with childhood-onset depression that may contribute to such offspring being at high risk for eventual depressive and related disorders. We will examine the following domains: (1) emotion expression and regulatory strategies in the child, (2) adjustment and cognitive style in the mother, and (3) maternal interactive behavior related to the emotion-regulation in the child. The sample will involve a longitudinal comparison of the offspring of mothers with childhood-onset depression, the offspring of probands with childhood-onset anxiety disorder, and the offspring of probands with no childhood-onset diagnosis. Assessments of these three domains will take place annually in the laboratory. Our overall hypothesis is that there exists a characteristic confluence of child factors, maternal characteristics, and parent-child interactive factors that put the offspring of childhood-onset depressed probands at risk for depression. An accelerated longitudinal design will be utilized so that group differences can be evaluated-both cross-sectionally and longitudinally from ages 1 to 9 during the five-year span of the project.
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