Callous-Unemotional Traits in Adolescent Twins: Developmental Precursors, Stability and Etiology From Early Childhood

• In Event: Poster Session 02
  In Poster Session: PS 02 Topic - Developmental Psychopathology

Abstract

Background
Both early childhood and adolescence are important developmental periods in understanding callous-unemotional traits (CU), yet no research has investigated the stability in CU or the underlying genetic and environmental contributions to this stability across these periods. If CU is stable from early childhood to adolescence, identifying the relative contribution of genetic and environmental factors to stability can inform about the factors underlying risk for CU in adolescence.
Methods
A longitudinal community sample of approximately 300 same-sex twin pairs was assessed at ages 2 and 3 years (51% male), of which 128 pairs were assessed in adolescence (M age=14.5 years; 46% male). Early CU, prosociality, conduct problems and hyperactivity were assessed using parent-report from the Child Behavior Checklist 1.5-5yrs and Revised Rutter Parent Scale for Preschool Children. In adolescence, parent- and self-report from the Inventory of Callous-Unemotional Traits assessed CU.
Results
Regression analyses revealed modest stability in parent-reported CU (β=.18, p=.01). Biometric models indicated that this stability was due to common genetic effects that persisted across age (rg=.27), whereas change was both genetically and environmentally mediated (Figure 1). When early childhood prosociality, conduct problems, and hyperactivity were included as predictors of adolescent CU in the regression model, only prosociality predicted later parent-rated CU (Table 1). This longitudinal association was also explained by common genetic effects (Figure 1), but in this case working in opposite directions (rg=-.59). Furthermore, the genetic correlation between early prosociality and adolescent CU included unique genetic effects shared between the two (i.e., above and beyond those shared with early CU).
Conclusions
This study establishes long-term stability in CU from early childhood to adolescence, providing further support for the validity of assessing early CU and its impact on later behavior. Stability was modest, however, pointing to substantial change from early childhood to adolescence that was both genetically and environmentally mediated. This underscores the important message that CU, despite being heritable in early childhood and demonstrating modest genetic stability into adolescence, is not a child’s destiny. There is significant reorganization across childhood, and future research identifying more specific biological and environmental mechanisms of this change can create more effective interventions and better identify at-risk children. Results also support the importance of integrating normative prosocial development into our understanding of childhood CU given its unique importance as an early predictor of adolescent CU. More information on the relation, and distinctions, between CU and prosociality will further our understanding of childhood CU.

Authors

• Megan Flom, Boston University
  Presenting Author

• Kimberly J Saudino, Boston University
  Non-Presenting Author