Poster #19 - Early Life Adversity and Psychopathology in Preschoolers: Mechanisms and Moderators

• In Event: Poster Session 08

Abstract

Early life adversity (ELA) is a well-known risk factor for adverse physical and mental health outcomes across the lifespan. In particular, ELA (i.e., exposure to adversity in infancy through early childhood) predicts greater risk for internalizing and externalizing symptoms throughout development (Clark et al., 2010; Nemeroff & Seligman, 2013; Pechtel & Pizzagalli, 2011). Developmental psychopathology theories suggest that early life adversity alters still developing emotion and stress processing systems, shaping the way individuals process information and respond to their environment as they grow (Juster et al., 2010; Shonkoff et al., 2012). Contemporary models of adversity and psychopathology suggest that heightened emotional reactivity may be one key pathway that links early adversity exposure to diverse psychopathological outcomes (McLaughlin & Sheridan, 2016). Although ELA is associated with increased risk for negative health outcomes across the lifespan, the majority of youth who experience adversity adaptively navigate their environment and only a minority go on to develop psychopathology. Accordingly, it is important to understand protective factors that may promote healthy development and prevent the development of psychopathology in youth with a history of adversity exposure. One transdiagnostic protective factor that develops early in life and predicts decreased risk for many internalizing and externalizing disorders is cognitive control, a heterogenous construct that includes planning, inhibition, and attentional control. This protective role of CC may be especially relevant among adversity-exposed youth, who are at elevated risk for psychopathology.
This study investigated the novel hypothesis that negative emotionality (NE), a trait characterized by the tendency to experience strong negative emotions and have difficulty being soothed, would mediate the link between ELA and psychopathology symptoms and that CC would moderate this pathway in a large, representative sample of 917 preschoolers (Mage = 3.84, range = 2 -7). Total adversity exposure was measured via caregiver-report on the Conflict Tactics Scale, second edition (Straus et al., 1996), the Conflict Tactics Scale-Parent Child (Straus et al., 1998) and semi-structured interview, the Preschool-Age Psychiatric Assessment (PAPA; Egger & Angold, 2004). NE and CC were measured via parent-report on the very short form of the Early Childhood Behavior Questionnaire (Putnam et al., 2010) or the Childhood Behavior Questionnaire (Putnam & Rothbart, 2006), depending on child age. Psychopathology was assessed as the sum of symptoms of anxiety, depressive, attention, and conduct disorders on the PAPA. Structural equation modeling revealed that NE partially mediated the link between ELA and psychopathology symptoms (b=.37, SE=.11, p =.001). Moreover, CC significantly interacted with NE (b=-.07, SE=.03, p=.02) such that the conditional indirect effect of ELA on psychopathology through NE was stronger in children with low CC (b=.44, SE=.13 p =.001) than in children with higher CC (b=.29, SE=.09, p =.001; Figure 1). Taken together, these results identify elevated NE as one mechanism linking ELA and psychopathology, specifically among children with poorer top-down control. These results inform our understanding of developmental risks young children experience following adversity and highlight ways to identify and intervene with adversity-exposed youth to promote adaptation and wellbeing across development.

Authors

• Megan Davis, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  Presenting Author

• Esmeralda Navarro, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill

• Kimberly Carpenter, Duke Univeristy

• William Copeland, University of Vermont

• Helen Egger, New York University Langone, Child Study Center

• Margaret A. Sheridan, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill