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Poster #29 - Evidence for Viability-Vulnerability: Early Stress Predicts Inhibition in Girls, but not Boys at 24 Months

Sat, March 23, 8:00 to 9:15am, Baltimore Convention Center, Floor: Level 1, Exhibit Hall B

Integrative Statement

Although early cognitive development, and factors related to early cognition, is an active area of investigation, there have been conflicting results on the role that child sex plays in early cognition (Dipietro & Voegtline, 2015). There is a relative dearth of studies that have considered how contextual factors, such as residing in higher stress environments may interact with child sex in relation to cognition. This is notable because recently the viability-vulnerability hypothesis was proposed (Sandman et al., 2013), which suggests that girls’ cognition (e.g., executive functioning) may be more vulnerable to early life stress than boys’ cognition. It also is unknown at what point in development such effects may manifest, further contributing to mixed findings across existing work. For example, one study did not report such effects on girls’ general cognition in children 12 months of age (Sandman et al., 2012) whereas another study demonstrated anticipated effects on older girls’ (age 6-9) executive functioning (Buss et al., 2011). The goal of the current study is to address several gaps in existing work by examining how early cumulative risk and infant sex interact in association with a child’s early cognition and inhibition. Broadly, we hypothesized that children would experience a negative relationship between their cognitive abilities and early life stress. We hypothesized that girls would have stronger negative associations between early cognition and inhibition than boys. Finally, by examining general cognition at 14 months of age, and inhibition at 24 months of age, we explored the timing of when such effects might emerge.
A community sample of 179 mother-infant dyads participated. Four months postpartum, cumulative risk, indexing children’s exposure to early contextual stressors, such as poverty, and demographic information was collected, and mothers completed the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) and the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI). At 14 months postpartum children’s general cognitive development was evaluated with the Bayley Scales of Infant Development-III. At 24 months of age, toddlers completed a snack delay task, a measure of inhibition, which is an aspect of executive functioning.
After missing data was estimated using multiple imputation, two regression analyses were conducted to test hypotheses. Mother’s symptoms of depression and anxiety were entered as covariates. Contrary to expectations, none of the predictors were related to children’s general cognition at 14 months of age, and the child sex by cumulative risk interaction was not significant. However, for children’s inhibition at 24 months of age, cumulative risk, and, at a trend level, maternal anxiety emerged as significant predictors. Moreover, the child sex by cumulative risk interaction was significant (b = 0.52, p < .05). Simple slopes analyses showed that there was a strong negative association between cumulative risk and inhibition for girls (b = .32, p <.05), but not for boys (b = .02, p >.10).
These results provide support for the viability-vulnerability argument, which posits that females may experience relatively larger deficits in executive functioning compared to males and demonstrate that such effects on aspects of children’s cognition may not emerge until the second year of life.

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