No abstract

Adverse early care is associated with attention regulatory problems, but not all so exposed develop attention problems. In a sample of 612 youth (girls=432, M=11.82 yrs, SD=1.5) adopted from institutions (e.g., orphanages) in 25 countries, we examined whether the Val66Met polymorphism of the BDNF gene moderates attention problems associated with the duration of institutional care. Parent-reported attention problem symptoms were collected using the MacArthur Health and Behavior Questionnaire. DNA was genotyped for the BDNF Val66Met (rs6265) SNP. Among youth from SE Asia, the predominant genotype was Val/Met, while among youth from Russia/Europe and Caribbean/South America the predominant genotype was Val/Val. For analysis, youth were grouped as carrying Val/Val or AnyMet alleles. Being female, being from SE Asia, and being younger when adopted were associated with fewer attention regulatory problem symptoms. Youth carrying at least one copy of the Met allele were more sensitive to the duration of deprivation, yielding an interaction that followed a differential susceptibility pattern. Thus, youth with Val/Met or Met/Met genotypes exhibited fewer symptoms than Val/Val genotypes when adoption was very early and more symptoms when adoption occurred later in development. Similar patterns were observed when SE Asian youth and youth from other parts of the world were analyzed separately.

Preschool children's understanding and use of goals were studied in two experiments. Children heard stories in the presence of pictures or props. The stories were varied by goal success occurring early or late in the story, with late goal success resulting in more causal connections in the narrative. The results showed that children recalled goals spontaneously and that their recall benefited from goal structure of the stories. Pictures benefited the children when the stories were short. Enactment of the props versus static displays of the props did not enhance recall in the second experiment. Preschool children thus demonstrated ability to infer and use goal and causal information in stories for both picture and object support.

A major question in the literature regarding memory development is whether memories of events from early in life are later accessible to verbal report. In a controlled study, we examined this question in toddlers who were 13, 16, or 20 months old at the time of exposure to specific events, and who were evaluated for spontaneous verbal expression of memory after delays of 9 to 12 months (Experiment 1), or 1 to 3 months (Experiment 2). Verbal reports of the events were elicited at the age of 3 years (both experiments). There was little evidence of spontaneous verbal mnemonic expression at the first delayed-recall test; the mnemonic expression that was observed was predicted by concurrent age and concurrent verbal fluency. Children who had been 20 months at the time of first experience of the events, and who were older and more verbally fluent at the first delayed-recall test (i.e., 20-month-olds in Experiment 1), provided verbal evidence of event memory at 3 years. The results are consistent with the suggestion that under some circumstances, early memories later are accessible to verbal report.For much of the history of cognitive and developmental science, it was widely assumed that young children were unable to form memories of events that would en-

Chronic parental maltreatment has been associated with lower levels of interpersonal trust, and depriving environments have been shown to predict shortsighted, risk-averse decision-making. The present study examined whether a circumscribed period of adverse care occurring only early in life was associated with biases in trust behavior. Fifty-three post-institutionalized (PI) youth, adopted internationally on average by one year of age, and 33 never-institutionalized, non-adopted youth (M age = 12.9 years) played a trust game. Participants decided whether or not to share coins with a different anonymous peer in each trial with the potential to receive a larger number of coins in return. Trials were presented in blocks that varied in the degree to which the peers behaved in a trustworthy (reciprocal) or untrustworthy (non-reciprocal) manner. A comparison condition consisted of a computerized lottery with the same choices and probabilistic risk as the peer trials. Non-adopted comparison youth showed a tendency to share more with peers than to invest in the lottery and tended to maintain their level of sharing across trials despite experiencing trials in which peers failed to reciprocate. In contrast, PI children, particularly those who were adopted over a year of age, shared less with peers than they invested in the lottery and quickly adapted their sharing behavior to peers' responses. These results suggest that PI youth were more mistrusting, more sensitive to both defection and reciprocation, and potentially more accurate in their trusting decisions than comparison youth. Results support the presence of a sensitive period for the development of trust in others, whereby conditions early in life may set long-term biases in decision-making.