The stability of frontal electroencephalogram (EEG) asymmetry, temperamental activity level and fear, as well as bidirectional relations between asymmetry and temperament across the first four years of life were examined in a sample of 183 children. Children participated in annual lab visits through 48 months, providing EEG and maternal report of temperament. EEG asymmetry showed moderate stability between 10 and 24 months. Analyses revealed that more left asymmetry predicted later activity level across the first three years. Conversely, asymmetry did not predict fear. Rather, fear at 36 months predicted more right asymmetry at 48 months. Results highlight the need for additional longitudinal research of infants and children to increase understanding of bidirectional relations between EEG and temperament in typically developing populations.

Early temperamental sensitivity may form the basis for the later development of socioemotional maladjustment. In particular, temperamental negative affect places children at risk for the development of anxiety. However, not all children who show negative affect go on to develop anxiety or extreme social withdrawal. Recent research indicates that reactive control, in the form of attention to threat, may serve as a bridge between early temperament and the development of later social difficulties. In addition, variation in effortful control may also modulate this trajectory. Children (MeanAge=5.57 years) were assessed for attention bias to threatening and pleasant faces using a dot-probe paradigm. Attention bias to threatening (but not happy) faces moderated the direct positive relation between negative affect and social withdrawal. Children with threat biases showed a significant link between negative affect and social withdrawal, while children who avoided threat did not. In contrast, effortful control did not moderate the relation between negative affect and social withdrawal. Rather, there was a direct negative relation between effortful control and social withdrawal. The findings from this short report indicate that the relation amongst temperament, attention bias, and social withdrawal appears early in life and point to early emerging specificity in reactive and regulatory functioning.

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Based on the emotion socialization and bioecological models, the present study examined the contributions of teacher emotion socialization (i.e., teacher reactions to child emotions) on children's social-emotional behaviors, and the moderating effect of child temperamental surgency on these relations in the preschool context. A total of 337 children and 80 teachers from private and public preschools/childcares participated in the study. To account for the nested nature of our data, hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) was utilized. The results indicated that several types of teacher reactions to children's emotions significantly predicted children's socialemotional behaviors, after adjusting for prior levels of the behaviors. In addition, significant interactions between child surgency and teacher emotion socialization behaviors on children's social-emotional behaviors were found. These interactions indicated that children with low surgency were more sensitive to teachers' positive and negative socialization, compared to children with high surgency. Our results highlight the importance of discrete emotion socialization behaviors by teachers to children's social-emotional development.

The experience of childhood maltreatment is associated with pregnancy during adolescence and increased risk for maltreating one’s own child or children. However, adolescent mothers who have been identified by child protective services (CPS) both as perpetrators and alleged victims carry a unique burden of trauma and are seldom the focus of retrospective studies. This study examines the extent to which adolescent mother perpetrators have prior experience with CPS as alleged victims and how their current perpetrator characteristics are associated with their prior CPS experience. We constructed a study sample of adolescent mother perpetrators reported to the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS) by 27 states for federal fiscal years (FFYs) 2016–2018 (N = 8205) and determined whether they had any prior CPS experience as alleged victims since 2005. Characteristics of the participants as both perpetrators and alleged victims were examined, and associations between these were analyzed using odds ratios. Nearly two-thirds (62%) of adolescent mother perpetrators had prior experience with CPS. Analyses revealed significant associations of prior CPS experiences and perpetrator age, race, and connection with additional perpetrators. The types of maltreatment allegations that adolescent mothers experienced as children were significantly associated with the type of maltreatment they perpetrated. Key conclusions highlight the importance in understanding the link between childhood CPS experience and later maltreatment perpetration by adolescent mothers which will in turn help target prevention services to break the cycle of intergenerational maltreatment. Limitations and future research directions are discussed.