The neurocognitive profiles of children adopted from care and their emotional and behavioral problems at home and school

Abstract

Adoptees' mental health problems in childhood and later life are well described, but little attention has been paid to domestically adopted children's emotional and behavioral problems and neurocognitive profiles. The aim of this study was to describe the neurocognitive profiles of domestically adopted children in the UK and their parent-and teacher-rated emotional and behavioral problems. Forty-five children (M age = 75.96 months, SD = 12.98; 51.1% female) who were placed for adoption from public care at a M age of 22.14 months (SD = 14.21) completed a battery of age standardized neurocognitive tests, and adoptive parents and school teachers rated their emotional and behavioral problems. Children had more emotional and behavioral problems than the general population and over a fifth scored low (> 1 SD below the expected range for their age) in 5/6 neurocognitive tasks.Children who scored low on the non-verbal reasoning task were more likely to have more parent-and teacher-rated behavioral problems, and children's performance on the inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility tasks were associated with parent-rated behavioral problems.Children's verbal reasoning scores were positively associated with both parent-and teacherrated emotional problems. Children who were adopted later in childhood scored significantly lower in non-verbal reasoning. Although longitudinal studies are needed to clarify the nature of neurocognitive functioning as a marker for later mental health problems, our findings underscore the importance of using comprehensive assessments to better recognize adopted children's difficulties and inform appropriate intervention initiatives.

Facial emotion recognition in adopted children

“…Notwithstanding its limitations, this study suggests the importance of using tailored assessment to inform targeted intervention strategies that can be harnessed to improve adopted children's outcomes [1,2,13]. Although there are promising interventions that support emotion recognition and improve behavioural outcomes in childhood, e.g., [63], further research must examine whether adopted children may similarly benefit from such interventions.…”

“…Although a child's circumstances are dramatically altered through adoption, children adopted from state care in the UK are likely to have experienced a cluster of pre-adoptive adverse experiences that place them at higher risk for emotional and behavioural problems [9,11]. Understanding of specific domains of development has the potential to inform targets for intervention [13,14], and these targeted interventions may be enhanced by knowledge of the emotion recognition abilities of children adopted from local authority care. We addressed this problem by investigating facial emotion recognition in a mixed-method, multi-informant study of 4-to-8-year-old children adopted from local authority care in the UK.…”

“…To investigate the generalisability of the adopted sample to their population, we compared the child and parent characteristics of the children who were assessed in NDAU with children taking part in the Wales Adoption Cohort Study who were eligible for inclusion and with the population of interest (all children adopted between 1st July 2014 and 31st July 2015). Except for child age (where children in the present study were younger than the population of interest at the time of adoption) the adopted children and their families were representative of the population from which they were drawn (see [13]).…”

“…Although evidence suggests that many adopted children fare well, their experiences of early adversity places them at greater risk for developing emotional and behavioural problems that may endure in the years after they come to live with their adoptive family [8][9][10][11][12]. Developing knowledge of adoptees' cognitive and affective development has the potential to provide targets for effective intervention that support the adjustment of adopted children and their families [1,2]; however, studies that investigate specific domains of development of children adopted from public care are scarce (for exceptions see [13,14]).…”

Overlapping brain correlates of superior cognition among children at genetic risk for Alzheimer’s disease and/or major depressive disorder

“…Inhibitory control nears maturation in late childhood and is the cornerstone of optimal mental performance 48 . In contrast, difficulties with inhibitory control, which tend to be observed among adoptees 49 , constitute a transdiagnostic contributor to psychopathology 50 . Our interest in BOLD M stemmed from its relevance to functional maturation, since similar behavioural performance on identical tasks is linked to greater BOLD M in children relative to adults 51 .…”