Faculty Bibliography

Two curricula designed to enhance the early literacy skills of 4-year-old preschool children were evaluated against a third, comparison condition. Thirty-five Head Start preschool classrooms were assigned randomly to incorporate one of two early literacy curricular approaches, Let's Begin with the Letter People (R) or Waterford Early Reading Program (R) Level 1, into their current curriculum, the High/ Scope (R) Educational Approach, or to use the High/Scope method alone. Results indicated that children in the literacy intervention classrooms demonstrated significantly stronger outcomes in the areas of emergent writing, book and print knowledge, and general reading readiness skills. Minority language status also played a significant role in outcome, regardless of intervention condition. Implications for early childhood literacy interventions, especially important for children of low-income families, are discussed.

Urban parents, particularly single mothers living within inner-city communities, often struggle to obtain sufficient social support for themselves and for parenting. Support for these parents is particularly important given the prevalence of risk-taking behaviors among youth in these communities, which necessitates vigilant monitoring of these youth. The current study explored from whom low-income mothers obtain social support, the influence of child externalizing on source of social support, and how social support and child behavior interrelate with parental monitoring and supervision. Contrary to expectations, parental monitoring at time 1 did not predict child externalizing at time 2, but, as expected, a significant negative association was noted at time 1 between these constructs. Higher time 1 child externalizing did predict lower time 2 maternal monitoring, suggesting frustrated efforts by mothers to monitor high externalizing children. Mothers reporting strong support networks, however, showed higher levels of monitoring, and mothers who turned to children for social support also showed a tendency to monitor more closely. Although mothers of high externalizing children reported poor support quality, mothers did not discriminate between high and low externalizing children when choosing source of social support. These findings suggest the importance of monitoring prior to child initiation into risk-taking behavior, and the possible role of children in strengthening support networks

We (Fox et al., 2005) recently described a gene-by- environment interaction involving child temperament and maternal social support, finding heightened behavioral inhibition in children homozygous or heterozygous for the serotonin transporter (5HTTLPR) gene short allele whose mothers reported low social support. Here, we propose a model, Plasticity for Affective Neurocircuitry, that describes the manner in which genetic disposition and environmental circumstances may interact. Children with a persistently fearful temperament (and the 5HTTLPR short allele) are more likely to experience caregiving environments in which threat is highlighted. This in turn will exacerbate an attention bias that alters critical affective neurocircuitry to threat and enhances and maintains anxious behavior in the child.

The editors are pleased to offer a brief personal selection of some of the articles that they found particularly interesting and important in the 2007 issue of American Journal of Psychiatry. Topics covered are clinical treatment trials in schizophrenia, risk taking as a reaction to terrorism, developmental perspectives on psychopathology, medication access and continuity under Medicare Part D, Adverse life events and depression, and patient Detection of dopamine receptor blockade.

There are limited data on the neurocognitive correlates of childhood anxiety disorders. The objective of this study was to examine whether visual and verbal memory deficits of nonemotional stimuli are (1) a shared feature of three common childhood anxiety disorders (social phobia, separation anxiety disorder, and generalized anxiety disorder) or whether these deficits are restricted to specific anxiety disorders, and (2) present in offspring who possess at least one of the following established risk factors for anxiety disorders, parental history of panic disorder (PD), or major depressive disorder (MDD). One hundred and sixty offspring, ages 9-20 years, were recruited from parents with lifetime diagnoses of PD, MDD, PD plus MDD, or neither illness. Different clinicians blindly administered semistructured diagnostic interviews to offspring and parents. Verbal and visual memory subtests of the Wide Range Assessment of Memory and Learning were administered to offspring. The results showed that offspring with ongoing social phobia demonstrated reduced visual but not verbal memory scores compared to those without social phobia when controlling for offspring IQ, separation anxiety disorder, and generalized anxiety disorder. No other offspring anxiety disorder predicted memory performance. Neither parental PD nor parental MDD was associated with offspring memory performance. These findings are relevant to understanding the phenomenology of childhood anxiety disorders and may provide insights into the neural circuits underlying these disorders