J. Benjamin Hinnant

Children’s Sleep and Adjustment Over Time: The Role of Socioeconomic Context

Relations were examined between childrens sleep and their externalizing and internalizing symptoms. Longitudinal relations were examined when children were in 3rd (T1) and 5th (T2) grades, and cross-sectional relations were assessed at T2. Participants included 176 children at T1 (M = 8.68 years) and 141 children at T2 (M = 10.70 years). Sleep was examined via subjective reports and actigraphy. Children reported on anxiety, self-esteem, and depression symptoms, and parents reported on childrens externalizing and internalizing symptoms. Cross-sectionally and longitudinally, sleep problems were associated with worse adjustment outcomes; African American children or those from lower socioeconomic status homes were at particular risk. Findings highlight the importance of adequate sleep for childrens optimal development, especially in the context of ecological risk.

Developmental Trajectories of Delinquency Symptoms in Childhood: The Role of Marital Conflict and Autonomic Nervous System Activity

Trajectories of delinquency symptoms across middle and late childhood were examined through latent growth modeling, with a focus on the role of interactions among parental marital conflict, child sex, and multiple indices (baseline, reactivity) of either parasympathetic nervous system activity, indexed by respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), or sympathetic nervous system activity, indexed by skin conductance level (SCL), as predictors of growth. At Time 1, 128 girls and 123 boys (mean age = 8.23 yrs ± 0.73) and their parents participated. The sample comprised 64% European American and 36% African American children. Families participated in second and third waves of data collection with a 1-year lag between each wave. Interactions among marital conflict, sex, baseline RSA, and RSA reactivity from baseline to a frustrating lab task were significant predictors of growth in delinquent behavior from age 8 to age 10, with overall patterns indicating increasing symptoms for boys who lived in high-conflict homes and had an RSA response profile comprising lower RSA during the baseline and RSA augmentation (increase from baseline to the frustrating task). Furthermore, increases in delinquency symptoms over time were observed for children from high-conflict homes and with an SCL profile characterized by higher baseline levels and lower reactivity (less pronounced SCL increases from baseline) to the frustrating task. Findings highlight the importance of contemporaneous assessments of resting and reactivity levels when examining relations among the environment, physiological functioning, and psychopathology. Results are discussed in the context of interactions between biology and environment as relevant to the development of psychopathology.

Adaptive Patterns of Stress Responsivity: A Preliminary Investigation

The adaptive calibration model (ACM) is an evolutionary-developmental theory of individual differences in stress responsivity. In this article, we tested some key predictions of the ACM in a middle childhood sample (N = 256). Measures of autonomic nervous system activity across the sympathetic and parasympathetic branches validated the 4-pattern taxonomy of the ACM via finite mixture modeling. Moreover, the 4 patterns of responsivity showed the predicted associations with family stress levels but no association with measures of ecological stress. Our hypotheses concerning sex differences in responsivity were only partly confirmed. This preliminary study provides initial support for the key predictions of the ACM and highlights some of the methodological challenges that will need to be considered in future research on this topic.

Developmental Trajectories of Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia and Preejection Period in Middle Childhood

Autonomic nervous system (ANS) activity has been linked repeatedly to childrens socioemotional and behavioral adaptive functioning and development, yet the literature on how various indexes of ANS activity develop in childhood is sparse. We utilized latent growth modeling to investigate the development of respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), an established index of parasympathetic nervous system (PNS), and preejection period (PEP), a marker of sympathetic nervous system (SNS) influence on the heart, in children aged 8-10 years. At age 8, 251 children (128 girls, 123 boys; 162 European American, 89 African American) participated. Longitudinal data were collected during two additional waves when children were 9 and 10 years of age, with a 1-year lag between each wave. Childrens RSA and PEP exhibited significant stability over time. Marginally significant variability was found among children in how RSA changed over time (slope), but there was no significant interindividual variability in PEP changes over development. A conditional growth curve model (i.e., one with predictor variables) showed that initial levels of RSA and PEP and the slope of RSA over time were predicted by several demographic factors including the childs sex and race; RSA of European American children showed significant increases over time while African American children had higher initial RSA but no significant change over time. Findings extend basic knowledge in developmental biopsychology and have implications for research focusing on ANS measures as important predictors, moderators, and mediators of childhood adaptation.

Maternal Psychological Control and Child Internalizing Symptoms: Vulnerability and Protective Factors across Bioregulatory and Ecological Domains.

BACKGROUND We examined ecological (family socioeconomic status (SES)) and bioregulatory (sleep duration, sleep efficiency) moderators of the link between maternal psychological control and childrens vulnerability to internalizing symptoms. METHOD A large socioeconomically diverse sample of third graders (N = 141) and their mothers participated. Sleep was examined via actigraphy for one week. Psychological control and internalizing symptoms (depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, pre-sleep arousal) were examined through childrens reports. RESULTS For children with poorer sleep, lower SES, or a combination of the two, maternal psychological control was positively related to depressive symptoms; this association was not evident for children with both better sleep and higher SES. Further, maternal psychological control, sleep efficiency, and SES interacted to predict both anxiety symptoms and pre-sleep arousal. Children were protected from the negative effects of psychological control when they were from higher SES families and had higher sleep efficiency; for all other groups of children, psychological control was associated with anxiety symptoms. A similar but less robust pattern of results was found for pre-sleep arousal. CONCLUSIONS Findings highlight the importance of childrens bioregulatory processes within the socioeconomic context for an enhanced understanding of childrens vulnerability to internalizing problems in the context of maternal psychological control.

Skin Conductance Level Reactivity Moderates the Association between Harsh Parenting and Growth in Child Externalizing Behavior.

Skin conductance level reactivity (SCLR) was examined as a moderator of the association between harsh parenting at age 8 years and growth in child externalizing behavior from age 8 to age 10 (N = 251). Mothers and fathers provided reports of harsh parenting and their childrens externalizing behavior; children also provided reports of harsh parenting. SCLR was assessed in response to a socioemotional stress task and a problem-solving challenge task. Latent growth modeling revealed that boys with higher harsh parenting in conjunction with lower SCLR exhibited relatively high and stable levels of externalizing behavior during late childhood. Boys with higher harsh parenting and higher SCLR exhibited relatively low to moderate levels of externalizing behavior at age 8, but some results suggested that their externalizing behavior increased over time, approaching the same levels as boys with higher harsh parenting and lower SCLR by age 10. For the most part, girls and boys with lower harsh parenting were given relatively low and stable ratings of externalizing behavior throughout late childhood. Results are discussed from a developmental psychopathology perspective with reference to models of antisocial behavior in childhood.

Harsh parenting, parasympathetic activity, and development of delinquency and substance use

Stress response systems are thought to play an important role in the development of psychopathology. In addition, family stress may have a significant influence on the development of stress response systems. One potential avenue of change is through alterations to thresholds for the activation of stress responses: Decreased threshold for responding may mark increased stress sensitivity. Our first aim was to evaluate the interaction between thresholds for parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) responding, operationalized as resting respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), and harsh parenting in the prediction of development of delinquency and adolescent substance use (resting RSA as a biomarker of risk). The second aim was to evaluate if resting RSA changes over time as a function of harsh parenting and stress reactivity indexed by RSA withdrawal (altered threshold for stress responding). Our third aim was to evaluate the moderating role of sex in these relations. We used longitudinal data from 251 children ages 8-16 years. Mother-reports of child delinquency and RSA were acquired at all ages. Adolescents self-reported substance use at age 16 years. Family stress was assessed with child-reported harsh parenting. Controlling for marital conflict and change over time in harsh parenting, lower resting RSA predicted increases in delinquency and increased likelihood of drug use in contexts of harsh parenting, especially for boys. Harsh parenting was associated with declining resting RSA for children who exhibited greater RSA withdrawal to stress. Findings support resting PNS activity as a moderator of developmental risk that can be altered over time.

Children’s Internalizing Symptoms: The Role of Interactions between Cortisol and Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia

We examined interactions between childrens physiological activity across two systems, the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA)-axis and the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS), as predictors of child-reported internalizing symptoms (depression, anxiety). HPA activity was indexed by baseline salivary cortisol, and PNS activity was indexed by baseline respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA). Study 1 consisted of 57 children (54% girls; M age=8.81 years ±.34), and Study 2 included 219 children (51% girls; M age=9.31 years ±.79). Cortisol interacted with RSA to explain unique variance in childrens internalizing symptoms. Across the two studies, children with higher cortisol levels in conjunction with higher RSA levels tended to exhibit the lowest levels of depression and anxiety symptoms. Findings demonstrate that contemporaneous consideration of physiological activity across multiple systems can advance understanding of internalizing symptoms in children.

Codevelopment of externalizing and internalizing symptoms in middle to late childhood: sex, baseline respiratory sinus arrhythmia, and respiratory sinus arrhythmia reactivity as predictors.

We investigated the roles of sex and respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), an index of autonomic parasympathetic nervous system activity, as predictors of codeveloping externalizing and internalizing symptoms in middle childhood. We expected that sex, baseline RSA (RSA-B), and RSA reactivity (RSA-R) to two types of tasks would interact to differentiate co-occurring trajectories of symptoms. We tested these hypotheses by combining longitudinal data from two independent samples (n = 390; 210 girls, 180 boys) with repeated measures at ages 8, 9, 10, and 11. RSA-R was measured in response to a socially stressful and frustrating stressor. Indicators of growth in externalizing and internalizing symptoms were derived from multiple domain growth models and used in person-centered growth mixture analyses. Three groups of externalizing and internalizing trajectories were found. Profile membership was predicted by several two-way interactions among sex, RSA-B, or RSA-R but was not predicted by three-way interactions. Children with low RSA-B and strong RSA withdrawal, girls with low RSA-B, and girls with strong RSA withdrawal were more likely to be on a developmental trajectory of low externalizing symptoms and moderately elevated internalizing symptoms. Membership in the high externalizing and high internalizing trajectory was predicted by weak RSA withdrawal for boys and strong RSA withdrawal for girls. The type of stressor task also played a role in predicting probability of profile membership. Results are discussed in the context of developmental psychobiology and implications for the codevelopment of psychopathology symptoms in childhood.

Developmental trajectories of skin conductance level in middle childhood: Sex, race, and externalizing behavior problems as predictors of growth

We examined trajectories of skin conductance level (SCL) during baselines and two tasks across middle and late childhood through growth modeling. We also assessed the role of individual differences including child sex, race, and externalizing behavior problems (delinquency, anger, and aggression) in defining these trajectories. At T1, 128 girls and 123 boys (Mean age 8.23 yrs; SD=0.73) participated; 64% were European-American and 36% were African-American. Families participated in 2nd and 3rd study waves with a one-year lag between each wave. Mothers and children reported on child externalizing problems. Addressing notable gaps in knowledge, findings demonstrate varying trajectories of SCL over time based on the childs behavior problems, race, and sex, and are of importance for a better understanding of developmental psychopathology processes.