A. Claussen

• PhD
• Medical Professional at U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Objective Promoting health during adolescence can support long-term well-being, especially for teens diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), who face increased risks due to the disorder's impact on development and health behaviors. ADHD is often associated with difficulties in social interactions, a higher likelihood of bull...

Introduction Childhood mental, behavioral, and developmental disorders (MBDD) are common and are associated with poor health and well-being. Monitoring the prevalence of MBDDs among children and factors that may influence health outcomes is important to understanding risk and promoting population health. Method We examined trends in parent-reporte...

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that develops during childhood and can last into adulthood. Data from the National Center for Health Statistics Rapid Surveys System collected during October-November 2023 were used to estimate the prevalence of ADHD diagnosis and treatment among U.S. adults. In 2023,...

Objective Young children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) can have challenging behaviors putting them at risk for preschool expulsion and for adverse outcomes across child development, health, and education. We examined the association of preschool expulsion with ADHD symptoms, diagnosis, treatment, and functioning among childre...

Objective To characterize provider types delivering outpatient care overall and through telehealth to U.S. adults with ADHD. Method Using employer-sponsored insurance (ESI) and Medicaid claims, we identified enrollees aged 18 to 64 years who received outpatient care for ADHD in 2021. Billing provider codes were used to tabulate the percentage of e...

Objective: To provide updated national prevalence estimates of diagnosed attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), ADHD severity, co-occurring disorders, and receipt of ADHD medication and behavioral treatment among U.S. children and adolescents by demographic and clinical subgroups using data from the 2022 National Survey of Children's Hea...

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is characterized by persistent patterns of inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsiveness. Among US children and adolescents aged 3–17 years, 9.4% have a diagnosis of ADHD. Previous research suggests possible links between parental substance use and ADHD among children. We conducted a systematic review...

Introduction: Many children and adolescents experience insufficient sleep, which poses risks for their short- and long-term health and development. This study examined the concurrent associations of contextual factors, including child, demographic, neighborhood, and family factors, with short sleep duration. Methods: We combined data on children...

Background: Sleep problems are common in children with Tourette Syndrome (TS). However, research regarding their demographic and clinical profile is limited. Methods: We examined characteristics of 114 children aged five to 17 years with a lifetime diagnosis of TS and compared children with sleep disorder (n = 32) and without sleep disorder (n =...

Objective To identify characteristics associated with bullying involvement in pediatric ADHD. Methods Data from the 2016 to 2017 National Survey of Children’s Health for children aged 6 to 17 years with ADHD were evaluated to assess the association between parent-reported bullying victimization or perpetration and the following potential predictor...

Objective To assess the association of diabetes and mental, behavioral, and developmental disorders in youth, we examined the magnitude of overlap between these disorders in children and adolescents. Study Design In this cross-sectional study, we calculated prevalence estimates using the 2016–2019 National Survey of Children’s Health. Parents repo...

Although neurobiologic and genetic factors figure prominently in the development of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), adverse physical health experiences and conditions encountered during childhood may also play a role. Poor health is known to impact the developing brain with potential lifelong implications for behavioral issues. In...

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are associated with poor health. Childhood experiences of racial/ethnic discrimination and other forms of racism may underlie or exacerbate other ACEs. We explored health-related associations with perceived racial/ethnic discrimination relative to other ACEs, using data from 2016 to 2019 National Survey of Child...

Purpose : This study evaluated the stability over time of prevalence estimates of mental disorders among school-aged children from the same community. Methods : We compared screening status and weighted prevalence of selected mental disorders from the two-stage school-based South Carolina Project to Learn About Youth-Mental Health (Time 1) and its...

Parenting and family environment have significant impact on child development, including development of executive function, attention, and self-regulation, and may affect the risk of developmental disorders including attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). This paper examines the relationship of parenting and family environment factors wit...

Mental health encompasses a range of mental, emotional, social, and behavioral functioning and occurs along a continuum from good to poor. Previous research has documented that mental health among children and adolescents is associated with immediate and long-term physical health and chronic disease, health risk behaviors, social relationships, edu...

Infants, children, and adolescents who do not get sufficient sleep are at increased risk for injuries, obesity, type 2 diabetes, poor mental health, attention and behavior problems, and poor cognitive development (1). The American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) provides age-specific sleep duration recommendations to promote optimal health (1). CD...

The Project to Learn About Youth-Mental Health (PLAY–MH; 2014–2018) is a school-based, two-stage study designed to estimate the prevalence of selected mental disorders among K-12 students in four U.S.-based sites (Colorado, Florida, Ohio, and South Carolina). In Stage 1, teachers completed validated screeners to determine student risk status for ex...

Diabetes (DM) is among the most common chronic diseases diagnosed in youth in the United States. In adults, a bi-directional relationship has been demonstrated between DM and mental, behavioral, and developmental disorders (MBDD). Such comorbidities may significantly impact the quality of life of patients with DM and disease management. However, li...

Objective: Tourette syndrome (TS) and co-occurring mental, behavioral, and developmental disorders (MBDDs) have been shown to affect peer relationships. This study provides nationally representative estimates of diagnosed TS prevalence and the prevalence of parent-reported bullying victimization and perpetration among US children with and without...

Objective. The aim of the present study was to describe self-regulation (the ability to influence or control one’s thoughts or behavior in response to situational demands and social norms) in children ages 3–5 years using a nationally representative sample and examine risk and protective factors to identify opportunities to support children and fam...

Objective: In an effort to promote the health and developmental outcomes of children born into poverty, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) conceptualized and designed the Legacy for Children™ (Legacy) public health prevention model. This article examines the impact of Legacy on children's cognitive and language development (intel...

Objective: Children with Tourette syndrome (TS) are at risk for a variety of co-occurring conditions and learning and school problems. The purpose of this study was to determine the impact of TS and co-occurring conditions on school measures. Methods: Parent-reported data from the 2007-2008 and 2011-2012 National Survey of Children's Health were...

Objectives: To examine intelligence, language, and academic achievement through 18 years of age among children with congenital cytomegalovirus infection identified through hospital-based newborn screening who were asymptomatic at birth compared with uninfected infants. Methods: We used growth curve modeling to analyze trends in IQ (full-scale, v...

Objective: Clinical guidelines provide recommendations for diagnosis and treatment of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), with specific guidance on caring for children younger than 6 years. This exploratory study describes ADHD diagnosis and treatment patterns among young children in the United States using 2 nationally representative...

This article presents the findings of a qualitative study of maternal perceptions of parenting following participation in Legacy for ChildrenTM (Legacy), an evidence-based parenting program for low-income mothers of young children and infants. To further examine previous findings and better understand participant experiences, we analyzed semistruct...

This article reviews the state of the science on psychosocial treatments for disruptive behaviors in children, as an update to Eyberg, Nelson, and Boggs (2008). We followed procedures for literature searching, study inclusion, and treatment classification as laid out in Southam-Gerow and Prinstein (2014), focusing on treatments for children 12 year...

In this article, the authors posit that programs promoting nurturing parent–child relationships influence outcomes of parents and young children living in poverty through two primary mechanisms: (a) strengthening parents' social support and (b) increasing positive parent–child interactions. The authors discuss evidence for these mechanisms as catal...

Background: Tic disorders, including Tourette syndrome, are complex, multisymptom diseases, yet the impact of these disorders on affected children, families, and communities is not well understood. Methods: To improve the understanding of the impacts of Tourette syndrome, two research groups conducted independent cross-sectional studies using qu...

Background: Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is associated with adverse outcomes and elevated societal costs. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) 2011 guidelines recommend "behavior therapy" over medication as first-line treatment for children aged 4-5 years with ADHD; these recommendations are consistent with current guideline...

Background The Legacy for ChildrenTM (Legacy) group-based parenting model was developed to address developmental disparities associated with childhood poverty. A set of randomized controlled trials of Legacy tested two implementations, prenatal to age 3 (Los Angeles [LA]) and birth to child age 5 (Miami), for their impact on parenting and materna...

Objectives Previous studies have reported various school-related problems experienced by children with Tourette syndrome (TS), including an increased risk for repeating a grade, problems with reading and writing, academic performance, and a need for educational accommodations. The presence of a co-occurring mental or developmental disorder may fu...

Purpose: In 2010, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) partnered on a project to test the feasibility of using a parenting program known as Legacy for ChildrenTM(Legacy) to improve outcomes for young children in poverty. Poverty experienced in early childhood increases risk fo...

Discusses limitations in both theory of maternal sensitivity and the measures that operationalize theory. Specifically, the exact definition of sensitivity is not clear; what exactly are good attachment figures sensitive to, and methodologically, how does one know if they are sensitive? The authors discuss sensitivity as a multistep communicative p...

Maternal cognitions regarding parenting have been studied as a means of understanding maternal parenting behavior. This article discusses memory systems and representation in relation to parenting in maltreating families. 107 maltreating and adequate mother–child dyads (mothers aged 15–38 yrs, children aged 11–48 mo) were observed 3 times at home a...

One in five Americans under age 18 lives in a family below the Federal poverty threshold. These more than 15 million children are at increased risk of a wide variety of adverse long-term health and developmental outcomes. The early years of life are critical to short- and long-term health and well-being. The Legacy for Children TM model was develo...

The behavioral problems of children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are well documented and may place additional strain on child care providers. Children with behavioral problems are more likely to be expelled from preschool. Additionally, parents of children with ADHD report greater parental stress and experience difficulty su...

Purpose: Systematic evidence review is a useful methodological tool to objectively synthesize a large body of literature, thereby facilitating the translation of research to practice. Operational guidelines developed by the GRADE Working Group were implemented in a systematic review of the literature for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (...

This study tested the motor development of 73 infants who were prenatally exposed to cocaine using the Peabody Developmental Motor Scales at 6, 12, 18, and 24 months of age. Repeated measures MANOVA found a main effect for age with scores decreasing as children increased in age. The significant interactive effect between age and skill type indicate...

Proximal environmental variables illustrate aspects of the environment that are experienced directly and specifically by the child. The current study examined the associations between three proximal environmental variables: (1) quality of the home environment, (2) regularity of family routines and (3) frequency of parenting daily hassles and cognit...

The link between social networks and mental health has increasingly been recognized by public health as an important topic of interest. In this paper, we explore this association among a specific group: mothers. Specifically, we discuss how maternal mental health can be understood in the context of social networks, the influence of specific social...

There are concerns that excessive television use is associated with negative health effects, including obesity, aggressive behavior, and poor academic achievement. The American Academy of Pediatrics has issued recommendations that children's exposure to television and other screen entertainment media be limited to 1-2 hours per day (AAP, 2001). Thi...

A major threat to both the efficacy of interventions and the integrity of their evaluations is increasingly high non-response at recruitment and subsequent assessment. Parenting intervention research in high-risk maternal-child populations may be subject to unique threats to recruitment and retention, including custodial issues, persistent illness...

Enhancing parenting skills in at-risk populations is a process that takes time. Providing parents with information about child development, modeling behaviors, and integrating new skills and behaviors may take years. Therefore, longitudinal interventions may be needed, although barriers to attendance and participation may make them difficult to imp...

This article addresses the clinical issue of selecting assessments of attachment that are relevant to decision making for families. The validity of three commonly used methods of assessing attachment in preschool-aged children was compared using a sample of 51 low- income mother-child dyads. Thirty-eight of the children had been abused or neglected...

This article brings together information from our experience of providing research-based intervention to more than 600 children who were prenatally exposed to cocaine and from the research literature on the effects of prenatal cocaine exposure. Based on our experience and this literature, it is now clear that there are no large negative independent...

The present study examined proximal variables in families of children prenatally exposed to cocaine and enrolled in a large-scale intervention program. Fifty-six high-risk families of children enrolled in the center-based (n = 30) or home-based (n = 26) intervention of the Linda Ray Intervention Program were interviewed. Four proximal variables wer...

The internatal period, the time between births of successive children, has become a focal point for risk assessment and health promotion in women's healthcare. This period represents a time when women are at high risk for a depressive disorder. The pediatric venue offers a unique opportunity for the identification and management of depression in th...

This study longitudinally examined the associations between mother–infant interactions at 15 months and behavioral and cognitive outcomes at 36 months of age in a sample of at-risk, young children. Participants for the current study were 58 infants/toddlers prenatally exposed to cocaine and their maternal caregivers. These infants were from a low s...

Prenatal cocaine exposure is an indicator for adverse developmental outcomes. To prevent developmental disabilities, an early intervention program for children birth to 3 years was developed that included three groups: center-based, home-based, and primary care comparison. The intervention was implemented across 10 years and data were collected on...

The purpose of this research was to examine the spontaneous responsiveness and attention during picture‐book reading in 18‐month‐old to 24‐month‐old children from at‐risk backgrounds. Twenty‐five, 18‐month‐old children in an early intervention program were randomly assigned to a read condition or play condition for six months. At each seventh sessi...

The Dependency Drug Court (DDC) in Miami, Florida, addresses the needs of families affected by substance abuse through a comprehensive and therapeutic approach. The DDC works with community agencies to provide services that effectively treat the family as a unit. This article discusses the process of adapting a parenting program to meet the needs o...

Cocaine use during pregnancy is a high-risk indicator for adverse developmental outcomes. Three levels of intervention (center, home, and primary care) were compared in a full service, birth to age 3, early intervention program serving children exposed to cocaine prenatally. Data were collected on 130 children from urban, predominantly poor, primar...

This study examined whether infant joint attention (JA) skills predicted social behaviors in a sample of at-risk preschool children (n = 30) with a history of prenatal exposure to cocaine. JA behaviors were assessed with the Early Social and Communication Scales at 12, 15, and 18 months of age. Three classes of JA were measured: Initiating JA (IJA)...

The development of joint attention skills is a major milestone of infancy. Recent research suggests that the development of these skills may be affected by disorganized (D) attachment. This hypothesis was examined in a longitudinal study of attachment and joint attention skill development in a sample of infants at risk for developmental-behavioral...

This chapter presents a “dynamic-maturational” perspective on treatment of emotionaland behavioral disorder, and describes those specific treatments that are most suitablefor maltreated children. It considers what the causal conditions have in common that might explain theirdetrimental effects and why these outcome symptoms might have developed.

Previous studies questioned the link between early childhood anemia and detrimental child development. A population-based study was conducted to examine the association between early childhood anemia and mild or moderate metal retardation at 10 y of age. The present study linked early childhood nutrition data collected by the Special Supplemental P...

Theories of child development tend to be rational rather than empiric and lack clear guidelines for deciding which services should be included in an intervention program. This article presents a model based on a public health approach that is empirically driven with correspondence rules relating the independent to the dependent variables. The Linda...

Four and five-year-old children, 22 with mild mental retardation and 27 with learning disabilities, were matched with normally achieving children of the same age, gender, and ethnicity. All were presented a battery of eight cognitive tasks being considered for inclusion in a new screening test. Five tasks were selected based on their high levels of...

Although maltreatment is known to have detrimental effects on socioemotional development, the relation of those effects to type of maltreatment and child age is not clear. Most studies either focus solely on physical abuse or do not differentiate among types of maltreatment. Furthermore, most concentrate on young children. Studies of psychological...

Sixty-two 4- and 5-year-old exceptional children, with either mild mental retardation or learning disabilities, were matched on age, sex, and ethnicity with children who were making normal progress. All 62 pairs were presented a minibattery that included 6 cognitive tasks: two memory, three oddity, and a word definition task. The exceptional group...

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Miami, 1993. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 51-56).

The relation among family relationships was explored for (a) couple pairings and (b) parent-child dyads. In S3 maltreating and adequate families, mothers' and male partners' quality of attachment (drawn from interviews) was compared with each other and with child quality of attachment (drawn from the Strange Situation). The notion of internal repre...

Maltreatment has serious consequences for the development of children. The reason for the negative outcomes is not, however, fully understood. This study investigated the hypotheses that psychological maltreatment would be present in almost all cases of physical maltreatment and that it would be more related to detrimental outcomes for children tha...

Assessed 88 infants at risk for mental retardation on the Bayley Scales of Infant Development and a measure of visual recognition memory at 3 months corrected age. Bayley scales were administered again when the infants were 1-year-old. At 3 months of age the Bayle scales and the measure of visual recognition memory were not significantly correlated...