Barbara Maughan

• King's College London

Background Antisocial behavior (ASB) is relatively common in childhood and adolescence. While it harms victims, perpetrators are at increased risk of disadvantageous adult outcomes. Developmental heterogeneity is well documented; distinctions have been drawn between early-onset persistent, adolescent-onset, and childhood-limited pathways. We examin...

Research examining the effects of severe, prolonged early deprivation has shown elevated rates of neurodevelopmental symptoms, which frequently persist into adulthood and are associated with functional and social relationship difficulties, as well as elevated rates of mental health problems. The behavioural manifestations of these symptoms closely...

It has been reported that adult adoptees with histories of maltreatment face particular challenges when they become parents. Here we explore this issue using a qualitative analysis of the views of 14 adoptee mothers, who suffered severe institutional deprivation in the Romanian orphanages of the late 1980s before being adopted into the UK, and thei...

Sir Michael Rutter was the first professor of Child Psychiatry in the UK, and is widely credited with establishing child psychiatry as an academic discipline. Across five decades he transformed the field, challenging accepted thinking, clarifying concepts, devising methodologies, and undertaking ground-breaking and foundational research. Every part...

Purpose This study examines the association between mental health problems in adolescence and general practice (GP) costs during adulthood up to age 50 in the UK. Methods We conducted secondary analyses of three British birth cohorts (individuals born in single weeks in 1946, 1958 and 1970). Data for the three cohorts were analysed separately. All...

Background: Mother and father depression symptoms often co-occur, and together can have a substantial impact on child emotional well-being. Little is understood about symptom-level mechanisms underlying the co-occurrence of depression symptoms within families. Aims: The objective was to use network analysis to examine depression symptoms in moth...

The primary goal motivating the scientific field of Developmental Psychopathology is to discover why some individuals develop mental health and neuro‐developmental difficulties while others do not. This is not simply a ‘blue skies’ preoccupation: the underlying hope, of course, is to translate such discoveries to the benefit of individuals, familie...

Background Adolescent mental health problems have lasting impacts on health and social functioning later in life. Evidence to date mostly comes from studies of specific diagnostic categories/dimensions, but hierarchical models can elucidate associations with general as well as specific dimensions of psychopathology. We provide evidence on long‐term...

Studies suggest that children who have experienced neglect are at risk for bullying which in turn increases the risk for poor mental health. Here we extend this research by examining whether this risk extends to the neglect associated with severe institutional deprivation and then testing the extent to which these effects are mediated by prior depr...

Background: Maternal depression, especially when severe and long-lasting, is associated with adverse mental health outcomes in children. We aimed to assess, for children of mothers with persistent postnatal depression symptoms, whether positive father behaviours would decrease risk for conduct and emotional symptoms. Methods: Using data from 400...

Background Children from low-socioeconomic backgrounds exhibit more behavioural difficulties than those from more affluent families. Influential theoretical models specify family stress and child characteristics as mediating this effect. These accounts, however, have often been based on cross-sectional data or longitudinal analyses that do not capt...

Background Early difficult temperament and child mental health problems are consistently associated with impaired functioning in adulthood. We examined three potential pathways between difficult temperament in toddlerhood (age 2) and depressive symptoms (ages 21-23) and well-being (age 23): i) direct – early difficult temperament directly associate...

Background Youths disengaged from the education system and labour force (i.e. ‘Not in Education, Employment, or Training’ or ‘NEET’) are often at reduced capacity to flourish and thrive as adults. Developmental precursors to NEET status may extend back to temperamental features, though this – and possible mediators of such associations such as atte...

Studies of adult outcomes of infant domestic adoptions are considered: the range of psychological and behavioural outcomes recorded, the current state of knowledge summarised and the importance of the chosen comparison groups discussed. The social context of infant adoptions is described. Findings from our follow-ups of British infant adoptions in...

Background Children exposed to early adversity are vulnerable to cognitive impairments and externalizing behaviors. Attending childcare may, however, partly buffer this detrimental effect by providing social and cognitive stimulation in a secure environment. The aims of this study were (a) to determine whether the association between exposure to ad...

Background: Maternal smoking in pregnancy is associated with low birth weight (LBW), child conduct problems, hyperactivity and lower cognitive attainment, but associations may reflect measured and unmeasured confounding. Cross-cohort designs can aid causal inference through comparison of associations across populations with different confounding s...

Background Adoption studies can cast light on environmental influences on development, but heterogeneity in preplacement experiences often complicates interpretation of findings. Methods We studied infant‐adopted samples drawn from the 1958 and 1970 British birth cohorts and examined mental health, well‐being, physical health and externalizing out...

Background: Using data from the English & Romanian Adoptees (ERA) study, we recently reported that early time-limited exposure to severe institutional deprivation is associated with early-onset and persistent neurodevelopmental problems and later-onset emotional problems. Here, we examine possible reasons for the late emergence of emotional proble...

Purpose Examine associations between childhood behavioural problems with criminal behaviour, emotional disorders, substance use and unemployment in early adulthood in two birth cohorts from a middle- and high-income country. Methods Data were utilised from large, prospective birth cohorts in Brazil (1993 Pelotas Birth Cohort; N = 3939) and the UK...

Background Both ‘early‐onset persistent’ and ‘adolescent‐onset’ conduct problems (CPs) are associated with alcohol‐related problems in emerging adulthood. The escalation of early CPs into criminal behaviour and heavy alcohol consumption prior to emerging adulthood are both likely to be important pathways. Methods Data were analysed from 3,038 youn...

Depression is associated with dietary factors and epigenetics. Serum cholesterol, which is prone to dietary influences, has been linked to symptoms of depression. This relationship may be (in part) due to altered epigenetic regulation of Methylenetetrahydrofolate Reductase (MTHFR). MTHFR codes for the MTHFR enzyme, which has diverse metabolic funct...

Background Retrospectively recalled adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are associated with adult mood problems, but evidence from prospective population cohorts is limited. The aims of this study were to test links between prospectively ascertained ACEs and adult mood problems up to age 50, to examine the role of child mental health in accounting...

Previous factor-analytic studies identify significant comorbidity between interpersonal-callous (IC) traits and low prosocial behavior (LPB), which, in turn, is associated with high levels of childhood risk exposure and psychopathology. Longitudinal associations between IC, LPB, or their combination, and early-adult health and social functioning ha...

Background Child mental health problems are common. Previous studies have examined secular changes in their prevalence but have not assessed whether later outcomes have changed. We therefore aimed to test whether outcomes of child mental health problems have changed over a 40‐year period. Methods Three cohorts were utilized: The National Child Dev...

Background: Institutionally deprived young children often display distinctive patterns of attachment - classified as insecure/other (INS/OTH) - with their adoptive parents. The associations between INS/OTH and developmental trajectories of mental health and neuro-developmental symptoms were examined.Methods: Age four attachment status was determine...

Background Positive social relationships are known to mitigate the negative effects of stress on mental health. However, the direction of association between social resources and mental health remains unclear, and it is not known whether higher than average levels of social resources confer additional benefits, in the short and longer term. Aims T...

Background Punitive parenting and stressful life events are associated with obsessive-compulsive symptoms (OCS). However, the lack of longitudinal, genetically-informative studies means it remains unclear whether these factors represent environmentally-mediated risks for the development of OCS. Methods Twins and siblings from the Genesis1219 study...

Objective A number of studies demonstrate a social gradient in behavioural problems, with children from low-socioeconomic backgrounds experiencing more behavioural difficulties than those from high-socioeconomic families. Antisocial behaviour is a heterogeneous concept which includes diverse behaviours such as physical fighting, vandalism, lying, d...

Most psychiatric disorders are thought to have their origins at least in part in childhood, even if early manifestations of liability are quite different from the later full-blown clinical picture. This work aims to identify traits relevant to risk for psychiatric disorders early in development by investigating which "neurodevelopmental domains" ar...

Background Previous studies find that both schizophrenia and mood disorder risk alleles contribute to adult anxiety and depression. Emotional problems (depression or anxiety) begin in childhood and show strong continuities into adult-life; this suggests that symptoms are the manifestation of the same underlying liability across different ages. Howe...

Objective:: Twin studies suggest that genetic factors contribute to continuity in mental health problems and that environmental factors are the major contributor to developmental change. The authors investigated the influence of psychiatric risk alleles on early-onset mental health trajectories and whether the trajectories were subsequently modifi...

Is earlier intervention always superior? Using two complementary forms of meta‐analysis, Gardner and colleagues find no support for the “earlier is better” hypothesis in outcomes of parenting programs for child behavior problems across the 2–11 year age range. This commentary explores possible methodological and substantive reasons for the pattern...

Table S1. Comparisons of the ADHD symptom groups on emotional, behavioural and social problems using complete cases. Table S2. Comparisons of the ADHD symptom groups on neurodevelopmental characteristics and educational attainment using complete cases. Table S3. Association with sample retention.

Background The medical burden in mood disorders is high; various factors are thought to drive this pattern. Little research has examined the role of childhood maltreatment and its effects on medical morbidity in adulthood among people with unipolar depression and bipolar disorder. Aims This is the first study to explore the association between chi...

Being bullied is associated with mental health problems in childhood, with increasing evidence of persisting negative impacts, and increased mental health service use, into adulthood. There are also impacts of bullying victimisation on employment, income and being in poverty, but little is known about the long-term economic impacts. We therefore ai...

Background: Adult ADHD has been assumed to be a continuation of childhood-onset ADHD. However, recent studies have identified individuals with ADHD in adulthood who have not had ADHD in childhood. Whether or not these individuals have a 'typical' neurodevelopmental profile is not clear. Methods: We tested two explanations for the emergence of ap...

This study examines the role of paternal emotional support as a resilience promoter in offspring of mothers with depression by considering the role of fathers' mental health and the quality of the couple relationship. Two hundred and sixty-five mothers with recurrent unipolar depression, partners and adolescents from Wales were assessed. Paternal e...

Background Low resting heart rate (RHR) is a consistent biological correlate of antisocial behaviour (ASB), however potential mechanisms have been largely unexplored. We hypothesise that lower RHR will be associated with higher ASB levels in mid-adolescence and persistence into adulthood, and that these associations will be explained, in part, by s...

Table S1. Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) Trajectory Fit Statistics Table S2. Top Differentially Methylated Sites Between Children Following a High (n = 50) Versus Low (n = 621) Trajectory of Irritability Table S3. Gene Functions Table S4. List of Genome‐Wide Significant (q < 0.05) Differentially Methylated Probes Associated With Oppositiona...

Background Previous studies find that both schizophrenia and mood disorder risk alleles contribute to adult depression and anxiety. Emotional problems (depression or anxiety) begin in childhood and show strong continuities into adult life; this suggests that symptoms are the manifestation of the same underlying liability across different ages. Howe...

Background: Parents and teachers often disagree on the presence of Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) in children. It has been argued that ODD should be treated as an informant-specific disorder. This study compared the characteristics of children identified with ODD by parent- and teacher report. Methods: We used the 1999 British Child and Ado...

Background: Childhood maltreatment (abuse and neglect) can have long-term deleterious consequences, including increased risk for medical and psychiatric illnesses, such as bipolar disorder in adulthood. Emerging evidence suggests that a history of childhood maltreatment is linked to the comorbidity between medical illnesses and mood disorders. How...

Hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis function is disrupted in institutionally-deprived children - reduced morning cortisol, flattened diurnal slope and blunted reactivity persist even after successful adoption into positive family environments. Here we test whether such effects persist into adulthood. Cortisol release across the day (sampled a...

Objective Antisocial behavior (ASB) decreases with age in most of the population; however, excessive alcohol use can inhibit the desistance process. This study investigated whether excessive early drinking might slow a young person’s overall pattern of crime desistance compared with that of others (“between-person effects”) and whether short-term i...

Family poverty and family structure are among the best established socio-demographic correlates of child and adolescent antisocial behavior. On average, children growing up in poverty, or who face instability in their family lives, are more likely to show disruptive behavior disorders (DBDs), to score highly on dimensional ratings of aggression and...

Study Objectives: Sleep quality is associated with different aspects of psychopathology, but relatively little research has examined links between sleep quality and externalizing behaviors or callous-unemotional traits. We examined: (1) whether an association exists between sleep quality and externalizing behaviors; (2) whether anxiety mediates thi...

Supporting info item

Early-onset conduct problems (CP) are a key predictor of adult criminality and poor mental health. While previous studies suggest that both genetic and environmental risks play an important role in the development of early-onset CP, little is known about potential biological processes underlying these associations. In this study, we examined prospe...

Background: Time-limited, early-life exposures to institutional deprivation are associated with disorders in childhood, but it is unknown whether effects persist into adulthood. We used data from the English and Romanian Adoptees study to assess whether deprivation-associated adverse neurodevelopmental and mental health outcomes persist into young...

Purpose: Childhood hyperactivity leads to mental health problems, but it is not known whether there are long-term risks for adult mood problems in unselected population cohorts that extend to mid-life. Aims were to examine links between childhood hyperactivity and mood problems up to age 50 years and to consider confounding factors and gender diff...

Background: Schizophrenia typically onsets after puberty but is often preceded by observable childhood neurodevelopmental impairments. Whether these childhood antecedents index genetic liability is unknown. We used polygenic risk scores derived from a patient discovery sample as indicators of the genetic liability of schizophrenia. Our aim was to...

Importance: Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a heritable neurodevelopmental disorder that shows clinical and genetic overlap with other childhood neurodevelopmental disorders. Levels of ADHD symptoms typically decline across childhood and adolescence, although they remain elevated for some individuals. The determinants of symptom...

Maternal depression in the peri-natal period is associated with increased risk for young adult depression in offspring. This study explored mediation of these links via trajectories of child conduct and emotional problems (Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire) from ages 4-16 years old in data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Chil...

Background Early‐life institutional deprivation is associated with attention‐deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) later in childhood and adolescence. In this article, we examine, for the first time, the persistence of deprivation‐related ADHD into young adulthood in a sample of individuals adopted as young children by UK families after periods in...

Background Previous research has suggested that deliberate self-harm is associated with contemporary goth subculture in young people; however, whether this association is confounded by characteristics of young people, their families, and their circumstances is unclear. We aimed to test whether self-identification as a goth is prospectively associat...

Lucy Bowes and Niall Boyce discuss the association between goth subculture identification, depression, and self-harm

Background Low income is a widely studied risk factor for child and adolescent behavioural difficulties. Previous research on this relationship has produced mixed findings.AimsTo investigate the level, shape and homogeneity of income gradients in different types of antisocial behaviour.MethodA representative sample of 7977 British children and adol...

A life course perspective is central to developmental psychopathology. Longitudinal research has consistently demonstrated that most adult disorders have roots in childhood difficulties, and most childhood disorders have sequelae that persist to adult life. Identifying the processes that underlie these long-term continuities and discontinuities is...

This chapter explores conceptual issues and empirical challenges in the disruptive behavior disorders (Oppositional Defiant Disorder and Conduct Disorder). It begins by highlighting one central challenge - heterogeneity - and the range of approaches to characterizing the phenotype represented in current research. Building on well-established findin...

The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) is widely used to screen for child mental health problems and measure common forms of psychopathology in 4- to 16-year-olds. Using longitudinal data, we examined the validity of a version adapted for 3- to 4-year-olds. We used SDQ data from 16 659 families collected by the Millennium Cohort Study,...

One's peer group can have a strong impact on depressed mood and harmful drinking in adolescence. It remains unclear whether affiliation with deviant peers explains the link between these traits. Our study aims to (1) explore the developmental relationship between harmful drinking and depressed mood in adolescence and (2) establish to which extent a...

Background: Many low- and middle-income countries have high levels of violence. Research in high-income countries shows that risk factors in the perinatal period are significant precursors of conduct problems which can develop into violence. It is not known whether the same early influences are important in lower income settings with higher rates...

Table S1.Perinatal and sociodemographic characteristics at birth. Table S2.Cross-national differences in conduct problems and violence.

Background‘Optimal outcomes’ of child and adolescent psychiatric disorders may mean the best possible outcome, or the best considering a child's history. Most research into the outcomes of child and adolescent psychiatric disorder concentrates on the likelihood of adult illness and disability given an earlier history of psychopathology.Methods In t...

Purpose: Most children live in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), many of which have high levels of violence. Research in high-income countries (HICs) shows that childhood behaviour problems are important precursors of crime and violence. Evidence is lacking on whether this is also true in LMICs. This study examines prevalence rates and ass...

Background: Evidence from Western countries indicates marked increases in diagnosis and treatment of childhood psychiatric disorders in recent years. These could reflect changes in prevalence of mental health problems, changes in their impact or increased clinical recognition and help-seeking. Epidemiological cross-cohort comparisons are required...

Background: The co-occurrence of alcohol use and antisocial behavior is well established, but different hypotheses exist regarding the direction of effects between the 2 behaviors. We used longitudinal data to examine the directional relationship between the 2 behaviors across adolescence. Methods: A cross-lagged model was applied to longitudina...

Pathways from early-life conduct problems to young adult depression remain poorly understood. To test developmental pathways from early-life conduct problems to depression at age 18. Data (n = 3542) came from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC). Previously derived conduct problem trajectories (ages 4-13 years) were used to...

Objective: The authors examined midlife outcomes of childhood bullying victimization. Method: Data were from the British National Child Development Study, a 50-year prospective cohort of births in 1 week in 1958. The authors conducted ordinal logistic and linear regressions on data from 7,771 participants whose parents reported bullying exposure...

Temperamental characteristics emerge early in life and can shape children's development, adjustment and behaviour. We aimed to investigate the association between early infant temperament and later childhood psychiatric disorder in a community sample. Methods: This prospective, population-based study used data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of...

Adolescent mental health problems are associated with a range of adverse outcomes in adulthood but little is known about the effects on adult parenting practices. This study aimed to examine prospective associations between adolescent conduct and emotional problems and subsequent parenting behaviours in adulthood. The study sample comprised 1110 me...

Extensive evidence supports associations between early pubertal timing and adolescent externalizing behavior, but how and under which conditions they are linked is not fully understood. In addition, pubertal development is also characterized by variations in the relative speed at which individuals mature, but studies linking pubertal 'tempo' and ou...

Although conduct problems in childhood are stably associated with problem outcomes, not every child who presents with conduct problems is at risk. This study extends previous studies by testing whether childhood conduct problem trajectories are predictive of a wide range of other health and behavior problems in early adulthood using a general popul...

Children who were maltreated and enter foster care are at risk for maladjustment and relationship disturbances with foster carers. A popular hypothesis is that prior attachment relationships with abusive birth parents are internalized and carried forward to impair the child's subsequent attachment relationships. However, the empirical base for this...

To test the developmental continuity, interrelationships, and predictive associations of the oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) subdimensions of irritable, headstrong, and hurtful. Data were collected from 6,328 mother-child pairs participating in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (United Kingdom). Developmental continuity for ea...

Risk factors for children's development are multifarious and co-occur, having cumulative as well as individual impacts. Yet common configurations of early childhood risks remain little understood. The current study aimed to identify patterns of early risk exposure and to examine their relationship with diverse outcomes in middle childhood. Using la...

Severe youth antisocial behaviour has been associated with increased risk of premature mortality in high-risk samples for many years, and some evidence now points to similar effects in representative samples. We set out to assess the prospective association between adolescent conduct problems and premature mortality in a population-based sample of...

DSM-IV grants episodic irritability an equal status to low mood as a cardinal criterion for the diagnosis of depression in youth, yet not in adults; however, evidence for irritability as a major criterion of depression in youth is lacking. This article examines the prevalence, developmental characteristics, associations with psychopathology, and lo...

Very few studies chart developmental pathways from early childhood to adolescent alcohol-related outcomes. We test whether measures of temperament collected from mothers at multiple assessments from 6 months through 5 years predict alcohol-related outcomes in mid-adolescence, the developmental pathways that mediate these effects, and whether there...

We consider the strength of the relationship between types of conduct problems in early life and pattern of alcohol use during adolescence. Children from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, a UK birth-cohort, had their level of conduct problems assessed repeatedly from 4 to 13 years using the maternal report Strengths and Difficult...

We investigated the antecedents and consequences of chronic victimization by bullies across a school transition using a genetically sensitive longitudinal design. Data were from the Environmental Risk Longitudinal Twin Study (E-Risk), an epidemiological cohort of 2,232 children. We used mothers' and children's reports of bullying victimization duri...

Background: Temperamental characteristics emerge early in life and can shape children's development, adjustment and behaviour. We aimed to investigate the association between early infant temperament and later childhood psychiatric disorder in a community sample. Methods: This prospective, population-based study used data from the Avon Longitudi...