Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry最新文献

{"title":"Establishing a clinical cutoff score for the Family Accommodation Scale—Anxiety ( FASA )","authors":"Eli R. Lebowitz, Rebecca G. Etkin, Jeremy W. Pettit, Wendy K. Silverman","doi":"10.1111/jcpp.70237","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.70237","url":null,"abstract":"Background Family accommodation is a well‐established maintaining factor in childhood anxiety disorders and a target of evidence‐based interventions. Despite widespread clinical and research use of the Family Accommodation Scale—Anxiety (FASA), no empirically derived clinical cutoff score has been established. The present study aimed to determine a cutoff score on the parent‐rated FASA indicative of clinically meaningful accommodation of child anxiety. Methods Participants were 1,185 youth (1,055 clinical; 130 community) aged 5–17 years, and their parents. Measures included the FASA, Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED), and Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule for Children and Parents (ADIS‐C/P). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analyses were conducted to establish cutoffs for the FASA against the established clinical threshold on the SCARED in the full sample (i.e. clinical and community), and against anxiety disorder diagnoses in the clinical sample. Benchmarking in the community sample provided an independent, norm‐referenced indicator of elevated accommodation. Results ROC analyses identified an optimal cutoff of 11 (out of 36) on the FASA against the parent‐report SCARED criterion and a cutoff of 9 against a SCARED criterion met by either youth or parent. A criterion based only on the child‐report SCARED produced an area under the curve (AUC) below acceptable thresholds. Confirmatory analysis against ADIS‐C/P diagnostic data supported both SCARED‐based cutoffs (AUC = 0.76; sensitivity = 0.76 at cutoff of 9, 0.69 at cutoff of 11). Normative benchmarking placed a score of 9 at the 90th percentile of the community distribution. Conclusions A FASA total score of 9 to 11 provides an empirically derived indicator of clinically significant family accommodation. A cutoff of 9 is recommended for screening and research contexts, while 11 may be more appropriate when higher specificity is desired.","PeriodicalId":187,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry","volume":"40 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":7.6,"publicationDate":"2026-09-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148993738","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Mental health problems as mediators between childhood trauma and cardiometabolic risk behaviours in the 2004 Pelotas Birth Cohort.","authors":"Sophie Townend, Gemma Hammerton, Graeme Fairchild, Megan Bailey, Jon Heron, Abigail Fraser, Luciana Tovo-Rodrigues, Iná S Santos, Aluísio J D Barros, Inácio Crochemore-Silva, Sarah L Halligan, Alicia Matijasevich","doi":"10.1111/jcpp.70229","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.70229","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Childhood trauma is associated with greater engagement in health risk behaviours (HRBs) that predispose to cardiometabolic disease. However, the mechanisms underlying these associations remain poorly understood. Mental health problems are hypothesised to mediate links between trauma and HRBs, but prospective evidence is limited, particularly among low- and middle-income-country youth. We examined whether mental health problems, specifically internalising and externalising problems, mediate longitudinal associations between trauma exposure and HRBs in a population-based cohort of Brazilian youth.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>We analysed data from the 2004 Pelotas Birth Cohort (N = 4,229). Cumulative trauma exposure was derived from repeated caregiver reports up to age 11. Internalising and externalising problems were assessed using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire at age 15. HRBs were assessed at age 18, comprising smoking, alcohol and illicit drug use, ultra-processed food intake and accelerometer-measured physical (in)activity. We performed counterfactual mediation to estimate indirect effects from trauma to HRBs via internalising and externalising problems, both jointly and separately.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>There was a combined indirect effect of trauma on smoking and illicit drug use via internalising and externalising problems modelled simultaneously. When examined separately, externalising problems mediated the effect of childhood trauma on increased substance use (aORs = 1.02-1.03) and ultraprocessed food intake (β = 0.12) and, unexpectedly, higher physical activity (βs = 0.10-0.30). No indirect effects via internalising problems were observed.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>Our findings reveal the complex role of mental health in the trauma-cardiometabolic risk pathway among youth, with externalising problems increasing risk through substance use and poor diet, but also potentially mitigating the effects of trauma by reducing sedentary lifestyles. Further understanding of the emergence of risk behaviours for cardiometabolic disease in youth is critical to developing targeted prevention strategies.</p>","PeriodicalId":187,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.6,"publicationDate":"2026-09-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148987293","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Psychotic and bipolar disorder diagnoses following contact with child and adolescent mental health services-a longitudinal, nationwide register study of 2 million individuals.","authors":"Maja Gregersen, Carsten Hjorthøj, Jens Richardt Møllegaard Jepsen, Annette Erlangsen, Merete Nordentoft, Anne Amalie Elgaard Thorup, Nicoline Hemager, Ian Kelleher","doi":"10.1111/jcpp.70232","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.70232","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Identification of individuals at elevated risk of schizophrenia spectrum and bipolar disorders is a clinical research priority. Current strategies for psychosis risk identification, however, identify only a small proportion of future cases. Additional high-risk approaches are needed, ideally with higher sensitivity, which may include focusing on systems in which risk factors for psychosis are naturally concentrated, such as child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS).</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>We examined the proportion of psychosis and bipolar disorder cases occurring in individuals who had attended CAMHS. The nationwide Danish population born from 1990 to 2020 was followed from 1995 until 2021 using Danish national health registers to retrieve information on contact with CAMHS and diagnoses of the full spectrum of psychotic and bipolar disorders.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>We followed 1,978,630 individuals for 30,855,257 person-years. Of all diagnoses of psychotic or bipolar disorders in the total population by the end of follow-up, 58.3% occurred among individuals who had attended CAMHS. There was an increased risk of all diagnostic outcomes in CAMHS attendees (HR 15.5; 95% CI 15.5-15.9 for any psychosis or bipolar disorder). The highest risk was in individuals who had an inpatient psychiatric admission in adolescence (HR 46.8, 95% CI 44.8-48.9) where 50% had received a diagnosis of psychosis or bipolar disorder by age 32.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>A large proportion of psychotic and bipolar disorder diagnoses in the population occur in individuals who have attended CAMHS. Adolescent CAMHS inpatients are at particularly high risk. These findings highlight CAMHS as a high-capacity, high-risk system for the detection of psychosis and bipolar risk and suggest important potential for large-scale prediction and prevention within CAMHS.</p>","PeriodicalId":187,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.6,"publicationDate":"2026-09-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148987296","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The effect of a Dutch early language intervention on children's oral language skills: a cluster randomized controlled trial.","authors":"Sharisse van Driel, Martijn Meeter, Femke van der Wilt","doi":"10.1111/jcpp.70242","DOIUrl":"10.1111/jcpp.70242","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Early oral language skills are crucial for children's later academic and social development, yet systematic support for oral language development remains limited in Dutch primary education. The Nuffield Early Language Intervention (NELI) has proven effective in improving oral language skills among preschool children in the United Kingdom. The present study investigated whether the Dutch adaptation of NELI is similarly effective for Dutch preschoolers with relatively weak language skills in the language of instruction.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>A total of 44 primary schools, 116 classrooms (58 intervention; 58 control), and 692 children aged 4 to 7 years participated in a cluster randomized controlled trial. Classrooms within schools were randomly assigned to intervention or control conditions. Within each classroom, five or six children with the lowest scores on a language screening measure were selected. Children in the intervention condition participated in the 20-week NELI program, receiving daily individual and small-group tutoring, while children in the control condition received education as usual. Before and after the intervention, children's oral language skills were individually assessed using standardized language measures.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Structural equation modeling showed that children in the intervention condition made significantly greater improvements than those in the control condition on two latent language variables: lexical and syntactic skills (d = .15) and narrative skills (d = .19). Effects were not moderated by pre-test language scores, age, home language, sex, or parental education level.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>The Dutch adaptation of NELI can effectively support the oral language development of preschoolers with relatively weak oral language skills. Although effect sizes were small, the findings indicate that NELI is a promising approach for supporting early oral language development in Dutch schools.</p>","PeriodicalId":187,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.6,"publicationDate":"2026-09-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148981787","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Effects of an integrated parenting and mental health intervention on violence reduction and caregiver mental health among migrant and displaced families from Myanmar: a pragmatic randomized controlled trial.","authors":"Amanda Sim, Stephanie Eagling-Peche, Khaing Zar Lwin, Seema Vyas, Jamie Lachman, G J Melendez-Torres, Tawanchai Jirapramukpitak, Thidar Soe, Th'Blay Moo, Nway Nway Oo, Mary Soan, Win Thandar Kyaw, Greg Tyrosvoutis, Hannah Van Vijfeijken, Jeslyn Brouwers, Eve S Puffer","doi":"10.1111/jcpp.70241","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.70241","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Caregiver mental ill-health and violence against children are pervasive in conflict and displacement settings with adverse impacts on child mental health and well-being. Parenting interventions are effective at reducing violence against children but typically prioritize improving parenting knowledge and skills over preventing or treating caregiver mental health difficulties. We assessed the effects of Parenting for Resilience, a co-designed, non-specialist delivered intervention to simultaneously reduce violence against children and improve caregiver mental health among migrant and displaced caregivers from Myanmar.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>We conducted a pragmatic parallel-group randomized controlled trial with 479 participants randomly allocated to Parenting for Resilience or treatment as usual consisting of information about local services. Primary outcomes were physical and psychological violence against children, caregiver psychological distress, and positive parenting assessed at baseline (T0), 1 month (T1), and 6 months (T2) post-intervention. Intention-to-treat analyses estimated intervention effects. The trial was prospectively registered at Thai Clinical Trials Registry (TCTR20240725001).</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Participants were recruited from July to September 2024. There were sustained reductions in physical (T1: IRR 0.62, 0.55-0.71; T2: IRR 0.48, 0.42-0.55) and psychological (T1: IRR 0.76, 0.71-0.81; T2: IRR 0.69, 0.64-0.75) violence against children and caregiver psychological distress (T1: β -1.94, -2.94 to -0.93; T2: β -1.26, -2.30 to -0.21) in the intervention group at both time points. Positive parenting increased at T1 only (β 1.64, 0.19-3.08). Caregiver post-traumatic stress symptoms, emotion regulation, psychological flexibility, well-being, parenting knowledge and beliefs, engagement in children's early learning, and family functioning also improved in the intervention group. We did not find effects on parental efficacy, social support, or children's emotional and behavioral difficulties.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>Effects on multiple caregiver and family outcomes indicate potential for an integrated model of caregiver mental health and parenting support to yield wide-ranging benefits in a low-resource displacement setting.</p>","PeriodicalId":187,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.6,"publicationDate":"2026-09-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148987322","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Bully-victim prevalence, over-time stability, and risk and protective factors during elementary school.","authors":"Xueying Gao, Stephanie A Thibault, Qingqing Yang, Eric Hengyu Hu, Yoonkyung Oh, Paul L Morgan","doi":"10.1111/jcpp.70235","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.70235","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Children who both bully other children and are victims of bullies (BVs) are at greater risk for externalizing and internalizing problems, poor academic outcomes, and increased involvement in criminal behavior later in life. Yet the early emergence, over-time stability, and risk and protective factors for being BVs are largely unknown.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>We analyzed data from 7,326 children in third through fifth grade participating in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2010-2011 (ECLS-K: 2011), a nationally representative and multiyear longitudinal cohort. We first descriptively identified children exhibiting high levels of both bullying perpetration and victimization. We examined BV prevalence and over-time stability. We then used survey-weighted logistic regression models to identify risk and protective factors for BV, including repeatedly across time in analyses adjusting for prior perpetration and victimization.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Between 9% and 20% of children were BVs across 3rd-5th grade. About 40% of BVs in one grade were BVs in the next grade. BVs concurrently displayed elevated socioemotional problems, executive dysfunction, strained student-teacher relationships, and lower academic achievement. Supplemental latent transition analyses further supported BV stability across elementary school. Risk factors for BV status included being Black, male, and from less-resourced families. Children experiencing externalizing problems (aORs = 1.28-1.41) were more likely to be BVs in adjusted analyses. Children with greater self-control were less likely (aORs = 0.80-0.83). Greater externalizing problems (aOR = 1.57) and self-control (aOR = 0.65) were also associated with repeated BV status.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>Some children are both bullies and victims, including repeatedly across elementary school. Modifiable risk factors for experiencing BV include prior bullying perpetration, externalizing problem behaviors, self-control difficulties, and socioeconomic disadvantages.</p>","PeriodicalId":187,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.6,"publicationDate":"2026-09-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148987264","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Risks of neurodevelopmental disorders after prenatal exposure to antiepileptic drugs","authors":"Mong‐Liang Lu, Tai‐Hsin Hung, Vincent Chin‐Hung Chen, Yi‐Lung Chen","doi":"10.1111/jcpp.70238","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.70238","url":null,"abstract":"Background To determine whether in utero exposure to antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) is associated with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), attention‐deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and intellectual disability (ID) in offspring and to test robustness to familial confounding. Methods We conducted a nationwide population‐based cohort of all live births between January 1, 2004, and December 31, 2016, with follow‐up through 2021, linking birth, prescription, and health registries. Exposure was maternal dispensing of AEDs during pregnancy. We estimated hazard ratios with Cox models adjusted for parental demographics and psychiatric/medical comorbidities. To address shared familial factors, we performed sibling comparisons using stratified Cox models with mother as the stratum. We further conducted trimester‐specific analyses, restricted to any neurodevelopmental disorder because of limited numbers for individual outcomes, by separately defining maternal AED dispensing during the first, second, and third trimesters to evaluate whether associations differed according to the timing of prenatal exposure. Results Among 2,196,156 births, 9,809 (0.45%) were exposed to AEDs during pregnancy. In adjusted population‐wide analyses, carbamazepine, oxcarbazepine, valproic acid, and topiramate were associated with increased risk of any neurodevelopmental disorder, with some drug‐specific associations also observed for ASD, ADHD, and ID. However, these associations were not observed in sibling comparison analyses. Trimester‐specific sibling analyses showed no increased risk for first‐trimester exposure, although several imprecise associations were observed for second‐ and third‐trimester exposure. Sensitivity analyses were generally consistent with the main sibling comparison findings, except for an increased risk associated with topiramate when the exposure window was extended to 90 days before conception. Conclusions Population‐wide associations between prenatal AED exposure and neurodevelopmental disorders were largely attenuated in sibling comparison analyses, suggesting that shared familial factors may explain much of the observed risk. These findings support careful individualized prescribing during pregnancy while highlighting the need for further research on specific AEDs and exposure windows.","PeriodicalId":187,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry","volume":"5 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":7.6,"publicationDate":"2026-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148964279","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Annual Research Review: Sex differences in conduct disorder – revisiting existing evidence and exploring future directions","authors":"Anka Bernhard, Christine M. Freitag, Kerstin Konrad, Lucres Jansen, Andreas G. Chiocchetti, Christina Stadler, Stephane A. De Brito, Graeme Fairchild, Gregor Kohls","doi":"10.1111/jcpp.70234","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.70234","url":null,"abstract":"Conduct disorder (CD) is a common psychiatric disorder in youth, characterized by severe and recurrent aggressive and antisocial behaviors and associated with substantial healthcare and societal costs. Rates of CD increase during adolescence in both sexes, with the male‐to‐female ratio narrowing to approximately 1:1. Although earlier work suggested potentially distinct pathways to CD in girls versus boys, few studies were adequately designed to investigate sex differences, limiting generalizability of existing findings from predominantly male samples to girls. Recent large‐scale projects, such as the European multisite FemNAT‐CD study, have addressed these limitations by oversampling girls and explicitly examining sex‐specific characteristics. However, a systematic integration of these findings is lacking. This review therefore aims to synthesize current evidence on sex differences in CD across four core domains: clinical phenotype, risk factors, neurobiology, and treatment. It integrates key findings from FemNAT‐CD alongside other relevant literature, with particular emphasis on implications for theories of (female) CD. Overall, girls and boys with CD appear far more similar than different. Youth with CD of both sexes differ markedly from their typically developing peers in comparable ways, particularly in neurobiological characteristics (e.g. emotion functioning, brain structural changes, neuroendocrine stress responses). Differences between girls and boys with CD are most evident in the clinical phenotype, including age‐of‐onset, callous‐unemotional traits/limited prosocial emotions, aggression subtypes, and cooccurring psychiatric disorders. Overall, sex differences in CD are subtle and difficult to detect. Remaining limitations of the current evidence base and ways to enhance the clinical relevance of research in this field are discussed.","PeriodicalId":187,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry","volume":"59 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":7.6,"publicationDate":"2026-09-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148957990","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Early adversity, executive function, and the development of cognitive disengagement syndrome: a sex‐specific mediating pathway","authors":"Mahsa P. Yousefkhani, Kevin M. Antshel, Ali Sahandi, Sara A. Vasilenko","doi":"10.1111/jcpp.70230","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.70230","url":null,"abstract":"Background Despite growing recognition of cognitive disengagement syndrome (CDS), the developmental mechanisms linking early adversity to CDS symptoms remain largely unknown. This study addresses this gap by examining whether executive function (EF) serves as a cognitive mechanism linking cumulative adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) to later CDS symptoms and whether this mediational chain differs by adolescent sex. Methods Data were drawn from the prospective longitudinal Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study®. The final analytic sample included 4,678 adolescents (52.5% male) identifying primarily as White (72.5%), Hispanic/Latino (13.6%), and Black (13.1%). A moderated mediation model was tested using cumulative ACEs score (ages 9–11) as the predictor, EF deficits (ages 12–13) as the mediator, CDS symptoms (ages 13–14) as the outcome, and adolescent sex as moderator. Results Results indicate cumulative ACEs predict later CDS symptoms above and beyond baseline levels. EF deficits partially mediated the ACEs–CDS link (accounting for 30% of the effect). Notably, adolescent sex moderated the EF–CDS pathway; while adversity impacted EF similarly across sexes, the association between EF deficits and CDS symptoms was significantly stronger for female adolescents. Conclusions These findings provide the first prospective evidence that early adversity accelerates CDS development via disruptions in executive functioning. The results support a developmental psychopathology model of CDS and identify EF as a potentially modifiable intervention target, particularly for female adolescents exposed to early adversity.","PeriodicalId":187,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry","volume":"78 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":7.6,"publicationDate":"2026-09-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148946734","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Neurocognitive profiles in early childhood in relation to clinical and functional outcomes in middle childhood in offspring at familial high-risk of schizophrenia or bipolar disorder: The Danish High-Risk and Resilience Study.","authors":"Nicoline Hemager, Jens Richardt Møllegaard Jepsen, Aja Neergaard Greve, Lotte Veddum, Anne Søndergaard, Mette Falkenberg Krantz, Ole Mors, Anne Amalie Elgaard Thorup, Merete Nordentoft, Maja Gregersen","doi":"10.1111/jcpp.70224","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.70224","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Widespread neurocognitive impairments exist in children at familial high-risk of schizophrenia (FHR-SZ), whereas evidence is mixed in children at FHR of bipolar disorder (FHR-BP). Neurocognitive heterogeneity is well-established, but associations with longitudinal clinical and functional outcomes remain unexplored.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>In this prospective cohort study, 274 children (FHR-SZ, n = 170, FHR-BP, n = 104, 46.7% female, mean age 12.0 years, SD 0.25) provided neurocognitive data at baseline and clinical data at 4-year follow-up. The assessed neurocognitive functions included intelligence, processing speed, attention, memory, and executive functions. Axis I mental disorders, psychotic experiences, and functioning were ascertained through child and caregiver interviews. Dimensional psychopathology was reported by the caregiver. Three baseline neurocognitive subgroups (mildly impaired, typical, and above-average) derived from hierarchical cluster analysis across FHR-groups constituted categorical predictors with clinical and functional measures at follow-up as outcomes.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Compared with children in the typical subgroup and after accounting for sex, outcome of interest and Any Axis I disorder at baseline, and FHR-group, children in the mildly impaired subgroup at baseline had a threefold increased risk of any externalizing mental disorder (OR 2.9, 95% CI 1.3-6.5, p = .007) and a twofold increased risk of psychotic experiences (OR 2.0, 95% CI 1.0-3.8, p = .04) during middle childhood. Additionally, they had significantly higher dimensional symptom severity (Cohen's d range 0.27-0.43, p < .05) and poorer global functioning (Cohen's d = 0.48, p < .001) at follow-up. Neurocognitive subgroup membership was non-differentially associated with clinical and functional outcomes across FHR-groups.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>A significantly impaired neurocognitive profile in early childhood confers risk for detrimental clinical and functional outcomes in middle childhood beyond that which can be attributed to pre-existing clinical and functional states and constitutes a cross-diagnostic, neurodevelopmental risk marker in these FHR-groups. Early neurocognitive profiling is warranted, and future studies should investigate long-term associations with mental disorders.</p>","PeriodicalId":187,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.6,"publicationDate":"2026-09-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148899933","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}