This study aimed to investigate the association between family characteristics and adherence to the EAT-Lancet dietary recommendations in 7-year-old children. This is a prospective birth cohort study with 2125 children from Generation XXI (Porto, Portugal), who provided 3-day food diaries at age 7, used to assess habitual food consumption. At the age of 4, maternal diet was assessed using a Food Frequency Questionnaire, and a diet quality score was calculated (higher scores indicating a better maternal diet), and parental–child feeding practices were assessed with the Child Feeding Questionnaire. Adherence to the EAT-Lancet dietary recommendations was evaluated using the World Index for Sustainability and Health (WISH) at the age of 7 years, previously adapted to paediatric age. Hierarchical linear regression models (consecutive addition of blocks of variables based on a theoretical framework) were employed to evaluate the associations between family characteristics and adherence to the WISH at age 7 (β regression coefficients and the respective 95 % confidence intervals (95 % CI)). Higher maternal age and education at child’s birth were associated with increased adherence to the WISH at age 7 (β = 0·018, 95 % CI 0·005, 0·031; β = 0·038, 95 % CI 0·024, 0·053, respectively). A better maternal diet quality and using more restrictive practices on child’s diet, at 4 years old, were both associated with higher scoring in the WISH at 7 years old (β = 0·033, 95 % CI 0·018, 0·049; β = 0·067, 95 % CI 0·009, 0·125, respectively). Early maternal sociodemographic and diet quality play a significant role in influencing the adherence to a healthy and environmentally sustainable dietary pattern at school-age.

Private speech is a tool through which children self-regulate. The regulatory content of children’s overt private speech is associated with response to task difficulty and task performance. Parenting is proposed to play a role in the development of private speech as co-regulatory interactions become represented by the child as private speech to regulate thinking and behaviour. This study investigated the relationship between maternal parenting style and the spontaneous regulatory content of private speech in 3- to 5-year-old children (N = 70) during a problem-solving Duplo construction task. Sixty-six children used intelligible private speech which was coded according to its functional self-regulatory content (i.e., forethought, performance, and self-reflective). Mothers completed the Australian version of the Parenting Styles and Dimensions Questionnaire. Results revealed a significant positive association between maternal authoritative parenting and the frequency and proportion of children’s forethought type (i.e., planning and self-motivational) utterances during the construction task. There were no significant associations between maternal parenting style and other private speech content subtypes.

Compared to traditional psychosocial interventions, the transdiagnostic approach focuses on common processes or factors that contribute to the development and maintenance of emotional problems. In Spain, the Super Skills Program has proven its effectiveness, but issues with displacement or scheduling for families can hinder access to the intervention. This study aims to examine the program’s effectiveness in preventing children’s psychosocial problems through learning socio-emotional skills when self-administered via the Internet. Participants were 283 Spanish children between the ages of 8 and 12. The children and their parents completed anxiety and depression scales before and after receiving the intervention and 12 months later. The program consisted of 8 self-applied sessions, at a rate of two per week, which included emotional education, cognitive restructuring, self-regulation techniques, training in social skills, problem-solving, and video feedback with cognitive preparation. Significant differences in anxiety and depression symptoms were found after the intervention. A significant reduction in anxiety scores and a marginally significant decrease in depression scores was observed at the long-term follow-up. The “intention to treat” analysis revealed a tendency for children who improved to drop out of the program, completing the intervention children with more symptomathology. Learning socio-emotional skills through a self-applied intervention via the Internet effectively reduced emotional symptoms in school children and is a valuable resource to improve child well-being and prevent future psychological problems.

Sodium overload during childhood impairs baroreflex sensitivity and increases arterial blood pressure and heart rate in adulthood; these effects persist even after high-salt diet (HSD) withdrawal. However, the literature lacks details on the effects of HSD during postnatal phases on cardiac ischemia/reperfusion responses in adulthood. The current study aimed to elucidate the impact of HSD during infancy adolescence on isolated heart function and cardiac ischemia/reperfusion responses in adulthood. Male 21-day-old Wistar rats were treated for 60 days with hypertonic saline solution (NaCl; 0.3M; experimental group) or tap water (control group). Subsequently, both groups were maintained on a normal sodium diet for 30 days. Subsequently, the rats were euthanized, and their hearts were isolated and perfused according to the Langendorff technique. After 30 min of the basal period, the hearts were subjected to 20 min of anoxia, followed by 20 min of reperfusion. The basal contractile function was unaffected by HSD. However, HSD elevated the left ventricular end-diastolic pressure during reperfusion (23.1 ± 5.2 mmHg vs. 11.6 ± 1.4 mmHg; p < 0.05) and increased ectopic incidence period during reperfusion (208.8 ± 32.9s vs. 75.0 ± 7.8s; p < 0.05). In conclusion, sodium overload compromises cardiac function after reperfusion events, diminishes ventricular relaxation, and increases the severity of arrhythmias, suggesting a possible arrhythmogenic effect of HSD in the postnatal phases.

This study aimed to parse between-person heterogeneity in growth of impulsivity across childhood and adolescence among participants enrolled in five childhood preventive intervention trials targeting conduct problems. In addition, we aimed to test profile membership in relation to adult psychopathologies. Measurement items representing impulsive behavior across grades 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, and 10, and aggression, substance use, suicidal ideation/attempts, and anxiety/depression in adulthood were integrated from the five trials (N = 4,975). We applied latent class growth analysis to this sample, as well as samples separated into nonintervention (n = 2,492) and intervention (n = 2,483) participants. Across all samples, profiles were characterized by high, moderate, low, and low-increasing impulsive levels. Regarding adult outcomes, in all samples, the high, moderate, and low profiles endorsed greater levels of aggression compared to the low-increasing profile. There were nuanced differences across samples and profiles on suicidal ideation/attempts and anxiety/depression. Across samples, there were no significant differences between profiles on substance use. Overall, our study helps to inform understanding of the developmental course and prognosis of impulsivity, as well as adding to collaborative efforts linking data across multiple studies to better inform understanding of developmental processes.

The present study examined the longitudinal associations between three dimensions of temperament – activity, affect-extraversion, and task orientation – and childhood aggression. Using 131 monozygotic and 173 dizygotic (86 same-sex) twin pairs from the Louisville Twin Study, we elucidated the ages, from 6 to 36 months, at which each temperament dimension began to correlate with aggression at age 7. We employed latent growth modeling to show that developmental increases (i.e., slopes) in activity were positively associated with aggression, whereas increases in affect-extraversion and task orientation were negatively associated with aggression. Genetically informed models revealed that correlations between temperament and aggression were primarily explained by common genetic variance, with nonshared environmental variance accounting for a small proportion of each correlation by 36 months. Genetic variance explained the correlations of the slopes of activity and task orientation with aggression. Nonshared environmental variance accounted for almost half of the correlation between the slopes of affect-extraversion and aggression. Exploratory analyses revealed quantitative sex differences in each temperament-aggression association. By establishing which dimensions of temperament correlate with aggression, as well as when and how they do so, our work informs the development of future child and family interventions for children at highest risk of aggression.

Greater unpredictability in childhood from the level of the caregiver-child dyad to broader family, home, or environmental instability is consistently associated with disruptions in cognitive, socioemotional, behavioral, and biological development in humans. These findings are bolstered by experimental research in non-human animal models suggesting that early life unpredictability is an important environmental signal to the developing organism that shapes neurodevelopment and behavior. Research on childhood unpredictability has surged in the past several years, guided in part by theoretical grounding from the developmental psychopathology framework (shaped largely by Dr. Dante Cicchetti’s innovative work). The current review focuses on future directions for unpredictability research, including probing intergenerational effects, the role of predictability in resilience, cultural and contextual considerations, and novel developmental outcomes that should be tested in relation to childhood unpredictability. We urge the integration of multidisciplinary perspectives and collaborations into future research on unpredictability. We also provide ideas for translating this research to real-world practice and policy and encourage high-quality research testing whether incorporating predictability into interventions and policy improves developmental outcomes, which would support further dissemination of these findings.