Isabella Stallworthy

Few measures assess the specific indicators of disruptive mood dysregulation disorder (DMDD). While the E-SWAN DMDD questionnaire evaluates DMDD symptoms, its length increases response burden, and limits use in resource-constrained settings. Using data from 3,835 participants in the Healthy Brain Network (HBN; mean age = 10.25 years; 63% male), item responses were calibrated using the Graded Response Model and computerized adaptive testing (CAT) simulations were conducted to develop an abbreviated questionnaire. The four most frequently selected items comprise the short form, which correlated highly with the full form (Levy-corrected r = 0.776), and demonstrated moderate associations with related behavioral constructs (ρ = 0.120 - 0.424, p < .001). Compared to the full form, the short form demonstrated good specificity (a weaker association with the general psychopathology factor) while maintaining strong associations with externalizing behavior. Taken together, the short form offers a brief assessment with strong validity that decreases response burden.

Frameworks are widespread in developmental psychology. They provide general ideas about what to study in human development: which concepts to focus on (e.g., systems, timescales), which processes to test (e.g., micro–macro, bidirectional), and which methods to use (e.g., interview, dynamical equations). However, despite their prominence, there exists very little consensus or guidance on how to use frameworks in research. As such, they have an obscure role, influencing our research questions, methods, and theory, but often in ways we cannot articulate for ourselves, let alone for others. This Views paper presents our perspective on how different frameworks can inform the assumptions, targets, goals, context, timing, and methods of a research project. As an illustrative example, we use Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological framework to inform research investigating how parent–child relationships shape the development of executive self-regulation. We also show how different frameworks relevant to developmental psychopathology can inform a research project in distinct ways. Thus, this Views paper provides a practical guide for developmental researchers to more explicitly use and benefit from frameworks in their research.

Causal inference and questions about timing are central to developmental science. Yet scientists are often limited to observational data, and conceptual, methodological, and computational barriers have prevented uptake of relevant methodological tools from other disciplines that are designed to improve causal inference. This paper provides a practical guide to implementing one powerful causal inference tool, marginal structural models (MSMs), to strengthen our ability to test causal questions about exposures/treatments that unfold over time. We draw on an illustrative example testing the potentially causal roles of dose and timing of exposure to economic strain from infancy through early childhood on children’s behavior problems in early childhood. We first introduce the advantages of MSMs for investigating causal questions over time. Specifically, we review the logic of ‘exposure histories’ and the potential outcomes framework, using sequential randomization as a conceptual tool. We then discuss inverse-probability-of-treatment-weighting (IPTW) for addressing the threat of confounding over time. We then outline how to implement MSMs with observational data, before providing step-by-step guidance for using our novel, open-source R package, devMSMs. In our example, we create longitudinal IPTW balancing weights to attenuate a number of confounder-exposure relations. We then apply these weights to test an outcome model relating economic strain across infancy, toddlerhood, and early childhood to future behavior problems. Finally, we estimate and compare the predicted causal effects of different developmental histories of high economic strain that vary in dose and timing and discuss substantive implications. We close with ongoing considerations.

Frameworks are widespread in developmental psychology. They provide general ideas about what to study in human development: which concepts to focus on (e.g., systems, timescales), which processes to test (e.g., micro-macro, bidirectional), and which methods to use (e.g., interview, dynamical equations). However, despite their prominence, there exists very little consensus or guidance on how to use frameworks in research. As such, they have an obscure role, influencing our research questions, methods, and theory, but often in ways we cannot articulate for ourselves, let alone for others. This paper presents a practical guide by identifying how different frameworks can inform assumptions, targets, goals, context, timing, and methods of a research project. As an illustrative example, we use Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological framework to inform research on how parent-child relationships influence the development of executive attention. We also show how different frameworks can inform a research project in distinct ways. Thus, our paper provides a guide for developmental scientists to more explicitly use and benefit from frameworks in their research.

The autonomic nervous system, relatively understudied compared to the central nervous system, is thought to play a key role in supporting attentional engagement, a cornerstone of cognitive control in early development. To address the non-trivial challenges that complex autonomic signals present to traditional modeling, we leverage recurrence quantification analysis (RQA), an established nonlinear approach for quantifying the temporal organization of heart-rate dynamics. Here, we compute recurrence metrics to examine trait, or participant level (across the task), and state level (moment-by-moment) autonomic recurrence patterns in relation to infants’ multimodal attentional engagement with objects in a cross-cultural sample from Singapore and Brazil (N = 78, Age = 8.63 - 25.32 months). Across both countries, at the trait level, we observe that for most metrics, lower participant-level autonomic recurrence is related to higher infant attentional engagement and higher parent-reported regulatory capacity. Similarly, at the state level, all recurrence metrics are lower during moments of attentional engagement compared to disengagement. Further, certain metrics show sensitivity to attentional transitions and differentiate between different types of attentional engagement. Findings suggest that reduced autonomic recurrence, indicative of enhanced autonomic flexibility and stronger parasympathetic contributions, supports early attentional engagement.

Research suggests there are differences in children's internalizing and externalizing symptoms as a function of age, race, sex, and socioeconomic status (SES). Males, Black children, and children experiencing lower SES have been rated as having more externalizing problems. Female and older children have been rated as having higher internalizing symptoms. The validity of these findings rests on the assumption that the measures mean the same thing across groups and developmental time (i.e., measurement invariance [MI]). Without assuring MI, results may represent differences in measurement and not true differences in the underlying construct. The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) is a widely used tool to measure internalizing and externalizing symptoms. Papers have evaluated MI of the SDQ in school-aged children. However, to our knowledge, no studies of young children have examined MI across Black and White families from diverse SES backgrounds. Data from the Family Life Project were used to evaluate MI of the SDQ across child age (35 to 90 months), race, sex, and SES. Using moderated nonlinear factor analysis (MNLFA), multiple SDQ items demonstrated measurement noninvariance as a function of child demographic variables. Results suggest that it is important to test and adjust for noninvariance with the SDQ when applied to early childhood populations comprising Black and White children from diverse SES backgrounds. An MNLFA approach improves our ability to validly measure and compare symptoms of psychopathology in diverse early childhood populations. This could have implications for our understanding of rates of mental health challenges and treatment in early childhood. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Research suggests there are differences in children’s internalizing and externalizing symptoms as a function of age, race, sex, and socio-economic status (SES). Males, Black children, and children experiencing lower SES have been rated as having more externalizing problems. Female and older children have been rated as having higher internalizing symptoms. The validity of these findings rests on the assumption that the measures mean the same thing across groups and developmental time (i.e., Measurement Invariance; MI). Without assuring MI, results may represent differences in measurement and not true differences in the underlying construct. The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) is a widely used tool to measure internalizing and externalizing symptoms. Papers have evaluated MI of the SDQ in school-aged children. However, to our knowledge, no studies of young children have examined MI across Black and White families from diverse SES backgrounds. Data from the Family Life Project were used to evaluate MI of the SDQ across child age (35 to 90 months), race, sex, and SES. Using moderated non-linear factor analysis (MNLFA), multiple SDQ items demonstrated measurement non-invariance as a function of child demographic variables. Results suggest that it is important to test and adjust for non-invariance with the SDQ when applied to early-childhood populations comprising Black and White children from diverse SES backgrounds. An MNLFA approach improves our ability to validly measure and compare symptoms of psychopathology in diverse early childhood populations. This could have implications for our understanding of rates of mental health challenges and treatment in early childhood.

Human interpersonal capacities emerge from coordinated neural, biological, and behavioral activity unfolding within and between people. However, developmental research to date has allocated comparatively little focus to the dynamic processes of how social interactions emerge across these levels of analysis. Second-person neuroscience and dynamic systems approach together to offer an integrative framework for addressing these questions. This study quantified respiratory sinus arrhythmia and social behavior (∼360 observations per system) from 44 mothers and typically developing 9-month-old infants during a novel modified "still-face" (text message perturbation) task. Stochastic autoregression models indicate that the infant parasympathetic nervous system is coupled within and between people second by second and is sensitive to social context. Intraindividual, we found positive coupling between infants' parasympathetic nervous system activity and their social behavior in the subsequent second, but only during the moments and periods of active caregiver engagement. Between people, we found a bidirectional coregulatory feedback loop: Mothers' parasympathetic activity positively predicted that of their infant in the subsequent second, a form of synchrony that decreased during the text message perturbation and did not fully recover. Conversely, infant parasympathetic activity negatively predicted that of their mother at the subsequent second, a form of synchrony that was invariant over social context. Findings reveal unidirectional parasympathetic coupling within infants and a complementary allostatic feedback loop between mother and infant parasympathetic systems. They offer novel evidence of a dynamic, socially embedded parasympathetic system at previously undocumented timescales, contributing to both basic science and potential clinical targets to better support adaptive, multisystem social development. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Social motivation—the psychobiological predisposition for social orienting, seeking social contact, and maintaining social interaction—manifests in early infancy and is hypothesized to be foundational for social communication development in typical and atypical populations. However, the lack of infant social‐motivation measures has hindered delineation of associations between infant social motivation, other early‐arising social abilities such as joint attention, and language outcomes. To investigate how infant social motivation contributes to joint attention and language, this study utilizes a mixed longitudinal sample of 741 infants at high (HL = 515) and low (LL = 226) likelihood for ASD. Using moderated nonlinear factor analysis (MNLFA), we incorporated items from parent‐report measures to establish a novel latent factor model of infant social motivation that exhibits measurement invariance by age, sex, and familial ASD likelihood. We then examined developmental associations between 6‐ and 12‐month social motivation, joint attention at 12–15 months, and language at 24 months of age. On average, greater social‐motivation growth from 6–12 months was associated with greater initiating joint attention (IJA) and trend‐level increases in sophistication of responding to joint attention (RJA). IJA and RJA were both positively associated with 24‐month language abilities. There were no additional associations between social motivation and future language in our path model. These findings substantiate a novel, theoretically driven approach to modeling social motivation and suggest a developmental cascade through which social motivation impacts other foundational skills. These findings have implications for the timing and nature of intervention targets to support social communication development in infancy.Highlights: We describe a novel, theoretically based model of infant social motivation wherein multiple parent‐reported indicators contribute to a unitary latent social‐motivation factor. Analyses revealed social‐motivation factor scores exhibited measurement invariance for a longitudinal sample of infants at high and low familial ASD likelihood. Social‐motivation growth from ages 6–12 months is associated with better 12−15‐month joint attention abilities, which in turn are associated with greater 24‐month language skills. Findings inform timing and targets of potential interventions to support healthy social communication in the first year of life.