Early disadvantage may be more closely linked to cognitive and emotional functioning in adolescence

Early disadvantage may be more closely linked to cognitive and emotional functioning in adolescence

Experiences of early adversity due to poverty, abuse and neglect are known to affect children's cognitive and emotional development. Recent research in psychology extends previous work by suggesting that experiences of deprivation and threat may differentially influence children's psychological development. That is, early experiences of deprivation such as parental neglect and financial difficulties appear to be more closely linked to cognitive and emotional functioning in adolescence than early experiences of threat such as abuse.

A variety of later difficulties were closely related to early experiences of deprivation, such as neglect or growing up in a poor environment. This includes results that classically show a specific connection with deprivation, such as: B. lower performance on intelligence tests, as well as other results such as poor management of your emotions or conflicts with others.”

Sofia Carozza, researcher

Sofia Carozza conducted this research with Joni Holmes and Duncan E. Astle (University of Cambridge).

The researchers analyzed existing data from a longitudinal study of 14,062 people born in the United Kingdom between April 1991 and December 1992. Specifically, they examined how each child's adversity in the first 7 years of life - as reported by their mothers -; influenced their cognitive and emotional development in adolescence.

During the first 7 years, mothers reported their child's exposure to threats such as sexual abuse, physical abuse, physical and emotional domestic violence, and parental physical and mental cruelty, as well as deprivations such as change of caregiver, parental separation, parental neglect, and financial difficulties.

When these children turned 15, researchers assessed their cognitive abilities using the vocabulary and reasoning sections of the Abbreviated Wechsler Intelligence Scale and a stop signal task. This task tests inhibitory control by instructing participants to press one of two buttons when a visual stimulus (an image of the letter "X" or "O") appears on the screen, unless that stimulus is followed by a beep, in which case they should inhibit their response and do nothing.

When the children were 16 years old, the mothers reported on their child's emotional development using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. This includes questions about internalizing problems, such as: B. emotional problems and problems in relationships with peers, and externalizing problems, such as. B. Problems with misbehavior and hyperactivity/inattention that the child may have experienced in the past 6 months.

At age 17, the children also completed an N-Back task, which measures working memory by tasking participants with recognizing when a number on the screen matches the number displayed a certain number of steps back during the task.

Using network analysis, Carozza and colleagues found that adolescents who had more experiences of deprivation in the first 7 years of their lives performed worse on intelligence and cognitive inhibition. Deprivation was also more closely linked to children's internalizing and externalizing problems than experiences of threat.

Previous research on whether or not threat and deprivation are uniquely predictive of separate developmental outcomes in children is divided, Carozza and colleagues wrote, but their new findings suggest that focusing on deprivation could give researchers a clearer picture of how cognitive and emotional deficits can arise as we age.

“Because deprivation involves not only a lack of material resources but also inadequate psychosocial care, this dimension may capture a broader range of important characteristics of a child's environment,” the researchers explained.

Exactly which deprivations have the most impact on development can also vary depending on the age of the child. In this study, Carozza and colleagues found that any form of deprivation experienced in infancy significantly influenced children's cognitive and emotional development, but parental separation became less significant in early childhood (ages 1.5 to 5) and mid-childhood (ages 5 to 7), the only relevant factor appearing to be a family's financial situation.

“Because there are different sensitive periods in childhood for the development of neural and behavioral traits, the narrowing of the deprivation cluster may reflect the disproportionate impact of certain forms of adversity at earlier developmental stages,” the researchers write.

Although these results suggest that deprivation has a stronger connection to children's emotional and cognitive development than experiences of threat, that does not mean that threat does not contribute to some of these results, Carozza emphasized in an interview.

"Rather, it means that it is advisable to consider the entire landscape of experiences people have in childhood if we want to understand how their early lives might shape their current flourishing," she said.

Future work could extend these findings by examining how children's brain networks may develop differently in response to early adversity, Carozza said. Researchers can also examine the extent to which experiences of adversity alter children's neurobiology, how the neural and psychological adaptations that children develop in response to adversity can help them overcome future conflicts, and how these findings can be used to improve people's mental health more broadly.

Source:

Society for Psychology

References:

Boyd A, Golding J, Macleod J, Lawlor DA, Fraser A, Henderson J, Molloy L, Ness A, Ring S and Davey Smith G (2013). Cohort Profile: The “Children of the 90s” – the index offspring of the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children. International Journal of Epidemiology, 42(1), 111–127. https://doi.org/10.1093/ije/dys064

Carozza, S., Holmes, J., & Astle, DE (2022). Testing deprivation and threat: A preregistered network analysis of dimensions of early adversity. Psychological Science, 33 (10), 1753-1766. https://doi.org/10.1177/09567976221101045

Fraser A, Macdonald-Wallis C, Tilling K, Boyd A, Golding J, Davey Smith G, Henderson J, Macleod J, Molloy L, Ness A, Ring S, Nelson SM, & Lawlor DA (2013). Cohort Profile: The Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children: ALSPAC Mothers Cohort. International Journal of Epidemiology, 42(1), 97–110. https://doi.org/10.1093/ije/dys066

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