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Maternal depression, child frontal asymmetry, and child affective behavior as factors in child behavior problems
Author(s) -
Forbes Erika E.,
Shaw Daniel S.,
Fox Nathan A.,
Cohn Jeffrey F.,
Silk Jennifer S.,
Kovacs Maria
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
journal of child psychology and psychiatry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.652
H-Index - 211
eISSN - 1469-7610
pISSN - 0021-9630
DOI - 10.1111/j.1469-7610.2005.01442.x
Subject(s) - psychology , depression (economics) , affect (linguistics) , conduct disorder , developmental psychology , clinical psychology , association (psychology) , frontal lobe , brain asymmetry , psychiatry , lateralization of brain function , communication , economics , psychotherapist , macroeconomics , neuroscience
Background: Despite findings that parent depression increases children's risk for internalizing and externalizing problems, little is known about other factors that combine with parent depression to contribute to behavior problems. Methods: As part of a longitudinal, interdisciplinary study on childhood‐onset depression (COD), we examined the association of mother history of COD, child frontal electroencephalogram asymmetry, and affective behavior with children's concurrent behavior problems. Results: Children in the COD group had higher anxious/depressed and aggressive problems than did children in the control group, but this was qualified by a COD‐by‐asymmetry interaction effect. For COD but not control children, left frontal asymmetry was associated with both anxious/depressed and aggressive child problems. Children with left frontal asymmetry and low affect regulation behavior had higher anxious/depressed problems than did those with high affect regulation behavior. Boys with left frontal asymmetry had higher aggressive problems than did those with right frontal asymmetry. Conclusions: In children of mothers with COD, physiological and behavioral indices of affect regulation may constitute risks for behavior problems.