Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up With Child Protective Services-Involved Parents: Testing Effectiveness in the Community

Parental neural activity: N170 to emotional faces

时间窗: 6 months post-intake

At 6 months post-intake, parental neural activity will be assessed using an event-related potential (ERP) task. Parents will categorize photographs of infants with different emotional expressions (crying, laughing, neutral), while continuous EEG is recorded (Bernard et al., 2015). The N170 (an early perceptual ERP component that indexes processing of faces) will be measured as the average amplitude within a time window of 140 to 180 ms at electrodes P7 and P8. After data processing (re-referencing, artifact rejection), residualized difference scores will be computed that reflect the magnitude of the difference in N170 responses to emotional faces versus neutral faces.

Child behavior regulation (Infant Externalizing Questionnaire) at 6 months post-intake

时间窗: 6 months post-intake

At 6 months post-intake, parents will complete the Infant Externalizing Questionnaire (IEQ; Lorber et al., 2017) when children are 24 months of age or younger. The IEQ is a measure of infant aggression (7 items) and defiance (4 items) and shows good internal consistency, longitudinal stability, interparental agreement, and concurrent and predictive validity.

Child behavior regulation (Child Behavior Checklist) at 6 months post-intake

时间窗: 6 months post-intake

At 6 months post-intake, parents will complete the Child Behavior Checklist 1? - 5 (CBCL; Achenbach \& Rescorla, 2001) for children at least 18 months old, which will allow us to assess both internalizing and externalizing behaviors. The use of the IEQ and the CBCL at overlapping waves of data collection is intentional because it allows us to correct for switching indicators in statistical analyses.

Parental sensitivity

时间窗: At 12-months post-intake

At 12 months post-intake (or the equivalent for SEEK only dyads), parental sensitivity will be coded on the basis of a 30-minute semi-structured interaction, including a play task and challenge/ distress tasks. The parent will be given 3 bags of toys and asked to play with the toys in each of the three bags in order and complete a series of challenge/distress-eliciting tasks that vary based on child age, such as changing the child's clothes, withholding an attractive toy, and completing research measures while the child is present. We will use the NICHD SECCYD methods for coding parental sensitivity, including scales for sensitivity to distress, sensitivity to non-distress, and positive regard. Raters will be trained to better than 85% inter-rater reliability and reliability will be carefully monitored, with all assessments double-coded.

Parental neural activity: Late positive potential (LPP) to emotional faces

时间窗: 6 months post-intake

At 6 months post-intake, parental neural activity will be assessed using an event-related potential (ERP) task. Parents will categorize photographs of infants with different emotional expressions (crying, laughing, neutral), while continuous EEG is recorded (Bernard et al., 2015). The late positive potential (LPP; a late ERP component that indexes sustained attention and evaluation of emotionally-salient stimuli) will be measured as the average amplitude at the Pz electrode from 300 to 650 ms post-stimulus. After data processing (re-referencing, artifact rejection), residualized difference scores will be computed that reflect the magnitude of the difference in LPP responses to emotional faces versus neutral faces.

Child behavior regulation (Infant Externalizing Questionnaire) after ABC session 3 (or equivalent)

时间窗: Approximately 4 weeks post-intake (After ABC Session 3 or the equivalent for SEEK only dyads)

After ABC Session 3 (or the equivalent for SEEK-only dyads), parents will complete the Infant Externalizing Questionnaire (IEQ; Lorber et al., 2017) when children are 24 months of age or younger. The IEQ is a measure of infant aggression (7 items) and defiance (4 items) and shows good internal consistency, longitudinal stability, interparental agreement, and concurrent and predictive validity.

Child behavior regulation (Infant Externalizing Questionnaire) at 12 months post-intake

时间窗: 12 months post-intake

At 12 months post-intake, parents will complete the Infant Externalizing Questionnaire (IEQ; Lorber et al., 2017) when children are 24 months of age or younger. The IEQ is a measure of infant aggression (7 items) and defiance (4 items) and shows good internal consistency, longitudinal stability, interparental agreement, and concurrent and predictive validity.

Child behavior regulation (Child Behavior Checklist) at 12 months post-intake

时间窗: 12 months post-intake

At 12 months post-intake, parents will complete the Child Behavior Checklist 1? - 5 (CBCL; Achenbach \& Rescorla, 2001), which will allow us to assess both internalizing and externalizing behaviors. The use of the IEQ and the CBCL at overlapping waves of data collection is intentional because it allows us to correct for switching indicators in statistical analyses.

Child attachment

时间窗: 6 months post-intake

At 6 months post-intake, the Strange Situation procedure (Ainsworth et al., 1978) will be conducted. The Strange Situation consists of a series of episodes including two 3-minute separations, each followed by 3-minute reunions. The child's behavior upon reunion with the parent is coded for continuous scales (i.e., proximity seeking, contact maintenance, avoidance, resistance) and children are classified as secure, insecure-avoidant, or insecure-resistant. Following the Main \& Solomon (1990) system, disorganized attachment behavior is also coded on a continuous scale, and children may receive a primary classification of disorganized attachment. Elizabeth Carlson, an expert coder, will serve as a consultant on this project and complete reliability coding for 25% of videos.

Child behavior regulation (Disruptive Behavior Diagnostic Observation Schedule) at 6 months post-intake

时间窗: 6 months post-intake

At the 6 months post-intake assessment, the Disruptive Behavior Diagnostic Observation Schedule (DB-DOS; Wakschlag et al., 2008) will be administered. The DB-DOS is an observational assessment that involves a series of "presses" that challenge children's emotional and behavioral regulatory capacities; the DB-DOS demonstrates good reliability and validity. Given that children will be between 12 and 30 months at the 6 months post-intake time-point, we will administer the infant/toddler DB-DOS protocol, which allows for the assessment of child irritability and frustration, key behavioral regulation constructs that are predictive of later difficulties with disruptive behavior disorders.

Child diurnal cortisol rhythm at 6 months post-intake

时间窗: 6 months post-intake

At 6 months post-intake, children's diurnal cortisol rhythms will be assessed. Cortisol is an end product of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. The normative pattern is a high wake-up level, decreasing throughout the day, with the nadir in the evening. Parents will collect child saliva samples by rubbing an oral swab in the child's mouth at wake-up (morning) and bedtime (evening) for 3 consecutive days. Saliva samples will be assayed using the Salimetrics, Inc. High Sensitivity Salivary Cortisol Enzyme Immunoassay Kit. All samples from a child at a single time-point will be run in duplicate on the same assay plate, along with a control. Cortisol values, measured in ?g/dl, will be log-transformed. We will examine changes in the diurnal rhythm (i.e., slope) from wake-up to bedtime.

Child diurnal cortisol rhythm at 12 months post-intake

时间窗: 12 months post-intake

At 12 months post-intake, children's diurnal cortisol rhythms will be assessed. Cortisol is an end product of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. The normative pattern is a high wake-up level, decreasing throughout the day, with the nadir in the evening. Parents will collect child saliva samples by rubbing an oral swab in the child's mouth at wake-up (morning) and bedtime (evening) for 3 consecutive days. Saliva samples will be assayed using the Salimetrics, Inc. High Sensitivity Salivary Cortisol Enzyme Immunoassay Kit. All samples from a child at a single time-point will be run in duplicate on the same assay plate, along with a control. Cortisol values, measured in ?g/dl, will be log-transformed. We will examine changes in the diurnal rhythm (i.e., slope) from wake-up to bedtime.