Research digest
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Do children with social anxiety disorder benefit from social skills training?
Social anxiety disorder (SAD) in children can be difficult to treat, as evidenced by the varied outcomes reported post-treatment.1,2 Although childhood treatments for SAD commonly involve at least some social skills training,3 it isn’t clear whether children with SAD have particular difficulties with social skills. There is therefore a need to better establish whether social skills are an effective target for treating SAD.
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Sleep problems from infancy are linked with impaired well-being in middle childhood
Researchers in the USA and Australia have found that sleep disturbances from early childhood are associated with reductions in well-being at age 10-11 years old. Ariel Williamson and colleagues came to this conclusion after analysing data from >5,000 children enrolled in the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children – Birth Cohort.
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December 2020 – The Bridge
Welcome to the December 2020 issue of The Bridge. This year has been extremely challenging for our field, as we’ve needed to understand and address the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on young people’s mental health.
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Do ADHD and ASD symptoms have similar characteristics in childhood and young adulthood?
Lucy Riglin and colleagues in the UK have investigated whether ADHD and ASD traits in young adulthood show similar characteristics to those reported in childhood.
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Does late-onset ADHD share the same neurocognitive markers as childhood-onset ADHD?
Researchers in the Netherlands have published their findings from a 6-year prospective, longitudinal study that aimed to identify neurocognitive markers of late-onset attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
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Is infant empathy linked with later externalizing problems?
Until recently, it has been assumed that young infants cannot feel empathy for others.1 However, emerging data suggest that this might not actually be the case.2 Now, Yael Paz and colleagues have examined empathy development during the first years of life, analysing data from 165 infants involved in a longitudinal, prospective study.
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A developmental language disorder might increase the risk of reoffending
Researchers in the UK are the first to identify the potential impact of a developmental language disorder (DLD) on reoffending risk in young people. Maxine Winstanley and colleagues recruited 145 young offenders to their study.
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Consistency is needed when measuring and reporting outcomes in child and adolescent anxiety disorders trials
This year, Cathy Creswell, Maaike Nauta and colleagues from around the world convened a series of international activities based around measuring and reporting in treatment trials for child and adolescent anxiety disorders.
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Does an internet gaming disorder prospectively predict psychiatric symptoms?
A minority of children and adolescents develop addiction-like engagement in gaming that is associated with impaired function.1 Preliminary data suggest that affected children with these symptoms, indicating an Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD), might present with more symptoms of common psychiatric disorders than those without an IGD.
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Insufficient sleep might affect children’s emotional health
Data from a new study published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry suggest that insufficient sleep can affect emotional health in children. The study, conducted by Candice Alfano and colleagues, assessed the impact of sleep duration on different aspects of emotion in a cohort of 53 children aged 7-11 years old.
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