Biomedical subjects

Jim Stevenson

Publications and source records attributed to Jim Stevenson.

10 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2003

Development of sexually abusive behaviour in sexually victimised males: a longitudinal study.

BACKGROUND: Sexual maltreatment is one of the most common forms of child abuse. To identify risk factors for sexually abusive behaviour by adults, we prospectively assessed childhood experiences and personal characteristics of male child victims who became abusers in later life. METHODS: In a longitudinal study (7-19 years duration), we included 224 former male victims of sexual abuse. Risk factors contemporaneous with the abuse, and putative protective influences, were identified from social service and clinical records. Evidence of later criminal acts was obtained from a nationwide search of official records. FINDINGS: Of the 224 former victims, 26 had subsequently committed sexual offences (victim-abusers), in almost all cases with children, mainly outside their families. Risk factors during childhood for later offending included material neglect (odds ratio 3.4, 95% CI 1.2-9.7), lack of supervision (3.0, 1.1-8.3), and sexual abuse by a female person (3.0, 1.1-8.7). Victim-abusers had more frequently witnessed serious intrafamilial violence (3.1, 1.0-10.0). Six (29%) of 21 victim-abusers on whom we had relevant data had been cruel to animals (7.9, 2.0-31.4). No single putative protective factor, nor a composite protective index, significantly reduced the risk of paedophilic behaviour. INTERPRETATION: Most male victims of child sexual abuse do not become paedophiles, but particular experiences and patterns of childhood behaviour are associated with an increased risk of victims becoming abusers in later life. Our findings have implications for the design of selective interventions with a vulnerable subgroup of male victims, aimed at reducing the risk of paedophilic behaviour in later life.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2003

The impact of maternal mental health and child's behavioural difficulties on attributions about child behaviours.

The effects of maternal mental health and child's behavioural difficulties upon mothers' attributions for negative child behaviour were examined. A community sample of 70 mothers of children aged about 9 years were interviewed in depth and the interviews transcribed. Transcripts were analysed for spontaneous attributions which were subsequently coded on the dimensions of internality, controllability, stability, universality and globality. Mothers with mental health problems made the same number of attributions about negative behaviours as normal mothers. However, more internal-to-self and global attributions were made by the group with mental health problems. This pattern was demonstrated regardless of the child's level of behavioural difficulties. The increase in negative attributions by mothers with mental health problems is not the result of the association between maternal mental health and child's behavioural difficulties. Mothers with mental health problems do not explain their child's negative behaviours in a way that is typical of normal mothers, and reasons for this are discussed.

Adult↗

PubMed2002

Disability and quality of life in spina bifida and hydrocephalus.

This study examined the impact of severity and type of condition and family resources on quality of life in children with spina bifida and hydrocephalus. A national UK sample of children aged between 6 and 13 years with spina bifida (n=62), hydrocephalus (n=354), and spina bifida plus hydrocephalus (n=128) were identified via the register of the Association for Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus (ASBAH). Parents completed standardized measures of Child Health Related Quality Of Life (CQOL), family needs survey (FNS), and caregiving self-efficacy scale (CSES) as well as questions on children's health and physical ability. Results showed there were no significant differences in the overall quality of life for the three disability conditions. The overall CQOL was over 1 SD lower for those with spina bifida and hydrocephalus than for children with other physical conditions. Sex and age were not related to overall CQOL. Specific aspects of CQOL differentiated the three groups. Children with spina bifida had poorer CQOL scores on self-care, continence, and mobility/activities whilst those with hydrocephalus had poorer scores on school activities, worries, sight, and communication. Severity of condition and family resources, i.e. CSES and FNS, predicted 32% of the variance in CQOL. Associations were also found between overall CQOL and problems discernible at birth as well as epilepsy. Other factors, including those related to shunts, were not significantly related to CQOL. It was concluded that hydrocephalus is just as great a threat to CQOL as spina bifida. Beyond the general effect of condition severity on CQOL, family resources (as measured by the CSES and FNS) represent an additional influence on CQOL.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2002

Parenting behaviour described by mothers in a general population sample.

OBJECTIVES: To collect mothers' reports of the range of behaviours used by them in the management of their children's difficult behaviour. DESIGN: A cross-sectional study using an interview with both semi-structured and open-ended question routes. SAMPLING FRAME: The population of mothers with 10-year-old children living in the New Forest region of Hampshire, UK. METHODS: Mothers (n=67), selected from the sampling frame, were interviewed about the range of parenting behaviours they used in the management of their children's difficult behaviour. RESULTS: Mothers reported a wide range of behaviours. Both authoritative (e.g. reasoning was mentioned by 42%) and authoritarian (e.g. the use of physical punishment was mentioned by 37%) behaviours were mentioned frequently. Although the different behaviours within these domains were intercorrelated, there was little overlap between the two domains. The use of praise for good behaviour seemed to be independent of other behaviours. There was no association between mothers' parenting behaviours and the behaviour problems of their children. CONCLUSIONS: These data suggest that parenting takes many forms, with variations of behaviour across the 'normal' range being unlikely to represent a significant risk to children's development. Public funding for parenting education should be targeted at those children who are at significant risk from extreme forms of parenting.

Authoritarianism↗

PubMed2002

Associations between behaviour problems and verbal and nonverbal cognitive abilities and disabilities in early childhood.

BACKGROUND: We investigated associations between behaviour problems and verbal and nonverbal cognitive abilities at 2, 3 and 4 years of age both for the entire distribution and for the lowest 5% and 10% of the verbal and nonverbal cognitive disabilities. METHODS: A community sample of 4,000 pairs of twins born in England and Wales in 1994 and 1995 was assessed by their parents at 2, 3 and 4 years using the Revised Rutter Parent Scale for Preschool Children (RRPSPC, behaviour problems), the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory (MCDI, verbal development), and the Parent Report of Children's Abilities (PARCA, nonverbal cognitive development). RESULTS: For the entire sample, behaviour problem scores were modestly associated with lower MCDI and PARCA scores - correlations were less than .30. Similarly modest effect sizes were found for relationships between behaviour problem scores and the lowest 5% and 10% of the MCDI and of the PARCA distributions. Associations were stronger for nonverbal than for verbal development, increased from 2 to 3 to 4 years, and, at the extremes of the distributions, were stronger for boys than for girls. Multivariate genetic analyses indicated that both genetic and shared environmental factors mediate the links between behaviour problems and cognitive development both for the total distribution and for the extremes. Genetic links may be stronger for the extremes than for the total sample. CONCLUSIONS: We conclude that, in this community sample of young children, associations between behaviour problems and verbal and nonverbal cognitive development are generally modest for the entire distribution and are no greater at the extremes than expected on the basis of the associations for the entire distribution.

Aptitude Tests↗

PubMed2002

Auditory processing in children with dyslexia.

BACKGROUND: It has been claimed that children with dyslexia show a general impairment in the processing of rapid auditory stimuli. However, most previous studies in this field have focused on children with language impairment or children who do not meet accepted criteria for dyslexia. METHODS: In the present study, the processing of rapid non-verbal auditory stimuli (complex tones) was examined in a population-based sample of 24 children with dyslexia, 10 to 12 years of age, and a matched control group. RESULTS: The dyslexia group showed reduced tone processing relative to the control group, with significant main effects of tone duration, inter-stimulus interval and task complexity. The deficit was not specific for temporal order errors, and could not be explained by differences in short-term memory or verbal IQ. However, correlations between tone processing and reading ability were generally low or absent. CONCLUSION: Although a general processing deficit for rapid auditory stimuli in dyslexia was confirmed, its relevance for reading problems and hence for treatment programmes for dyslexia is questioned.

Acoustic Stimulation↗

PubMed2002

Long-term evaluation of the impact of the h1-receptor antagonist cetirizine on the behavioral, cognitive, and psychomotor development of very young children with atopic dermatitis.

The impact of the prolonged use of cetirizine at high dose (0.25 mg/kg twice a day over 18 mo) on behavior and cognitive ability was examined in a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial (ETAC-Early Treatment of the Atopic Child) designed to establish whether it was possible to prevent young children (1-2 y old at study entry) with atopic dermatitis from developing asthma. Well-validated and standardized measures of behavior (Behavior Screening Questionnaire) and cognition (McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities) were used. In addition, the ages of attainment of psychomotor milestones were established. These measures were taken between an average of 32 and 53 mo of age, both during the study treatment with cetirizine or placebo and after the study treatment had been discontinued. The Behavior Screening Questionnaire was completed at least once on approximately 300 children in each group and on approximately 200 children on five occasions. The McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities were administered to approximately 100 in each group at three different times. There were no significant differences between the cetirizine and placebo groups on either of the behavior and cognition measures or in psychomotor milestones during or after the study treatment. These findings suggest that there are no adverse effects on behavior or learning processes associated with the prolonged use of cetirizine in young children with atopic dermatitis.

Cetirizine↗

PubMed2000

Editorial.

The readers of the Journal may not be aware that the Joint Editors act independently in making decisions on accepting papers for publication. This means that as an Editor I am just as intrigued as any other reader when I see a new issue of the Journal since it is likely that I will have been responsible for selecting only one third of the papers in that issue. In reading the material in this present issue I was struck by the conceptual and methodological links between a sub-set of papers that were concerned with adverse events and circumstances and their long-term sequelae; moreover, that these papers had between them some important implications for clinical practice. The first of these papers is by Dunn et al. and investigates the transmission within families of qualities of relationships. They found that father-child and mother-child relationships in stepfamilies, single-parent, and non-stepfamilies were found to be related to a number of factors. These included the parents' own earlier life course experiences, current family circumstances, and how a partner and child were getting along. The links with life course experiences meant that children were at risk of a "double dose" of less affectionate relationships in families in which parents had experienced early adversities. They found evidence for both selection effects (similarities in the early experience of both partners) and co-parenting effects (effects of one parent's relationship with a child on the other parent) and effects of biological relatedness.

Journal Article↗

PubMed2000

Editorial.

There has been a consensus that children "in care" show a much increased frequency of behavioural difficulties but the reasons why this should be so are much less well understood. The study by Roy et al. sheds important new light on this issue. They found that children admitted into residential group homes as babies are much more likely than children admitted into foster care at the same age to show hyperactivity and inattention. Although the study sample was small, the groups were closely comparable in coming from a very high-risk family background. The evidence from both questionnaire and observational measures was consistent in indicating that the difference in the pattern of rearing made a substantial difference to the child's behaviour. The findings are sobering in their implication that the pattern of care provided to protect children at high risk seemed to have acted in a detrimental manner. The study clearly provides food for thought in terms of the need to improve provision for this vulnerable group of children. The findings are also provocative in their implication that hyperactivity/inattention, although strongly influenced by the child's biology, can also be affected by the pattern of rearing. The message is that clinicians should not assume that the causes of this hyperactive behaviour necessarily reside entirely within the child but there is also the need to clarify whether the form of hyperactivity/inattention arising from these experiences is in someway atypical. The paper by Reynolds and colleagues is an attempt to evaluate the efficacy of emotional disclosure to offset distress in children experiencing negative life events. There is a developing literature on such interventions in adults but, as these authors suggest, little work has yet been done to test the value of such disclosure in children. Using a randomised controlled trial Reynolds et al. were unable to show a specific benefit from the opportunity provided to write about negative events. Rather, there was a general reduction in symptoms from all groups. Although the results suggest that the efficacy of writing about negative events is less marked in 8-13-year-olds than in adults, they also indicate that it is both feasible and potentially valuable to give children opportunities to engage in discussion about sources of stress and their reaction to them.

Journal Article↗

PubMed2000

Editorial.

It is nearly 30 years since the publication of the edited book by Rutter and Martin (1972), The child with delayed speech (London: Heinemann), which drew attention to the two-way relationship between language and behaviour. In the book the mechanisms whereby psychiatric disorders can have an involvement with language development were identified. Also, Mike Rutter suggested various ways in which delayed language development could impinge upon other aspects of psychological development. The current issue of the JCPP has a number of papers that examine the relationship between language development and aspects of cognition and behaviour. These include a long-term follow-up for a group of individuals with receptive language disorder who were first studied at about the time that the 1972 book was published.

Journal Article↗