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Child Maltreatment 2013 Best Article Award Child Maltreat 2014 19: 130 DOI: 10.1177/1077559514540716 The online version of this article can be found at: http://cmx.sagepub.com/content/19/2/130.citation
Published by: http://www.sagepublications.com
On behalf of:
American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children
Additional services and information for Child Maltreatment can be found at: Email Alerts: http://cmx.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Subscriptions: http://cmx.sagepub.com/subscriptions Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav
>> Version of Record - Jun 27, 2014 What is This?
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Announcement
Child Maltreatment 2013 Best Article Award Congratulations to W. John Curtis and Dante Cicchetti. Their article ‘‘Affective Facial Expression Processing in 15-Month-Old Infants Who Have Experienced Maltreatment: An Event-Related Potential Study’’ was voted by the Child Maltreatment Associate Editors and Editorial Board as the best article in 2013. The article was published in August 2013. The authors received plaques and a check for $1,000. The first page is reprinted below.
Affective Facial Expression Processing in 15-Month-Old Infants Who Have Experienced Maltreatment: An Event-Related Potential Study
Child Maltreatment 18(3) 140-154 ª The Author(s) 2013 Reprints and permission: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1077559513487944 cmx.sagepub.com
W. John Curtis1 and Dante Cicchetti2,3
Abstract This study examined the neural correlates of facial affect processing in 15 month-old maltreated and nonmaltreated infants. Eventrelated potentials (ERPs) were elicited while infants passively viewed standardized pictures of female models posing angry, happy, and neutral facial expressions. Differences between maltreated (N ¼ 25) and nonmaltreated (N ¼ 20) infants were observed on three ERP components: P1, P260, and Nc. The results for the P260 waveform were consistent with previous ERP findings in older maltreated children, showing a hyperresponsivity to angry facial affect relative to happy in maltreated infants. However, the findings for the P1 and Nc indicated a hyperresponsivity to relative affective novelty, whereby the maltreated infants had greater amplitude in response to happy facial affect, whereas nonmaltreated infants had greater responsivity to angry faces. The results provided further support for the hypothesis that the experience of maltreatment and the predominantly negative emotional tone in maltreating families alters the functioning of neural systems associated with the processing of facial emotion. In particular, the findings suggested that at this early stage in the development of facial affect recognition, novelty of facial emotion is especially salient. These results exemplify the importance of early preventive interventions focused on emotion for children who have experienced maltreatment early in life. Keywords child maltreatment, event-related potentials, emotion, face processing The experience of maltreatment is associated with a broad range of deleterious biological and psychological outcomes across virtually all domains of development (Cicchetti & Toth, 2005; McCrory & Viding, 2010), and it is further associated with the development of a variety of psychopathological outcomes, including antisociality, depression, anxiety, dissociation, and posttraumatic stress disorder (Cicchetti & Valentino, 2006). Affective interchanges between caregiver and infant play a paramount role in the development of adaptive socioemotional functioning (e.g., Izard, 2009); thus, one of the likely contributors to the poor developmental outcomes in maltreated children is the atypical emotional experiences these children have (Pollak, 2003; Pollak, Cicchetti, Hornung, & Reed, 2000). In particular, there is evidence that maltreatment experienced in early life exerts a negative influence on the development of emotion discrimination, recognition, and understanding, due to the atypical emotional experiences that accompany all types of maltreatment (e.g., Cicchetti & Toth, 2000; Pollak et al., 2000). Whereas typically developing children in nonmaltreating homes experience more positive compared to negative emotion (Malatesta & Haviland, 1982), parents in homes where maltreatment occurs express fewer positive and more negative emotions (e.g., Kavanaugh, Youngblade, Reid, & Fagot, 1988). There are also very high rates of verbally and physically
aggressive interactions between family members in such homes (e.g., Azar, 2002). In homes where there is child neglect, where there is omission of basic care of children and increased family stressors (e.g., Connell-Carrick & Scannapieco, 2006), there also are high levels of family conflict, negative affect, and domestic violence relative to comparison families (e.g., Connell-Carrick & Scannapieco, 2006; Gaudin, Polansky, Kilpatrick, & Shilton, 1996). From a developmental psychopathology perspective, the transactions between the developing child and the negative affective environment found in maltreating homes likely eventuate in the maladaptive outcomes frequently observed in maltreated children. One of the mechanisms that likely mediates the association between maltreatment and maladaptive developmental
1
Department of Psychology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, USA Institute of Child Development, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA 3 Mount Hope Family Center, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA 2
Corresponding Author: W. John Curtis, Department of Psychology, University of Kentucky, 207C Kastle Hall, Lexington, KY 40506, USA. Email: [email protected]
Downloaded from cmx.sagepub.com at COLUMBIA UNIV on September 27, 2014
Child Maltreatment 2013 Best Article Award Child Maltreat 2014 19: 130 DOI: 10.1177/1077559514540716 The online version of this article can be found at: http://cmx.sagepub.com/content/19/2/130.citation
Published by: http://www.sagepublications.com
On behalf of:
American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children
Additional services and information for Child Maltreatment can be found at: Email Alerts: http://cmx.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Subscriptions: http://cmx.sagepub.com/subscriptions Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav
>> Version of Record - Jun 27, 2014 What is This?
Downloaded from cmx.sagepub.com at COLUMBIA UNIV on September 27, 2014
Announcement
Child Maltreatment 2013 Best Article Award Congratulations to W. John Curtis and Dante Cicchetti. Their article ‘‘Affective Facial Expression Processing in 15-Month-Old Infants Who Have Experienced Maltreatment: An Event-Related Potential Study’’ was voted by the Child Maltreatment Associate Editors and Editorial Board as the best article in 2013. The article was published in August 2013. The authors received plaques and a check for $1,000. The first page is reprinted below.
Affective Facial Expression Processing in 15-Month-Old Infants Who Have Experienced Maltreatment: An Event-Related Potential Study
Child Maltreatment 18(3) 140-154 ª The Author(s) 2013 Reprints and permission: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1077559513487944 cmx.sagepub.com
W. John Curtis1 and Dante Cicchetti2,3
Abstract This study examined the neural correlates of facial affect processing in 15 month-old maltreated and nonmaltreated infants. Eventrelated potentials (ERPs) were elicited while infants passively viewed standardized pictures of female models posing angry, happy, and neutral facial expressions. Differences between maltreated (N ¼ 25) and nonmaltreated (N ¼ 20) infants were observed on three ERP components: P1, P260, and Nc. The results for the P260 waveform were consistent with previous ERP findings in older maltreated children, showing a hyperresponsivity to angry facial affect relative to happy in maltreated infants. However, the findings for the P1 and Nc indicated a hyperresponsivity to relative affective novelty, whereby the maltreated infants had greater amplitude in response to happy facial affect, whereas nonmaltreated infants had greater responsivity to angry faces. The results provided further support for the hypothesis that the experience of maltreatment and the predominantly negative emotional tone in maltreating families alters the functioning of neural systems associated with the processing of facial emotion. In particular, the findings suggested that at this early stage in the development of facial affect recognition, novelty of facial emotion is especially salient. These results exemplify the importance of early preventive interventions focused on emotion for children who have experienced maltreatment early in life. Keywords child maltreatment, event-related potentials, emotion, face processing The experience of maltreatment is associated with a broad range of deleterious biological and psychological outcomes across virtually all domains of development (Cicchetti & Toth, 2005; McCrory & Viding, 2010), and it is further associated with the development of a variety of psychopathological outcomes, including antisociality, depression, anxiety, dissociation, and posttraumatic stress disorder (Cicchetti & Valentino, 2006). Affective interchanges between caregiver and infant play a paramount role in the development of adaptive socioemotional functioning (e.g., Izard, 2009); thus, one of the likely contributors to the poor developmental outcomes in maltreated children is the atypical emotional experiences these children have (Pollak, 2003; Pollak, Cicchetti, Hornung, & Reed, 2000). In particular, there is evidence that maltreatment experienced in early life exerts a negative influence on the development of emotion discrimination, recognition, and understanding, due to the atypical emotional experiences that accompany all types of maltreatment (e.g., Cicchetti & Toth, 2000; Pollak et al., 2000). Whereas typically developing children in nonmaltreating homes experience more positive compared to negative emotion (Malatesta & Haviland, 1982), parents in homes where maltreatment occurs express fewer positive and more negative emotions (e.g., Kavanaugh, Youngblade, Reid, & Fagot, 1988). There are also very high rates of verbally and physically
aggressive interactions between family members in such homes (e.g., Azar, 2002). In homes where there is child neglect, where there is omission of basic care of children and increased family stressors (e.g., Connell-Carrick & Scannapieco, 2006), there also are high levels of family conflict, negative affect, and domestic violence relative to comparison families (e.g., Connell-Carrick & Scannapieco, 2006; Gaudin, Polansky, Kilpatrick, & Shilton, 1996). From a developmental psychopathology perspective, the transactions between the developing child and the negative affective environment found in maltreating homes likely eventuate in the maladaptive outcomes frequently observed in maltreated children. One of the mechanisms that likely mediates the association between maltreatment and maladaptive developmental
1
Department of Psychology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, USA Institute of Child Development, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA 3 Mount Hope Family Center, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA 2
Corresponding Author: W. John Curtis, Department of Psychology, University of Kentucky, 207C Kastle Hall, Lexington, KY 40506, USA. Email: [email protected]
Downloaded from cmx.sagepub.com at COLUMBIA UNIV on September 27, 2014
