Behavioural, cognitive and emotional dysregulation related to parent borderline personality disorder (BPD) may have a major impact on parent-infant interactions. We investigated the ways in which infant social withdrawal and mother sensitivity may be associated to a BPD diagnosis in mothers. Two groups of clinic-referred mother-infant dyads were…

Research has identified antecedents to flourishing--high levels of social, emotional, and psychological health--in adolescence and adulthood but few studies have attended to flourishing in childhood. Moreover, although there has been great interest in how environmental effects on mental illness vary by temperament, little attention has been…

Psychosocial intervention programs are carried out in Latin American communities with socioeconomic disadvantage to improve their quality of life; few evaluations are carried out to measure their effectiveness. The study aimed to determine if intervention processes in vulnerable communities might favor the children's development. An analysis of…

Infant mental health is strongly connected to an infant's relationship with a responsive, warm, and available caregiver. However, maternal mental illness reduces a mother's ability to detect and respond to changes in her infant's expressions and communication, which may have important consequences for infant attachment and emotion regulation. The…

Due to the high rates of preterm births, it is essential to examine the developmental risk factors and monitor development. The aim of our cross-sectional study is to examine the cognitive, language and motor development of LBW (<2500 g) children (N = 438) regarding sociodemographic risk factors. We measured the 2-year development with the…

The present study aimed to investigate Orphan and Vulnerable Children (OVC) care needs and determine the related driving forces and challenges. The current study adhered to a qualitative emergent design to obtain insight into the attitudes of all individuals engaged in providing care services for OVC. In addition, the challenges and driving forces…

In hypothetical playmate preference tasks, obese figures are rarely picked up as friends. This study aims to observe what happens in real life and examine the relationship between body-size and social status in children. Four-hundred and fourteen children aged 5, 7 and 9 years were given a sociometric test. The Body Mass Index (BMI) of each child…

Early attachment has both protective and risk factors as regards later mental health. In Finland, insecure-avoidant-type attachment is overrepresented. Does this indicate a risk for emotional and behavioural problems at preschool age? In this study, we examined and compared the association between attachment and mental health in Finnish singletons…

Prevention and intervention programmes for children at risk aim to improve child well-being and resilience. They do so using both direct and indirect strategies, intervening with children but also considering broader contextual factors (such as family dynamics). Children's subjective well-being comprises five main components (physical health,…

Early intervention and early care providers reported frequently encountering families with multiple economic, social and mental health challenges. Providers endorsed needs for mentoring and training to understand specific problems, to gain knowledge of community resources, to be able to talk with families about challenges and to recognize and…

Initial progress has been made in the conceptualization and study of attachment stability over time, and substantial evidence has accumulated on the association between attachment classification and biopsychosocial functioning (including social-emotional competence, cognition, physical health and mental health). The literature supports the…