An interventional study of Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up (ABC) and Developmental Education for Families (DEF) in Depressive Symptoms, Conduct Disorder and Anxiety Disorders, sponsored by University of Delaware. Completed at 1 site in United States. Open to participants aged 13 Years to 17 Years. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2026-05-05.
Sponsored by University of Delaware · Not applicable, Interventional, and Prevention
This study follows children into adolescence who were first randomized to intervention condition in infancy.
Parents serve as co-regulators for their young children, helping them regulate behaviors, emotions, and physiology and supporting the development of healthy brain circuitry. Neglecting parents often fail to serve as co-regulators, which has implications for young children's self-regulatory capabilities and brain development. As children become older, these difficulties with self-regulation may become more pronounced. Adolescence represents a period of particular vulnerability for the emergence of mental health problems because of increasing demands for regulation of emotions and behaviors, coupled with on-going development of neural circuits that support emotional and behavioral regulation. The Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up (ABC) intervention was designed to help parents learn to interact in responsive and sensitive ways, with the expectation that children would show enhanced ability to regulate behavior, emotions, and physiology. The efficacy of the ABC intervention among parents involved with Child Protective Services (CPS) was assessed. Parents were randomized to ABC or to a control intervention. Children were followed at T1 (ages 1-4) and T2 (ages 8-10). At T1, more of the children in the ABC group developed secure and organized attachments than children in the DEF group, and children in ABC showed more normative production of cortisol, less expression of negative emotions, and poorer inhibitory control than children in DEF. ABC parents were more sensitive and showed more optimal neural activity than DEF parents. At T2, ABC children showed greater prefrontal cortex activation in response to threat than DEF children, suggesting better regulation to threat at the level of brain activation. Also at T2, children in the ABC group reported more secure relationships with parents, and showed more normative cortisol production and more optimal autonomic nervous system functioning than DEF children. In adolescence, the ABC intervention is expected to result in enhanced brain circuitry and more optimal functioning across domains as assessed at multiple levels of analysis relative to the control intervention. In the proposed study, behavioral and neurobiological development among 13-, 14- and 15-year-old adolescents whose parents were referred by CPS to a randomized controlled trial in infancy (n=120), and among low-risk adolescents followed since middle childhood (n=80) will be assessed.
8,577 studies on the registry are indexed under Depression; 1,720 are open to participants now.
This study's enrollment of 128 is above the median of 81 across 7,063 interventional studies indexed under Depression.
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Exclusion Criteria:
10 sessions that focused on parental nurturance, and sensitivity
Behavioral: Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up (ABC)
10 sessions that focused on cognitive development
Behavioral: Developmental Education for Families (DEF)
Manualized intervention implemented in home with parent and child present focused on parental responsiveness
Manualized intervention implemented in home with parent and child present focused on parental enhancement of child learning
Brain activation in Stop Signal Task
Prefrontal cortex activation assessed through functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in task requiring inhibitory control
Time frame: Child age 13 years
Brain activation in Mother-Stranger Task
Functional connectivity assessed through fMRI when viewing photos of mothers vs. strangers
Time frame: Age 13 years
Brain activation in Mother-Stranger Task
Functional connectivity assessed through fMRI when viewing photos of mothers vs. strangers
Time frame: Age 15 years
Brain activation in Emotion Go/Nogo task
Functional connectivity between amygdala and PFC assessed through fMRI in an emotion go/no go task
Time frame: Age 13 years
Brain activation in Emotional Reappraisal Task
Functional connectivity between amygdala and PFC assessed through fMRI in emotional reappraisal task
Time frame: Age 14 years
Brain activation in Emotion Go/Nogo task
Functional connectivity between amygdala and PFC assessed through fMRI in an emotion go/no go task
Time frame: Age 15 years
Trier Social Stress Test- Cortisol
Participants will be met by two research assistants (one male, one female), whom they have not met previously. The research assistants will tell the participants that they will have 5 minutes to prepare a speech which they will give to the researchers who will rate the speech. Participants will then give their speeches for 5 minutes; the research assistants will maintain neutral expressions and provide no feedback. Afterwards, participants will be asked to do (age-adjusted) mental arithmetic aloud (Buske-Kirschbaum et al.,1997). For the purpose of assessing cortisol, investigators will collect saliva samples before and after the speech/math.
Time frame: Age 13 years
Trier Social Stress Test-ANS
Participants will be met by two research assistants (one male, one female), whom they have not met previously. The research assistants will tell the participants that they will have 5 minutes to prepare a speech which they will give to the researchers who will rate the speech. Participants will then give their speeches for 5 minutes; the research assistants will maintain neutral expressions and provide no feedback. Afterwards, participants will be asked to do (age-adjusted) mental arithmetic aloud (Buske-Kirschbaum et al.,1997).Assess child autonomic nervous system regulation, examine reactivity from baseline in RSA.
Time frame: Age 13 years
Revealed differences task - parent sensitivity.
Parents and children engage in conflict discussion. Assess parental sensitivity using Sensitivity scale. Parental behavior is scored on a 1-7 scale, with higher scores reflecting greater sensitivity.
Time frame: Age 13 years
Support task- parent sensitivity
Parents and children engage in support discussion (discussing Trier task from previous year). Assess parental sensitivity using Sensitivity scale. Parental behavior is scored on a 1-7 scale, with higher scores reflecting greater sensitivity.
Time frame: Age 14 years
Revealed differences task- parent sensitivity
Parents and children engage in conflict discussion. Assess parental sensitivity using Sensitivity scale. Parental behavior is scored on a 1-7 scale, with higher scores reflecting greater sensitivity.
Time frame: Age 15 years
Revealed differences task-adolescent competence
Parents and children engage in conflict discussion. Assess child competence in discussion on Competence scale. Competence is scored on a 1-7 scale, with higher scores reflecting greater competence.
Time frame: Age 13 years
Support task-adolescent competence
Parents and children engage in conflict discussion. Assess child competence in discussion on Competence scale. Competence is scored on a 1-7 scale, with higher scores reflecting greater competence.
Time frame: Age 14 years
Revealed differences task-adolescent competence
Parents and children engage in conflict discussion. Assess child competence in discussion on Competence scale. Competence is scored on a 1-7 scale, with higher scores reflecting greater competence.
Time frame: 15 years of age.
Revealed differences task-adolescent ANS
The control of cardiac functions via the vagal nerve, or vagal tone, is an index of parasympathetic activity. It can be measured by heart rate variability associated with respiration or high frequency respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA). RSA data will be collected continuously throughout the parent-child interaction using a MindWare Portable Lab system. Greater changes in RSA from baseline to discussion considered preferable. Parents and children engage in conflict discussion. Assess child autonomic nervous system regulation. Respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) will be measured as a rise from baseline.
Time frame: 13 years of age.
Support task-adolescent ANS
The control of cardiac functions via the vagal nerve, or vagal tone, is an index of parasympathetic activity. It can be measured by heart rate variability associated with respiration or high frequency respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA). RSA data will be collected continuously throughout the parent-child interaction using a MindWare Portable Lab system. Greater changes in RSA from baseline to discussion considered preferable.
Time frame: 14 years of age.
Revealed differences task-adolescent ANS
The control of cardiac functions via the vagal nerve, or vagal tone, is an index of parasympathetic activity. It can be measured by heart rate variability associated with respiration or high frequency respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA). RSA data will be collected continuously throughout the parent-child interaction using a MindWare Portable Lab system. Greater changes in RSA from baseline to discussion considered preferable.
Time frame: 15 years of age.
Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART)
This task assesses risk-taking through a computer game in which participants see a balloon on the computer screen and have the option of pumping up the balloon more, and therefore increasing its monetary value, or stopping and collecting the value of the balloon. If the balloon pops on a pump, then all of the value of the balloon is lost and the next trial begins. There is a randomly, pre-determined probability of the balloon popping on any given pump of each trial. A brief version of the task with 15 balloons will be used. A running tally of participants' total monetary gain is kept (and can range from $0 up to a cap of $5). The amount of money earned is the score, with more money reflecting higher risk taking.
Time frame: 13 years of age
Delay Discounting
Delay Discounting Task is a brief, five-item task on a computer that asks participants their preference between $5 now and $10 at some later time point (Koffarnus, Warren, \& Bickel, 2014). No money is actually earned on this task. A score from 0 to 5 is received with lower score indicating better delay (preferred).
Time frame: 13 years of age
Delay Discounting
Delay Discounting Task is a brief, five-item task on a computer that asks participants their preference between $5 now and $10 at some later time point (Koffarnus, Warren, \& Bickel, 2014). No money is actually earned on this task. A score from 0 to 5 is received with lower score indicating better delay (preferred).
Time frame: 15 years of age
Child Depression
Child Depression Inventory-Short Version (CDI-S): A 10-item measure that screens for depression (Kovacs, 2010). Scores can range from 0-24, with higher scores reflecting greater depression.
Time frame: 13 years of age
Child Depression
Child Depression Inventory-Short Version (CDI-S): A 10-item measure that screens for depression (Kovacs, 2010). Scores can range from 0-24, with higher scores reflecting greater depression.
Time frame: 14 years of age
Child Depression
Child Depression Inventory-Short Version (CDI-S): A 10-item measure that screens for depression (Kovacs, 2010). Scores can range from 0-24, with higher scores reflecting greater depression.
Time frame: 15 years of age
Child problem behaviors
Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL): Parents will complete the 113 items from the CBCL to assess adolescents' internalizing and externalizing symptoms (Achenbach et al., 2001). Raw scores range from 0-240. Higher scores reflect greater problems.
Time frame: 13 years of age
Child problem behaviors
Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL): Parents will complete the 113 items from the CBCL to assess adolescents' internalizing and externalizing symptoms (Achenbach et al., 2001). Raw scores range from 0-240. Higher scores reflect greater problems.
Time frame: 14 years of age
Child problem behaviors
Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL): Parents will complete the 113 items from the CBCL to assess adolescents' internalizing and externalizing symptoms (Achenbach et al., 2001). Raw scores range from 0-240. Higher scores reflect greater problems.
Time frame: 15 years of age
Adolescent substance use
Adolescents will complete the Youth Risk Behavior Survey. Higher scores reflect more substance use, with a possible range of 21-98.
Time frame: 13 years of age
Adolescent substance use
Adolescents will complete the Youth Risk Behavior Survey. Higher scores reflect more substance use, with a possible range of 21-98.
Time frame: 14 years of age
Adolescent substance use
Adolescents will complete the Youth Risk Behavior Survey. Higher scores reflect more substance use, with a possible range of 21-98.
Time frame: 15 years of age
Adolescent risky behaviors
Adolescents will complete the Youth Risk Behavior Survey. Higher scores reflect more risky problems, with a possible range of 8-28.
Time frame: 13 years of age
Adolescent risky behaviors
Adolescents will complete the Youth Risk Behavior Survey. Higher scores reflect more risky problems, with a possible range of 8-28.
Time frame: 14 years of age
Adolescent risky behaviors
Adolescents will complete the Youth Risk Behavior Survey. Higher scores reflect more risky problems, with a possible range of 8-28.
Time frame: 15 years of age
Mini-International Neuropsychiatric Interview for Children and Adolescents
Psychiatric interview. Higher scores reflect more psychiatric symptoms, with a range of 0-8.
Time frame: 13 years of age
Mini-International Neuropsychiatric Interview for Children and Adolescents
Psychiatric interview. Higher scores reflect more psychiatric symptoms, with a range of 0-8.
Time frame: 14 years of age
Emotional Regulation Questionnaire
Assesses how effectively adolescents regulate or control emotions. Higher scores reflect better regulation. Scores range from 10-50.
Time frame: 14 years of age
Plan to share: Yes — As described below, data will be made available to the scientific community for further analysis and novel research purposes after the primary results of the study have been published. De-identified research data will be shared in spreadsheet format for all clinical assessment, survey, and behavioral data. MRI data will be shared in NIFTI format. A description of the variables that are included in the dataset as well as a description of the data collection methods will also be provided. All data sharing will be done in consultation with our IRB. Results will be shared within one year of the completion of data collection of primary outcome measures.
Supporting information: Study protocol, Statistical analysis plan, Informed consent form
Time frame: 12 months following final data collection for at least 3 years.
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This study is completed, as verified in Sep 2023. You cannot join it, but the record below documents what was studied.
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