Cross-sectional and longitudinal associations of threat and deprivation on cognition, emotional processing and psychopathology in children and adolescents

BackgroundExposure to childhood adversity has been consistently associated with poor developmental outcomes, but it is unclear whether these associations vary across different forms of adversity. We examined cross-sectional and longitudinal associations between two types of adversity--threat and deprivation--with cognition, emotional processing, and psychopathology in a middle-income country. MethodsThe sample consisted of 2,511 children and adolescents (6-17 years old) from the Brazilian High-Risk Cohort for Psychiatric Disorders. Parent reports on childhood adversity were used to construct threat and deprivation latent constructs. Psychopathology was measured by the CBCL which generated a measure of general psychopathology (the "p" factor). Executive function (EF) and attention orienting toward angry faces were assessed using cognitive tasks. All measures were acquired at two time-points 3-years apart. Cross-lagged panel models were estimated to evaluate longitudinal associations. ResultsPsychopathology was associated with threat and deprivation cross-sectionally, and higher levels of threat and deprivation predicted increases in general psychopathology at follow-up. For EF, worse performance was more strongly associated with deprivation than threat at baseline, and only with deprivation at follow-up. Deprivation was associated with attention orienting away from angry faces cross-sectionally, but neither form of adversity was associated with changes over time in attention bias. ConclusionBoth types of adversity are associated with current and future psychopathology and with current, but not future, EF. Threat was more strongly linked to higher psychopathology, whereas deprivation was more strongly linked to lower EF. Lack of longitudinal associations between deprivation and EF mean reverse causality cannot be excluded.