School of Psychology, Cardiff University , Cardiff, UK.
Centre for the Development and Evaluation of Complex Interventions for Public Health Improvement (DECIPHer), School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University, Cardiff , UK.
Child Neuropsychol. 2021 Jan;27(1):17-36. doi: 10.1080/09297049.2020.1776241. Epub 2020 Jun 16.
Adoptees' mental health problems in childhood and later life are well described, but little attention has been paid to domestically adopted children's emotional and behavioral problems and neurocognitive profiles. The aim of this study was to describe the neurocognitive profiles of domestically adopted children in the UK and their parent- and teacher-rated emotional and behavioral problems. Forty-five children ( age = 75.96 months, = 12.98; 51.1% female) who were placed for adoption from public care at a age of 22.14 months ( = 14.21) completed a battery of age standardized neurocognitive tests, and adoptive parents and school teachers rated their emotional and behavioral problems. Children had more emotional and behavioral problems than the general population and over a fifth scored low (> 1 below the expected range for their age) in 5/6 neurocognitive tasks. Children who scored low on the non-verbal reasoning task were more likely to have more parent- and teacher-rated behavioral problems, and children's performance on the inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility tasks were associated with parent-rated behavioral problems. Children's verbal reasoning scores were positively associated with both parent- and teacher-rated emotional problems. Children who were adopted later in childhood scored significantly lower in non-verbal reasoning. Although longitudinal studies are needed to clarify the nature of neurocognitive functioning as a marker for later mental health problems, our findings underscore the importance of using comprehensive assessments to better recognize adopted children's difficulties and inform appropriate intervention initiatives.
被收养者在儿童期和以后的生活中的心理健康问题已经得到了充分的描述，但很少有人关注国内收养儿童的情绪和行为问题以及神经认知特征。本研究的目的是描述英国国内收养儿童的神经认知特征及其父母和教师评定的情绪和行为问题。45 名儿童（年龄=75.96 个月，均龄=12.98；51.1%为女性）于 22.14 月龄（均龄=14.21）时从公共照顾中被安置收养，他们完成了一系列年龄标准化的神经认知测试，收养父母和学校教师对他们的情绪和行为问题进行了评定。与普通人群相比，这些儿童的情绪和行为问题更多，超过五分之一的儿童在 5/6 项神经认知任务中的得分低于（比其年龄预期范围低 1 分以上）。在非言语推理任务中得分较低的儿童更有可能出现父母和教师评定的更多行为问题，而儿童在抑制控制和认知灵活性任务中的表现与父母评定的行为问题有关。儿童的言语推理得分与父母和教师评定的情绪问题均呈正相关。在儿童期后期被收养的儿童在非言语推理方面的得分明显较低。尽管需要进行纵向研究来阐明神经认知功能作为以后心理健康问题的标志物的性质，但我们的研究结果强调了使用综合评估来更好地识别收养儿童的困难并为适当的干预措施提供信息的重要性。
