title: Does maternal depression predict young children's executive function? - a 4-year longitudinal study.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Building on reports that parental maltreatment and neglect adversely affect young children's executive function (EF), this longitudinal study examined whether exposure to a more common risk factor, mothers' depressive symptoms, predicted individual differences in EF at school-age.
  
  
  METHODS
  We followed up at age 6 a socially diverse sample of 126 children (78 boys, 48 girls) for whom direct observations of mother-child interactions have been shown to predict gains in EF between the ages of 2 and 4. We used an EF latent factor based on scores from three tasks (Beads, Day/Night, Tower of London) that tapped working memory, inhibitory control and planning, as well as a latent growth model of mothers' Beck Depression Inventory factor scores at four time-points, and included age 6 verbal ability as a covariate in all analyses.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The intercept and slope for mothers' depressive symptoms each predicted unique variance in EF at age 6; these predictive effects remained significant when we also included: (a) age 2 working memory, (b) maternal education and (c) direct observations of maternal positive control at ages 2 and 6.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our findings suggest that early exposure to mothers' depressive symptoms adversely affects children's developing EF, and that the chronicity of this exposure may matter.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Family Research, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK. ch288@cam.ac.uk
authors.forename: Claire
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Hughes
authors.forename: Gabriela
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Roman
authors.forename: Martha J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Hart
authors.forename: Rosie
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Ensor
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D016241:Child of Impaired Parents / Q000523:psychology; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003863:Depression / Q000523:psychology*; D056344:Executive Function; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D009035:Mothers / Q000523:psychology*; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales