Emotion Dysregulation Assessment in Young Children According to Research Domain Criteria

Abstract

Particularly in childhood, comorbid diagnoses are the rule and not the exception (Costello, Mustillo, Erkanli, Keeler, & Angold, 2003), which has led to efforts to identify common underlying mechanisms that cut across disorders. We proposed to develop and test a behavioral assessment battery for preschool children that aligns with two NIMH Research Domain Criteria domains relevant to childhood psychopathology: 1) Positive Valence and 2) Negative Valence. We recruited participants 3-8 years old at varying risk for developing psychopathology, including children with and without familial risk for psychopathology, with and without subthreshold problem behaviors, and children with and without internalizing and externalizing disorders, with the aim of developing and validating an assessment tool. Validation included coding behaviors during mood induction tasks adapted to induce positive and negative valence and comparing behaviors to associated domains from multiple informants (parents, clinicians) and at different levels of analysis (parent-report, behaviors, physiology). Once standardized and validated, this battery could facilitate the identification of mechanisms of childhood-onset psychopathology critical to discovery of more effective interventions that target underlying dysfunctional processes.