Child labour can stand in the way of linguistic development and mental health of Indian youth. "We looked at the linguistic development and mental health of children from different social classes... Show moreChild labour can stand in the way of linguistic development and mental health of Indian youth. "We looked at the linguistic development and mental health of children from different social classes in the context of child labour, sleep and academic activities. We saw that children with lower socioeconomic status devote more time to work and sleep and less time to academic tasks than their peers with a higher status," "What we found is that child labor provides a strong explanation for both poorer language development and mental health in lower SES-children. We discovered that the relationship between the linguistic results and academic time is stronger in children with lower socioeconomic status, suggesting that especially these children would benefit if they could invest more time in school and less in other work." This research is the only time-use study conducted in the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is also the only Indian study that uses the time spending methodology with youth represented from a very diverse range of socio-economic classes, including minimally literate school-going youth. Until now we knew little about this, because this group is difficult to reach. Show less
In comparison to hearing children, children with hearing loss more often experience social-emotional problems. This thesis aimed to assess whether this was also true for 1-to-5-year-old children... Show moreIn comparison to hearing children, children with hearing loss more often experience social-emotional problems. This thesis aimed to assess whether this was also true for 1-to-5-year-old children who had received a cochlear implant (CI) to remediate their hearing loss. In comparison to hearing peers, children with CI were found to be delayed on some but not all aspects of social-emotional functioning. No delays were found regarding social behavior or empathy. However, children with CI did show delays on theory of mind understanding and on the development of moral emotions. Against expectations, language skills did not have a major influence on children's social-emotional development. Parents in both groups had adopted similar parenting styles. Positive parenting was associated with better social-emotional functioning in children, whereas negative or uninvolved parenting were associated with lower social-emotional functioning. Based on this thesis we can conclude that a CI is beneficial for the social-emotional development of children with a hearing loss. However, these children are still at risk of developing delays in some areas of social-emotional functioning. Furthermore, we should not assume that children with CI who have a strong language development will also show a healthy social-emotional development. Show less
Children with hearing loss are at risk for developing psychopathology, which has detrimental consequences for academic and psychosocial functioning. Therefore, the aims of this thesis were to... Show moreChildren with hearing loss are at risk for developing psychopathology, which has detrimental consequences for academic and psychosocial functioning. Therefore, the aims of this thesis were to objectify levels of psychopathology in hearing-impaired children, and to investigate the influence of various risk and protective factors on psychopathology. The first result of this large multi-center study was that children with hearing loss were more prone to developing psychopathology than their normally hearing counterparts. The second outcome entailed that cochlear implants recipients equaled to or outperformed children with hearing aids involving their levels of psychopathology. Moreover, for several psychopathological symptoms, children that received cochlear implants were comparable to normally hearing children, which is a very positive outcome for the cochlear implant children. Thirdly, several factors that impacted levels of psychopathology were identified. For example, children at mainstream schools using well-developed spoken language, have low risks for developing psychopathology. On the basis of this thesis, it was concluded that it is not the severity of hearing loss that contributes to the genesis of psychopathology, but many other factors. This necessitates clinicians to always consider the heterogeneity of the HI population, in order to improve personalized screening and treatment trajectories. Show less
Psychological, neurobiological and genetics characteristics of Holocaust child survivors and their daughters were studied in population-wide demographic sample in comparison to matched control... Show morePsychological, neurobiological and genetics characteristics of Holocaust child survivors and their daughters were studied in population-wide demographic sample in comparison to matched control groups. Sixty years following the occurrence of the trauma, survivors still report more dissociative symptoms in everyday life, less satisfaction with their lives, and they also perceive their life events as more stressful compared to control group. Moreover, these survivors show more cognitive impairment than their comparisons. Nonetheless, adult offspring of survivors were not different from their comparisons. Survivors also showed elevated levels of daily cortisol secretion than did their comparisons, whereas cortisol level was the same in adult offspring of survivors and their counterparts. But, offspring of survivors with more dissociative symptoms showed lower levels of cortisol production over the day than did offspring of survivors with less dissociation. When exposed to stress, Holocaust survivors displayed elevated levels of cortisol secretion immediately before the onset of the stress, followed by a strong decline of cortisol levels. Nonetheless, comparison participants without Holocaust background showed the expected increase of cortisol levels in response to induced stress. Adult offspring of Holocaust survivors did not display different cortisol reactivity in response to stress than that of their counterparts. Finally, results showed that Holocaust survivors with the wildtype ADRA2B displayed higher cortisol levels than did their comparisons with the same genotype. No difference was found between these groups among carriers of the deletion variant. In sum, although survivors themselves suffer from post traumatic symptomatology, and their offspring may show neurobiological markers of secondary traumatization if their parents still show more dissociative symptomatology, (adult) children of Holocaust survivors show no psychological issues caused by their parents' trauma. Show less
