Judy Garber

Social information processing patterns of children who were identified as being aggressive or depressed, both, or neither were compared in order to address the issue of specificity and to explore whether children who are comorbid show a unique processing style. Subjects were 220 children in the third through sixth grade. Peer nomination and teacher ratings were used to assess level of aggression, and the Children's Depression Inventory was used to measure level of depression. Aggressive children showed a hostile attributional bias, were more likely to report that they would engage in aggressive behavior, and indicated that aggression would be easy for them. Depressed children similarly showed a hostile attributional bias, although they were more likely to attribute negative situations to internal, stable, and global causes. Depressed children also reported that they would be less likely to use assertive responses and that they expected that assertive behavior would lead to more negative and fewer positive outcomes. Children who were comorbid generally showed patterns similar to both aggressive and depressed children.

The current longitudinal study examined which individual symptoms of depression uniquely predicted a subsequent Major Depressive Episode (MDE) in adolescents, and whether these relations differed by sex. Adolescents (N = 240) were first interviewed in grade 6 (M = 11.86 years old; SD = 0.56; 54 % female; 81.5 % Caucasian) and then annually through grade 12 regarding their individual symptoms of depression as well as the occurrence of MDEs. Individual symptoms of depression were assessed with the Children's Depression Rating Scale-Revised (CDRS-R) and depressive episodes were assessed with the Longitudinal Interval Follow-up Evaluation (LIFE). Results showed that within-person changes in sleep problems and low self-esteem/excessive guilt positively predicted an increased likelihood of an MDE for both boys and girls. Significant sex differences also were found. Within-person changes in anhedonia predicted an increased likelihood of a subsequent MDE among boys, whereas irritability...

Symptoms of anxiety and depression are prevalent among adolescents and associated with impairment in multiple domains of functioning. Moreover, anxiety and depression frequently co-occur, with estimated comorbidity rates as high as 75%. Whereas previous research has shown that anxiety symptoms predict increased depressive symptoms over time, the relation between depressive symptoms and later anxiety symptoms has been inconsistent. The present study examined dynamic relations between anxiety and depressive symptoms across adolescence and explored whether these longitudinal relations were moderated by maternal history of anxiety, family relationship quality, or children's attributional style. Participants included 240 children (M age = 11.86 years; 53.9% female) and their mothers, who were assessed annually for 6 years. Children reported on their depressive symptoms and mothers reported on their child's anxiety symptoms. Dynamic latent change score models indicated that anxiety symptoms predicted subsequent elevations in depressive symptoms over time. Depressive symptoms predicted subsequent elevations in anxiety symptoms among children who had mothers with a history of anxiety, reported low family relationship quality, or had high levels of negative attributions. Thus, whereas anxiety symptoms were a robust predictor of later depressive symptoms during adolescence, contextual and individual factors may be important to consider when examining relations between depressive symptoms and subsequent change in anxiety symptoms.