Parental Age in Relation to Offspring's Neurodevelopment.

Objective: Advanced parenthood increases the risk of severe neurodevelopmental disorders like autism, Down syndrome and schizophrenia. Does advanced parenthood also negatively impact offspring's general neurodevelopment?Method: We analyzed child-, father-, mother- and teacher-rated attention-problems (N = 38,024), and standardized measures of intelligence (N = 10,273) and educational achievement (N = 17,522) of children from four Dutch population-based cohorts. The mean age over cohorts varied from 9.73-13.03. Most participants were of Dutch origin, ranging from 58.7%-96.7% over cohorts. We analyzed 50% of the data to generate hypotheses and the other 50% to evaluate support for these hypotheses. We aggregated the results over cohorts with Bayesian research synthesis.Results: We mostly found negative linear relations between parental age and attention-problems, meaning that offspring of younger parents tended to have more attention problems. Maternal age was positively and linearly related to offspring's IQ and educational achievement. Paternal age showed an attenuating positive relation with educational achievement and an inverted U-shape relation with IQ, with offspring of younger and older fathers at a disadvantage. Only the associations with maternal age remained after including SES. The inclusion of child gender in the model did not affect the relation between parental age and the study outcomes.Conclusions: Effects were small but significant, with better outcomes for children born to older parents. Older parents tended to be of higher SES. Indeed, the positive relation between parental age and offspring neurodevelopmental outcomes was partly confounded by SES.

Robust longitudinal multi-cohort results: The development of self-control during adolescence.

Longitudinal data from multiple cohorts may be analyzed by Bayesian research synthesis. Here, we illustrate this approach by investigating the development of self-control between age 13 and 19 and the role of sex therein in a multi-cohort, longitudinal design. Three Dutch cohorts supplied data: the Netherlands Twin Register (NTR; N = 21,079), Research on Adolescent Development and Relationships-Young (RADAR-Y; N = 497), and Tracking Adolescents' Individual Lives Survey (TRAILS; N = 2229). Self-control was assessed by one measure in NTR and RADAR-Y, and three measures in TRAILS. In each cohort, we evaluated evidence for competing informative hypotheses regarding the development of self-control. Subsequently, we aggregated this evidence over cohorts and measures to arrive at a robust conclusion that was supported by all cohorts and measures. We found robust evidence for the hypothesis that on average self-control increases during adolescence (i.e., maturation) and that individuals with lower initial self-control often experience a steeper increase in self-control (i.e., a pattern of recovery). From self-report, boys have higher initial self-control levels at age 13 than girls, whereas parents report higher self-control for girls.

A preliminary study of the diagnostic accuracy of the Gerontological Personality disorders Scale (GPS).

BACKGROUND: There is still a lack of diagnostic instruments that are specifically developed to diagnose personality disorders in the elderly. OBJECTIVE: To develop a reliable and valid screening instrument to assess personality disorders in older adults. METHOD: The draft version of the screening instrument (52 items) consists of two sections: one for patients and one for informants. The diagnostic accuracy of the instrument has been assessed in the Netherlands in 159 elderly patients in an ambulatory department of geriatric psychiatry and 96 informants. RESULTS: In the patient section, sixteen items had a reasonable score for both sensitivity and specificity (approximately 70%). The internal consistency was moderate for habitual behavior (HAB; 7 items) and good for biographical information (BIO; 9 items). The test and retest reliability was moderate for HAB and excellent for BIO. The informant section, on the other hand, had a low score for sensitivity (45%) and a good score for specificity (78%). CONCLUSION: A specific instrument has been developed to diagnose personality disorders in older adults. However, further research is necessary to improve the diagnostic accuracy of the Gerontological Personality disorders Scale (GPS).