A Big Thank You...

Congratulations!!!

Lisabeth DiLal la , Ph.D. Family and Community Medicine Southern Il l inois Univers ity , Carbondale, IL 62901

(618) 453 -5206 Emai l: s i tss . s iu@gmai l .com Websi te: www.s iumed.edu/playlab

Play Study Newsletter Summer 2018

Congratulations to Bree Wennberg, Tanya Rajayah, and Logan Waight, three of our undergraduate research assistants who graduated from SIU in May! Also, congrats to our Lab Coordinator,

Matt Jamnik, who completed his Master ’s thesis project and earned his M.A.! Way to go, everyone!

Congrats to Megan McCrary, our former lab coordinator, who received the Sigma Xi Rose & Essie Padgett Award in April for her dissertation work examining ambivalent social situations in twins! Keep it up, Megan!

A big congratulations to Gabe Casher and Megan McCrary, two of our graduate students, who successfully matched for internship! Gabe will spend the next year interning at the Denver Health Medical Center and Megan

will be in the Psychiatry Department at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Gabe and Megan were both integral parts of our lab, and both will be missed very much!

Last, but not least, congratulations to Dr. DiLalla on being awarded the SIU School of Medicine 2018 Outstanding Educator Award! The support and guidance that Dr. DiLalla gives to each one of her students is truly remarkable and, without her, our jobs as students would be much more exhausting! Thank you for being so inspiring, Dr. D!

If you are on Facebook, please “like” our page and feel free to invite others that you may know with multiples ages 1-5!

http://www.facebook.com/SITSS.SIU

Ongoing Follow-Up Studies!!

We have an ongoing study for SITSS twins, ages 7 to 13. If your twins were tested at age 5, please call the lab (or email us) to schedule your appointment! We will be continuing testing through the end of July. If

you’ve already come into the lab, thank you so very much for your time and help!

In addition, we are still excited to ask our 5-year-old twins to return a second time for a short visit to play some of the lab games again. Thanks so much to all families that have already done this!

We would like to extend a big thank-you to all families who have participated and continue to participate in the Southern Illinois Twins/Triplets and Siblings Study (SITSS)! None of this would be possible without

your participation!

New Additions!

We would like to send a big welcome to our newest undergraduate research assistant, Kelly McKiness, who has joined us and will be working in the lab this summer!

Facebook Page!

Presented to the Midwestern Psychological Association (MPA) Annual Meeting, April 2018, Chicago, IL

Graduate Projects Interactions between Birth Complications and Genetic Risk in the Development of ADHD Symptoms in Preschoolers Gabe Casher, M.A., Matthew Jamnik, B.A., Emma Diaz, M.A., Megan McCrary, M.A., and Lisabeth F. DiLalla, Ph.D. This study evaluated risk factors for ADHD symptoms (e.g., hyperactivity, inattention) in 5-year-old children. We found that some birth complications were associated with ADHD symptoms. We also found that children with a co-twin with more ADHD symptoms had more ADHD symptoms themselves. This study suggests that a combination of birth complications and genetic factors may place children at higher risk for ADHD. Risk Factors of School-Age Rule-Breaking Emma Diaz, M.A., Megan McCrary, M.A., Gabe Casher, M.A., & Lisabeth F. DiLalla, PhD. This study explored the stability of rule-breaking in early childhood using a twin sample. Parent reports of temperament at age 4 and rule-breaking at ages 5 and school-age (6-16 years old) were used. Observer-reported noncompliance was used at age 5 using a 10-minute parent-child interaction task that was video rec-orded and later coded. This study found that rule-breaking is partly heritable and may become more im-portant throughout development. Results also indicated that children may benefit from early intervention to reduce later rule-breaking behaviors. Investigating Genetic and Family Environmental Influences on Preschoolers’ Internalizing Problems Matthew Jamnik, B.A. & Lisabeth F. DiLalla, PhD. This study assessed the degree to which genotype, home environment, and their interaction affect internalizing problem behaviors (anxiety, depression, somatic [bodily] symptoms) at age 5. Preschool-ers’ internalizing problems significantly related to the family environment, but not parent personality or child genotype, suggesting that household environmental factors may be related to increased internalizing behaviors. This is informative for intervention strategies targeting young children at risk for these behaviors.

Undergraduate Project The Associations between Parent and Child Positive and Negative Affect Itzel Mendoza, Alex Perry, Kristi Wallin, Breanna Wennberg, Matthew Jamnik, B.A., & Em-ma Diaz, M.A. Advisor: Lisabeth F. DiLalla, PhD. The relationship between observed parental and child affect was examined in this study. This project extended previous research by examining both positive and negative affect in laboratory parent-child interactions, which may predict similar behaviors in other settings.

Results demonstrated that parent and child negativity are related, and positive children may show resilience to parental negativity. Since parental positivity and child negativity do not appear to be related, the creation of a positive parenting environment may be an effective method to reduce child negativity.

New Presentations and Research

A Multimethodological Study of Preschoolers’ Preferences for Aggressive Television and Video Games By Matthew R. Jamnik, B.A., & Lisabeth F. DiLalla, Ph.D. Journal of Genetic Psychology, 2018, Volume 179(3). The association between aggressive media and related behavior is complicated, and the role of underlying genetics has not been adequately explored, especially in young children. Using a twin/triplets sample, we investigated the association between preschoolers’ preferred media choices and their aggressive behaviors. Our findings demonstrated that the association between media preferences and aggressive behavior is genet-ic in origin. This emphasizes the importance of considering shared genes as well as home environment un-derlying the relationship between children’s aggressive behaviors and their media preferences. Lab Versus Parent Ratings of Temperament: A Brief Examination of Potential Uses for Professionals Across Settings By Megan K. McCrary, M.A., & Lisabeth F. DiLalla, Ph.D. Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment, 2018. This study investigated the Infant Behavior Record (IBR) as an observer-rated measure of temperament. The aim was to determine whether the IBR and a parent-rated measure of temperament were comparably associ-ated with children’s performance on laboratory tasks and with the home environment. We found several sig-nificant associations between the IBR and laboratory performance and no significant associations between parent ratings and laboratory performance. Conversely, there were several significant associations between parent-rated temperament and the home environment and no significant associations between the IBR and the home environment. These findings indicate that the IBR may be useful as an observer-rated measure of temperament that can be used by teachers, clinicians, and other professionals working with children.

Presented to the SIUC Sigma Xi Research Forum, April 2018, Carbondale, IL Examining the Relationship Between Altruistic Behavior and Children's Preferences in Aggressive Media Shay Wood, Matthew Jamnik, B.A., & Lisabeth F. DiLalla, Ph.D. The role of media in the lives of children has become increasingly crucial to examine, and important gaps exist as to distinctions between types of aggression, as well as the separate impacts of television and video games. We hypothesized that children who prefer aggressive media would show less altruistic behavior. Analyses revealed that children who preferred relationally (socially) aggressive television or movies scored significantly lower on altruism; this was not true for physically aggressive media. Thus, socially aggressive television may have ramifications for children’s social behaviors, but it is also true that children who are less interested in helping others may be more likely to choose to watch socially aggressive tv.

New Publications

Matt Jamnik completed his Master’s thesis in March, 2018. His study explored genetic and environmental influences on preschoolers’ somatic symptoms and internalizing problems. He found preschoolers’ somatic symptoms were predicted by a significant gene-environment interaction between children’s dopamine geno-type and household chaos. That is, elevated chaos in the household was predictive of increased somatization; however, this was only seen for children with the at-risk dopamine genotype (DRD4-7R). This finding sug-gests that the effect of environmental influences on internalizing problems in early childhood may be de-pendent on dopamine genotype. Additionally, his project demonstrated that 5-year-old somatic symptoms and internalizing problems were both significantly heritable. These results suggest that preschoolers’ somat-icizing and internalizing may be attributed to genetic differences, in addition to environmental influences.

Completed Thesis

New Presentations Continued..

Meet the Play Lab! (left to right): Lulu Abou-Jabal, Gabe

Casher, Megan McCrary, Emma

Diaz, Tanya Rajayah, Itzy Mendoza, Dr.

DiLalla, Kristi Wallin, Dalton

Francis, Alex Perry, Bree Wennberg, Erin

Boester, Logan Waight, Tristen Ayres, & Matt

Jamnik

Front row: *Kitty Rug*

Kids Corner -

Tips for Parents on The Transition to Preschool (Taken from http://www.twinsandmultiples.org/)

Children’s skills such as knowing their name, their age, basic colors, drawing and counting skills, holding a crayon, etc. are not specific to multiples. However it may be important to assess these skills relative to their prematurity. Some twins are so close that they seem like a couple or unit and may even respond to both names inter-changeably. Physical separation is not neces-sarily linked to the development of individuality. At school, if your twins are MZ (identical), it might help to give them name tags, or in some way color-code them, or have some other way in which teachers and care givers can distinguish between them.

Help multiples develop as individuals by: Helping them to develop their own friends and inter-

ests Arranging for them to have time away from their twin

with separate outings and experiences Making individual eye-contact with each child Rewarding them for their individual achievements Comparing their development with the peer group and

not with each other Presenting the children as individuals rather than as a

unit Addressing the children individually rather than as a

group Talking about the good things about being multiples

and celebrating joint achievements.

*Celebrating the 25th anniversary (hooray!) of Dr. DiLalla’s Twin Play Lab with a new kitty rug gifted to the lab from the 2017-2018 Research Assistants!!*