'Mind the Kids': an ACAMH podcast

Can the cycle of violence that passes from one generation to the next be broken?
This episode of the Mind the Kids podcast features Dr. Laura Gorla, a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Child and Family Policy at Duke University. Originally from Italy and now based in the United States, Dr. Gorla's research focuses on parenting, parent-child relationships, and child and adolescent mental health from early childhood through late adolescence.
Hosted by Mark Tebbs, the conversation explores a landmark three-generation study built on data from the Fast Track intervention, conducted with colleagues Dr. Rotenberg, Dr. Godwin, and the Conduct Problems Prevention Research Group, alongside Fast Track principal investigators Dr. Jennifer Lansford and Dr. Kenneth Dodge.
The discussion centres on early emerging conduct problems — persistent patterns of aggressive and disobedient behaviour that place children at higher risk of anti-social behaviour, criminal involvement, and mental health difficulties later in life. Dr. Gorla explains the theory of intergenerational transmission of violence, describing how cycles of harm can pass from one generation to the next, and outlines how this study uniquely tracked three generations — grandparents, parents, and children — using prospective rather than retrospective data, a rare advance in this field of research.
Drawing on Fast Track, one of the most influential randomised controlled trials in developmental psychology, Dr. Gorla shares the study's central finding: intimate partner violence in the first generation predicted parent-child violence in the second generation, which in turn led to poorer mental health in the third generation — but only within the control group. Crucially, this negative chain was disrupted among families who received the Fast Track intervention, offering compelling evidence that early, multi-component prevention can break cycles of violence across generations.
This conversation is essential listening for clinicians, researchers, educators, and policymakers interested in child and adolescent mental health, early intervention, and violence prevention. It offers both rigorous longitudinal evidence and a genuinely hopeful message: outcomes for children are not predetermined by family history, and investment in early intervention protects not just today's children, but generations to come.
Read the JCPP paper 'The randomized controlled trial Fast Track multilevel intervention for children with early-emerging conduct problems breaks intergenerational transmission of violence across three generations'
Laura Gorla, W. Andrew Rothenberg, Jennifer Godwin, Conduct Problems Prevention Research Group
First published: 11 February 2026
https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.70133
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Dr. Jane Gilmour returns with Inside the Teen Brain. In this episode Jane talks to Dr. Victoria Pile about depression.
This talk explores the presentation, recognition, and psychological intervention for depression in adolescence, a developmental period marked by heightened vulnerability and significant opportunity for intervention. Depression commonly emerges during adolescence and is associated with substantial long-term consequences, including social and academic impairment. 
Despite its prevalence and impact, the majority of young people with depression do not receive timely or effective support. The talk highlights how adolescent depression is often under-recognised, perhaps due to its overlap with developmental changes and its heterogeneous clinical presentation. 
Recent work that highlights central symptoms of depression is discussed. Current treatment approaches are described and evidence explored that suggests many established interventions show only modest efficacy, and a substantial proportion of young people do not respond. In response, emerging approaches are discussed that aim to improve both access and effectiveness. These include school-based delivery models and the co-development of treatments with young people. 
Finally, the talk considers a shift toward targeting specific symptoms and psychological mechanisms, such as self-compassion, sleep, and emotional mental imagery. Novel interventions are presented as promising avenues for improving outcomes. Overall, the talk suggests a more developmentally informed, accessible, and mechanism-focused approach to addressing adolescent depression.
Learning Objectives

To understand the presentation and challenges of recognising adolescent depression.

To appreciate the effectiveness and limitations of current psychological interventions for adolescent depression

To explore emerging, developmentally informed approaches to intervention

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Have you ever wondered how a child's ability to manage their emotions and impulses might shape their later mental health? And, what if one of the most important predictors isn't about how clever they are, but how well regulated they are on the inside?
This episode of the Mind the Kids podcast features Lilja Jónsdóttir, a PhD student at the Department of Psychology at Uppsala University, Sweden, who will shortly take up a postdoctoral research position in child and adolescent psychiatry at Uppsala's Department of Medical Sciences.
Hosted by Mark Tebbs, the conversation explores her paper, Examining Early Inhibitory Control and Emotional Regulation as Predictors of Childhood Internalizing and Externalizing Problems: A Longitudinal Study, co-authored with her supervisor Professor Karen Brocki, co-supervisors Dr. Matilda Frick and Dr. Andreas Frick of Stockholm University, and fellow PhD researcher Emma Heemann.
The discussion unpacks the hierarchical development of self-regulation, examining how simpler skills such as inhibitory control — the ability to override an automatic impulse, illustrated through the classic marshmallow test — feed into more complex abilities like emotion regulation. Drawing on data from the long-running Effect Project, a longitudinal study following 94 typically developing children in Uppsala from infancy, Lilja explains how inhibitory control was measured at age four using the day-night Stroop task, emotion regulation was assessed at age six via validated parent-report measures, and internalizing and externalizing problems were captured at nine to ten years using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire.
Contrary to prior research and theoretical expectations, the study found no link between early inhibitory control and later emotion regulation or behavioural outcomes. Instead, emotion regulation at age six emerged as a robust, transdiagnostic predictor of both internalizing problems (such as worry and withdrawal) and externalizing problems (such as impulsivity and defiance) three to four years later — a finding that held even within a relatively advantaged community sample, strengthening the case for universal, early support.
This conversation is essential listening for clinicians, educators, and parents interested in child development, self-regulation, and early intervention. Lilja discusses the importance of co-regulation between caregivers and children, promising directions for emotion-regulation-focused support, and why publishing null results — such as the absence of an inhibitory control effect here — matters for advancing the field.
Read the JCPP Advances paper 'Examining early inhibitory control and emotion regulation as predictors of childhood internalizing and externalizing problems: A longitudinal study'
Lilja K. Jónsdóttir, Matilda A. Frick, Andreas Frick, Emma J. Heeman, Karin C. Brocki
First published: 07 January 2026
https://doi.org/10.1002/jcv2.70093
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In this episode of Mind the Kids, the podcast from the Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health (ACAMH), host Mark Tebbs is joined by Dr. Elaine Clark, postdoctoral researcher at the Lifespan Autism Lab, Rutgers University.
Dr. Clark shares findings from her recently published paper in JCPP Advances, ACAMH's open-access research journal, co-authored with Dr. Vanessa Ball and Dr. Katherine Lord. Drawing on the Longitudinal Study of Autism (LSA) — tracking autistic individuals from ages 2–3 through to their mid-twenties — the study examines how daily living skills develop across the lifespan in autistic individuals, both with and without a co-occurring intellectual disability.
Daily living skills — the practical abilities that underpin independent adult life — are broken down into three domains: personal skills (hygiene, dressing, grooming), domestic skills (cooking, household chores), and community skills (managing money, navigating public spaces, vocational readiness). These are the skills that shape autism outcomes across education, employment, and quality of life, yet they have been chronically under-researched, particularly for autistic individuals with co-occurring intellectual disability.
The headline finding is striking: approximately 80% of autistic individuals with co-occurring intellectual disability demonstrated daily living skills equal to or stronger than their measured cognitive ability — directly challenging the widespread assumption that adaptive behaviour in autism is constrained by IQ. Developmental trajectories between groups were indistinguishable up to age five, clearly differentiated by age nine, and those differences strengthened into adulthood.
Dr. Clark and Mark discuss why domestic skills represent the most promising early intervention target, why community skills are the hardest to move, and how schools, IEP goals, and caregivers can reshape expectations to create opportunity-rich learning environments for autistic young people. The conversation closes with a look ahead at Dr. Clark's next research phase — examining individual skills for adults with profound autism and the caregivers who support them.
A must-listen for anyone working in autism education, autism support, early intervention, or child and adolescent mental health.
Read the JCPP paper ‘Relative strengths in daily living skills among autistic individuals and individuals with related developmental conditions who have co-occurring intellectual disability' - https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.70124
Elaine B. Clarke, Catherine Lord, Vanessa Hus Bal
First published: 28 January 2026
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In this episode of the Mind the Kids podcast, host Mark Tebbs sits down with Emma Butler — an occupational therapist with over 20 years of clinical experience in neonates and paediatrics — to explore one of the most pressing questions in child mental health research: can we predict poor mental health in childhood as early as birth?
Emma, a PhD researcher working across multiple institutions including Trinity College Dublin, the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, and University College Cork, shares findings from her groundbreaking work using the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) — one of the world's leading pregnancy cohort studies — to develop a multivariable prediction model for childhood mental health outcomes at age seven.
With children's mental health rising sharply across Europe and England — from one in eleven in 2017 to one in five by 2023 — Emma makes the case for why a preventative, early intervention approach is not just desirable but essential. The conversation covers the growing global burden of childhood mental health disorders, the critical difference between prediction and causation in research, and why psychosocial and socioeconomic factors consistently emerge as the strongest predictors of later poor mental health.
Emma also unpacks a striking finding from her PhD: that fine motor skills measured at just 18 months can predict mental health outcomes at age seven — a discovery with significant implications for early childhood development and infant mental health services.
From the ethics of predictive modelling and the risk of labelling children, to what a tiered, community-based early intervention system could look like in practice, this episode offers a rich, evidence-based discussion for clinicians, researchers, policymakers, and anyone passionate about improving outcomes for children and young people.
Read the paper 'Predicting 7-year-olds mental health in the perinatal period: Development and internal validation of a multivariable model using the prospective ALSPAC cohort' https://doi.org/10.1002/jcv2.70091
Emma Butler, Michelle Spirtos, Linda M. O’Keeffe, Mary Clarke
First published: 03 January 2026
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