Cumulative Risk, Protection, and Early Intervention: Neurodevelopment in Sibling Groups Exposed Prenatally to Substances

ABSTRACT

Mothercraft’s Breaking the Cycle is an early intervention program for substance-exposed children with neurodevelopmental vulnerabilities. Within three substance-exposed sibling groups (N = 8; 0–6 years), we 1) described longitudinal neurodevelopmental trajectories, 2) explored the balance of cross-domain cumulative risk and protection on neurodevelopment, and 3) generated hypotheses on how cumulative risk, protection, and early intervention impact neurodevelopment. Neurodevelopment is potentially shaped by the balance of risk and protection. Postnatal risk (birth/postnatal, child, parent-child interaction) and relational protection (family, parent-child interaction) appear to have the most salient impact on neurodevelopment. Early intervention is thought to be important as soon as possible and before age 3 years.

Authorship statement

Bianca C. Bondi: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis, Investigation, Writing - Original Draft, Writing - Review & Editing. Debra J. Pepler, Mary Motz, Naomi N.C. Andrews: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing - Review & Editing, Supervision.

Disclosure statement

The authors have no actual or perceived conflict of interest to disclose.

Ethical approval

This retrospective study was conducted at Mothercraft’s Breaking the Cycle in Toronto, Canada with approval by York University’s Ethics Review Board.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the publisher’s website.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research [grant number 77757] and the Lillian Meighen and Don Wright Foundation.