Browsing by Author "Hartikka, Roosa"

Callous-unemotional (CU) traits (e.g. of lack of guilt, empathy and shallow affect) has shown to predict persistent antisocial behaviours and severe psychosocial disruptions. This review sought to examine the aetiological factors underlying the CU traits and whether CU traits can be prevented and treated. Research to date suggests that CU traits are developed in the interaction of genetic and environmental factors. Especially parenting factors, such as parental warmth and sensitivity has shown a great effect on protecting from development of CU traits and parent training interventions has shown a great potential in decreasing CU traits in children and adolescents. However, intervention outcome research to date has been very limited. In addition, recent studies have mainly examined the outcomes of interventions initially intended for treatment of conduct disorder: there is not many empirically tested interventions specifically developed for treatment of CU traits. Also, it remains unclear whether the effects of the interventions are persistent in the long run, is there any difference in the treatment of children of different age and how effective the interventions are on the children with a great genetic vulnerability. There is critical need for more research to enable more effective and valid interventions to be developed.