ReviewDevelopmental cognitive neuroscience2020
Description, prediction and causation: Methodological challenges of studying child and adolescent development.
Review in Developmental cognitive neuroscience, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 30 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
30 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 96 citations in OpenAlex.
- Distinct sex-specific DNA methylation differences in Alzheimer's disease.Alzheimer's research & therapy · 2022Pooled it
- Video-feedback promotes sensitive limit-setting in parents of twin preschoolers: a randomized controlled trial.BMC psychology · 2021Trial
- From parent-teacher collaboration to young children's numeracy skills: An examination of the underlying mechanisms.The British journal of educational psychology · 2026Article
- Illuminating the complex interplay of risk factors for depression symptoms within a large-scale US longitudinal cohort.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2026Article
- Is there a bidirectional relationship between the number of unhealthy lifestyle factors and depressive symptoms in adolescents? Evidence from a longitudinal study.BMC medicine · 2026Article
- Neighborhood Social Disorganization in Early Adolescence and Substance Use Trajectories into Young Adulthood: The Moderating Role of Effortful Control and Parental Substance Use.Journal of youth and adolescence · 2026Article
- Using a Technology Acceptance Model to Explore the Intention to Use Digital Health Technologies Among People With Disabilities: Cross-Sectional Survey Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2025Article
- Distinguishing cause from effect in psychological research: An independence-based approach under linear non-Gaussian models.The British journal of mathematical and statistical psychology · 2025Article
- Cortisol as a Mediator of Prenatal Distress and Difficult Infant Temperament: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Protocol.Health science reports · 2025Article
- Theoretical Perspectives on Hookah Smoking Behavior: A Scoping Review of Studies Among Young Adults in Low- and Middle-Income Countries.Journal of community health · 2025Article
- The Reciprocal Relationship Between Parental eHealth Literacy Mediation and Adolescents' eHealth Literacy: Three-Wave Longitudinal Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2025Article
- Need Fulfillment During Intergroup Contact: Three Experience Sampling Studies.Personality & social psychology bulletin · 2025Article
- Longitudinal Associations Between Adolescents' mHealth App Use, Body Dissatisfaction, and Physical Self-Worth: Random Intercept Cross-Lagged Panel Study.JMIR mental health · 2025Article
- Is There a Link Between Older Adults' Frequency of (Face-to-Face and Remote) Contact With Grandchildren and Cognitive Functioning Over 12 Years?The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences · 2025Article
- Parental Monitoring, Parental Knowledge, and the Occurrence of Potentially Traumatic Events in Adolescence.Research on child and adolescent psychopathology · 2025Article
- Building trust in rural communities: recruitment and retention strategies in developmental science.Frontiers in public health · 2025Article
- National Identity Development Among Minority Youth: Longitudinal Relations with National Fit Perceptions and School Belonging.Journal of youth and adolescence · 2024Article
- Enhancing causal inference in population-based neuroimaging data in children and adolescents.Developmental cognitive neuroscience · 2024Review
- Causal inference on human behaviour.Nature human behaviour · 2024Review
- Depression and Personality Traits Across Adolescence-Within-Person Analyses of a Birth Cohort.Research on child and adolescent psychopathology · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Scientific research can be categorized into: a) descriptive research, with the main goal to summarize characteristics of a group (or person); b) predictive research, with the main goal to forecast future outcomes that can be used for screening, selection, or monitoring; and c) explanatory research, with the main goal to understand the underlying causal mechanism, which can then be used to develop interventions. Since each goal requires different research methods in terms of design, operationalization, model building and evaluation, it should form an important basis for decisions on how to set up and execute a study. To determine the extent to which developmental research is motivated by each goal and how this aligns with the research designs that are used, we evaluated 100 publications from the Consortium on Individual Development (CID). This analysis shows that the match between research goal and research design is not always optimal. We discuss alternative techniques, which are not yet part of the developmental scientist's standard toolbox, but that may help bridge some of the lurking gaps that developmental scientists encounter between their research design and their research goal. These include unsupervised and supervised machine learning, directed acyclical graphs, Mendelian randomization, and target trials.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.