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'
Emma Butler, Michelle Spirtos, Linda M. O’Keeffe, Mary Clarke
First published: 03 January 2026
Get a free CPD/CME certificate for listening to this podcast by registering for a FREE ACAMH Learn account at
Visit
Facebook and LinkedIn search / ACAMH
Instagram
Bluesky
X
