To examine the effects of risk on infant development within cultural contexts, 141 dual-earner Israeli and Palestinian couples and their first-born child were observed at 5 months and again at 34 months. Eight ecological determinants were examined as potential risk factors, including the infant's observed and parent-reported difficult temperament; the mother's depressive symptoms, work–family interference, and experience of childbirth; the parents' marital satisfaction and social support; and observed maternal and paternal sensitivity. Symbolic play and behavior problems were assessed at 34 months. Culture-specific effects of risk and protective factors were found. Parent sensitivity facilitated symbolic competence to a greater extent in the Israeli group. Culture moderated the effects of maternal depression and family social support on toddlers' behavior problems. Maternal depressive symptoms had a negative impact on the behavior adaptation of Israeli children and social support buffered against behavior problems in the Arab group. Implications for research on risk and resilience and the role of culture in moderating the effects of ecological risk are discussed.The Israeli–Palestinian Project was supported by the New-Land Foundation. The study is dedicated to the memory of the late professor Donald Cohen, MD, whose vision and support enabled this project.

Autistic adults display enhanced and locally oriented low-level perception of static visual information, but diminished perception of some types of movement. The identification of potential precursors, such as atypical perceptual processing, among very young children would be an initial step toward understanding the development of these phenomena. The purpose of this study was to provide an initial measure and interpretation of atypical visual exploratory behaviors toward inanimate objects (AVEBIOs) among young children with autism. A coding system for AVEBIOs was constructed from a corpus of 40 semistandardized assessments of autistic children. The most frequent atypical visual behavior among 15 children aged 33–73 months was lateral glance that was mostly oriented toward moving stimuli and was detected reliably by the experimenters (intraclass correlation > .90). This behavior was more common among autistic than typically developing children of similar verbal mental age and chronological age. As lateral vision is associated with the filtering of high spatial frequency (detail perception) information and the facilitation of high temporal frequencies (movement perception), its high prevalence among very young autistic children may reflect early attempts to regulate and/or optimize both excessive amounts of local information and diminished perception of movement. These findings are initial evidence for the need to consider the neural bases and development of atypical behaviors and their implications for intervention strategies.

A person-oriented approach was adopted to examine joint developmental trajectories of physical and indirect aggression. Participants were 1183 children aged 2 years at the initial assessment and followed over 6 years. Most children followed either low or declining trajectories of physical aggression (PA), but 14.6% followed high stable trajectories. Approximately two-thirds of participants followed low indirect aggression (IA) trajectories (67.9%), and one-third (32.1%) followed high rising trajectories. The results combining both PA and IA group memberships indicate that most children (62.1%) exhibit desisting levels of PA and low levels of IA. A significant proportion followed a trajectory of moderately desisting PA and rising IA (14.2%), and 13.5% followed high level trajectories of both forms of aggression. Virtually no children were high on one type and low on the other. Multinomial regressions analyses were used to predict joint trajectory group membership from selected child and family variables measured at 2 years. Young motherhood and low income predicted membership in the high PA-high IA trajectory, but only hostile parenting remained significant after family processes variables were entered in the model. Being a boy, young motherhood, and hostile parenting were generally associated with higher levels of PA. Girls were more likely than boys to follow a trajectory of desisting PA and rising IA. The results suggest that some children, mostly girls, reduce their use of PA and tend to increase their use of IA, and that highly physically aggressive children also tend to be highly indirectly aggressive. Early family risk characteristics and hostile parenting interfere with the socialization of aggression.This research was supported by research grants from Quebec's FQRSC and CIQSS, Canada's CIHR and SSHRC, the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, the Molson foundation, St-Justine Hospital's Research Center, and the University of Montréal. We thank Danielle Forest (University of Montréal) for her work on data analysis and Franck Larouche (Statistics Canada) for his sustained commitment to assist us in managing the data.

Ninety-four low- and middle-income preschoolers (48 boys, 46 girls) were recruited from two sites in a large southwestern city. Children's positive attributions of peer intent, social problem-solving decisions, and attributions of peers' feelings about the provocation were evaluated from individual interviews. In addition, children's anger perception accuracy and their global emotion situation knowledge were assessed. Teachers and their assistants reported on the children's social competence, internalizing and externalizing behavior, and the degree to which children were physically and relationally victimized. Social competence was a negative predictor of relational and physical victimization, and externalizing behavior was a positive predictor of both types of victimization. Anger perception accuracy was negatively related to physical victimization, and global emotion situation knowledge and attributions of sorrow to provoking peers were positive predictors. Results support a conceptual framework that emphasizes the importance of social and emotion-related social cognitive variables for understanding young children's peer-related victimization.The authors thank the children and families for their participation and the preschool teachers for their cooperation. Thanks are also due to the many undergraduate and graduate students who helped with this research. Special thanks to Kimberly Estep and Courtney Hunter for their help with data collection and coding.

Two paradigms were developed to examine autobiographical memory (ABM) and suggestibility in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Children with ASD (N = 30) and typically developing chronological age-matched children (N = 38) ranging in age from 5 to 10 years were administered an ABM questionnaire. Children were asked about details of current and past personally experienced events. Children also participated in a staged event, and later were provided with true and false reminders about that event. Later, children again were interviewed about the staged event. The results from both paradigms revealed that children with ASD showed poorer ABM compared to controls. Generally, their ABM was marked by errors of omission rather than by errors of commission, and memory was particularly poor for early-life events. In addition, they were as suggestible as the typically developing children. The results are discussed in terms of applied and theoretical implications.This project was supported by a grant from National Institutes of Health (RO1 HD39282) to M.B. Thanks to the many children, parents, teachers, and school staff who took time and interest in participating in this study. The assistance of Kendra Tannenbaum, Jennifer Betkowski, Katie Whittaker, and Liz Marave is greatly appreciated.

Williams syndrome is a rare genetic disorder in which, it is claimed, language abilities are relatively strong despite mild to moderate mental retardation. Such claims have, in turn, been interpreted as evidence either for modular preservation of language or for atypical constraints on cognitive development. However, this review demonstrates that there is, in fact, little evidence that syntax, morphology, phonology, or pragmatics are any better than predicted by nonverbal ability, although performance on receptive vocabulary tests is relatively good. Similarly, claims of an imbalance between good phonology and impaired or atypical lexical semantics are without strong support. There is, nevertheless, consistent evidence for specific deficits in spatial language that mirror difficulties in nonverbal spatial cognition, as well as some tentative evidence that early language acquisition proceeds atypically. Implications for modular and neuroconstructivist accounts of language development are discussed.The preparation of this paper was supported by the Williams Syndrome Foundation (United Kingdom) and the Medical Research Council. I thank Courtenay Norbury and Kate Nation for comments on the manuscript and Chris Jarrold, Jill Boucher, and Teresa McCormack for many useful discussions.

Using the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL), the rate and type of behavior problems associated with being reared in an institution prior to adoption were examined in 1,948, 4- through 18-year-old internationally adopted children, 899 of whom had experienced prolonged institutional care prior to adoption. The children's adoptions were decreed between 1990 and 1998 in Minnesota. Binomial logistic regression analyses revealed that early institutional rearing was associated with increased rates of attention and social problems, but not problems in either the internalizing or externalizing domains. Independent of institutional history, children who were adopted ≥24 months had higher rates of behavior problems across many CBCL scales, including internalizing and externalizing problems. In general, time in the adoptive home, which also reflected age at testing, was positively associated with rates of problem behavior. Thus, there was little evidence that the likelihood of behavior problems wane with time postadoption. Finally, children adopted from Russia/Eastern Europe appeared at greater risk of developing behavior problems in several domains compared to children adopted from other areas of the world.Members of the International Adoption Project (IAP) Team, all of whom are from the University of Minnesota, are H. Grotevant (Family Social Science); R. Lee (Psychology); W. Hellerstedt (Epidemiology); N. Madsen and M. Bale (Institute of Child Development); and D. Johnson, K. Dole, and S. Iverson (Pediatrics). This research was supported by an NIMH grant (MH59848) and K05 award (MH66208) to M. R. Gunnar. The authors thank the IAP parent board, the Minnesota Adoption Unit and its director, Robert DeNardo, and the adoption agencies that encouraged this work: Children's Home Society, Lutheran Social Services, Crossroads, Hope International, Bethany International, Child Link International, European Children Adoption Services, International Adoption Services, Great Wall China Adoption, and New Horizons. Special thanks are due to the many parents who completed the IAP survey.

This paper utilizes a national longitudinal probability sample of children to demonstrate how important exposure to multiple forms of victimization (polyvictimization) is in accounting for increases in children's symptomatic behavior. The study is based on two annual waves of the Developmental Victimization Survey that began with a nationally representative sample of children and youth ages 2 to 17. A broad range of victimization experiences were assessed using the 34-item Juvenile Victimization Questionnaire. Eighteen percent of the children experienced four or more different kinds of victimization (polyvictims) in the most recent year. Polyvictimization in the most recent year was highly predictive of trauma symptoms at the end of the year, controlling for prior victimization and prior mental health status. When polyvictimization was taken into account, it greatly reduced or eliminated the association between most other individual victimizations and symptomatology scores.For the purposes of compliance with Section 507 of PL 104-208 (the “Stevens Amendment”), readers are advised that 100% of the funds for this program are derived from federal sources (US Department of Justice). The total amount of federal funding involved is $353,233.

Predictors and concurrent correlates of childhood-onset and adolescent-onset antisocial behavior were studied in a sample of 165 boys and 151 girls, followed from age 6 to age 15. An integrated general growth mixture model was used to determine the number and shape of developmental trajectories of antisocial behavior exhibited by boys and girls. Associations of these trajectories with trajectories of attention-deficit/hyperactivity (ADH) problems and deviant peer affiliation were examined. A childhood-onset, an adolescent-onset, and a low antisocial behavior trajectory were identified. A minority of the sample (11%), mostly males, followed the childhood-onset trajectory. This trajectory was predicted by prior membership in the high ADH trajectory in childhood. The adolescent-onset trajectory (46%) was associated with increases in friends' antisocial behavior but not with ADH problems. Most females (60%) followed the low antisocial trajectory. A substantial proportion of females, however, followed the childhood (5%) and adolescent-onset trajectories (35%). The male–female ratios in the childhood and adolescent-onset trajectories were similar. The results largely supported theories that distinguish between childhood and adolescent onsets of antisocial behavior, but they did not suggest that boys and girls differ in the age of onset of antisocial behavior.This study was supported by grants from the Conseil Québécois de la Recherche Sociale and the Canada Social Sciences Research Council. We thank Ted Barker and Sara Pedersen for their helpful comments and suggestions on this manuscript.

Trajectories of relational aggression were examined in a large, diverse sample of fourth-grade students. Hierarchical linear modeling was used to examine relational aggression over 1 calendar year. The results indicated that relational aggression increased in a linear fashion for girls over the course of the study. In addition, increases in friend intimate exchange were associated with time-dependent increases in relational aggression among girls only. Relational aggression and internalizing “tracked” together across the course of the study. Overall, the findings suggest relational aggression becomes increasingly common among elementary school girls, and girls' close, dyadic relationships may fuel relationally aggressive behavior in some contexts. Finally, the results indicate that relational aggression trajectories are dynamically associated with maladjustment.This study was funded by grants from NIMH (MH63684) and NSF (BCS-0126521) to N. C. Crick. Preparation of this manuscript was supported by a NIMH Traineeship (MH-15755) to D. Murray-Close and J. M. Ostrov. Portions of this manuscript were presented at the 2004 Biennial Meeting of The Society for Research on Adolescence, Baltimore, MD. We thank Kathleen E. Woods for her assistance and comments on an earlier draft, Dr. Jeff Long for his statistical consultation and assistance with this study, and Peter Ralston and the entire School Buddies Project team for assistance with the collection of this data. Finally, we thank the principals, teachers, parents, and children for their participation.

In this study of 360 low-income mother–child dyads, our primary goal was to disentangle risks linked with commonly co-occurring maternal diagnoses: substance abuse and affective/anxiety disorders. Variable- and person-based analyses suggest that, at least through children's early adolescence, maternal drug use is no more inimical for them than is maternal depression. A second goal was to illuminate vulnerability and protective processes linked with mothers' everyday functioning, and results showed that negative parenting behaviors were linked with multiple adverse child outcomes. Conversely, the other parenting dimensions showed more domain specificity; parenting stress was linked with children's lifetime diagnoses, and limit setting and closeness with children's externalizing problems and everyday competence, respectively. Results are discussed in terms of implications for resilience theory, interventions, and social policy.Preparation of this manuscript was funded in part by grants from the National Institutes of Health (RO1-DA10726, RO1-DA11498, and R01-DA14385).

A history of exposure to harsh physical discipline has been linked to negative outcomes for children, ranging from conduct disorder to depression and low self-esteem. The present study extends this work into adolescence, and examines the relationship of lifetime histories of harsh discipline to adolescents' internalizing and externalizing symptoms and to their developing capacities for establishing autonomy and relatedness in family interactions. Adolescent and parent reports of harsh discipline, independently coded observations of conflictual interactions, and adolescent reports of symptoms were obtained for 141 adolescents at age 16. Both parents' use of harsh discipline was related to greater adolescent depression and externalizing behavior, even when these effects were examined over and above the effects of other parenting measures known to account for these symptoms. Adolescents exposed to harsh discipline from mothers were also less likely to appear warm and engaged during an interaction task with their mothers. It is suggested that a history of harsh discipline is associated not only with social and emotional functioning, but also with the developmental task of autonomy and relatedness.This study and its write-up were supported by grants from the National Institute of Mental Health (R01-MH44934 and R01-MH58066).

The purpose of this study was to ascertain the effectiveness of the Relational Psychotherapy Mothers' Group (RPMG), a supportive parenting group intervention for substance abusing women. Sixty mothers receiving RPMG were compared to 67 women receiving recovery training (RT); both treatments supplemented treatment in the methadone clinics. At the end of the 6-month treatment period, RPMG mothers showed marginally significant improvement on child maltreatment (self-reported) and cocaine abuse based on urinalyses when compared with RT mothers; notably, children of RPMG mothers reported significantly greater improvement in emotional adjustment and depression than children of RT mothers. At 6 months follow-up, however, treatment gains were no longer apparent. Overall, the findings suggest that whereas supportive parenting interventions for substance abusing women do have some preventive potential, abrupt cessation of the therapeutic program could have deleterious consequences.Preparation of the manuscript was funded in part by grants from the National Institutes of Health (RO1-DA10726, RO1-DA11498, R01-DA14385, and K23DA14606), the William T. Grant Foundation, and the Spencer Foundation.

The present study examined self-reported romantic attachment style and Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) states of mind regarding early attachment relationships, personality dimensions, and psychopathology in a psychiatric sample of trauma survivors. Inpatients (N = 80) admitted to a hospital trauma treatment program were administered the Experiences in Close Relationships Scale, AAI, Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory—III, Dissociative Experiences Scale, and Dissociative Disorder Interview Schedule. Self-report and AAI attachment classifications were not related, and different results emerged for the two measures. Self-reported romantic attachment style was significantly associated with personality dimensions, with fearful adults showing the most maladaptive personality profiles. Findings suggested that self-report dimensions of self and other independently contribute to different forms of psychological dysfunction. AAI unresolved trauma was uniquely associated with dissociation and posttraumatic stress disorder, whereas unresolved trauma and unresolved loss jointly contributed to schizotypal and borderline personality disorder scores. The differences in findings between the two measures are discussed with a view toward the developmental and clinical implications.This project was partially funded by the Department of Psychology and Philosophy at Texas Woman's University and the Ross Institute. We are grateful to the staff and patients of the Timberlawn Psychiatric Hospital Trauma Program for their time. In addition, we express our appreciation to Dante Cicchetti and the editorial reviewers, whose insightful suggestions substantially enhanced the manuscript.