Elevated corticosterone levels to stress have been found in adult rats exposed prenatally to alcohol, but little is known about the effects of prenatal alcohol exposure on the cortisol response in humans. To date, one study has found that crack/cocaine was related to depressed newborn cortisol levels following a heel prick. In the present study saliva samples were obtained before and after a blood draw from 83 inner-city African American 13-month-old infants exposed prenatally to alcohol, cocaine, and other illicit drugs. Post-blood draw cortisol levels did not differ from basal levels in many of the infants, confirming recent studies indicating adaptation of the adrenocortical response to this type of stress at this age. Maternal depression and emergence of teeth were positively related to cortisol levels. Alcohol exposure was related to elevated basal levels, cocaine to lower basal levels. As predicted from animal findings, heavy alcohol exposure was related to elevated poststress cortisol levels.

A group of 164 children from different infant temperament categories were seen at 7 years of age for a laboratory battery that included behavioral and physiological measurements. The major results indicated that children who had been classified as high reactive infants at 4 months of age, compared with infants classified as low reactive, (a) were more vulnerable to the development of anxious symptoms at age 7 years, (b) were more subdued in their interactions with a female examiner, (c) made fewer errors on a task requiring inhibition of a reflex, and (d) were more reflective. Further, the high reactives who developed anxious symptoms differed from the high reactives without anxious symptoms with respect to fearful behavior in the second year and, at age 7 years, higher diastolic blood pressure, a narrower facial skeleton, and greater magnitude of cooling of the temperature of the fingertips to cognitive challenge. Finally, variation in magnitude of interference to fearful or aggressive pictures on a modified Stroop procedure failed to differentiate anxious from nonanxious or high from low reactive children.

During the past 10 years nearly 80 studies on disorganized attachment involving more than 6,000 infant–parent dyads have been carried out. The current series of meta-analyses have established the reliability and discriminant validity of disorganized infant attachment. Although disorganized attachment behavior is necessarily difficult to observe and often subtle, many researchers have managed to become reliable coders. Furthermore, disorganized attachment shows modest short- and long-term stability, in particular in middle class environments, and it is not just a concomitant of constitutional, temperamental, or physical child problems. The predictive validity of disorganized attachment is established in terms of problematic stress management, the elevated risk of externalizing problem behavior, and even the tendency of disorganized infants to show dissociative behavior later in life. In normal, middle class families, about 15% of the infants develop disorganized attachment behavior. In other social contexts and in clinical groups this percentage may become twice or even three times higher (e.g., in the case of maltreatment). Although the importance of disorganized attachment for developmental psychopathology is evident, the search for the mechanisms leading to disorganization has just started. Frightening parental behavior may play an important role but it does not seem to be the only causal factor involved in the emergence of disorganized attachment.

The purpose of this study was to use the Attachment Q-Set to create categories of attachment organization that were conceptually consistent with organizational categories derived from other attachment assessments, reliable, and valid. We were particularly interested in creating categories that would describe insecure attachment organizations in children from difficult life circumstances. Our sample of relationships included 3062 teacher–child relationships. Children ranged in age from toddlers to kindergartners and were diverse in ethnic background. Two percent of the children were diagnosed with severe social and emotional problems and enrolled in a therapeutic preschool. Sixteen percent were enrolled in intervention programs on the basis of family poverty and another 34% of the children attended subsidized child care programs for low-income children. All of the children's child–teacher relationships were assessed with the Attachment Q-Set (AQS). Independent observers observed or rated children's peer play. Teachers completed behavior problem questionnaires and Student Teacher Relationships Scales. Using the AQS we created five subscales and six attachment organizational categories. These subscales and organizational categories were associated in theoretically meaningful ways with measures of behavior problems, social competence with peers, and teacher perceptions of child–teacher relationship.

Few studies have examined the association between attachment and psychopathology in samples of clinically diagnosed children or the relation between attachment variables and the continuity of clinical symptoms. Clinic-referred preschool boys (n = 80) with early onset conduct problems (as indicated by diagnoses of Oppositional Defiant Disorder) were compared with a case-matched group of 80 nonproblem boys to determine whether observed attachment behaviors could: (a) differentiate the groups, (b) explain concurrent variation in problem severity within the clinic group, and (c) predict the outcomes of clinic boys 1 and 2 years later. Over half of the clinic boys with early onset conduct problems (54%) exhibited an insecure attachment strategy during reunion, as opposed to 18% of comparison group boys. All insecure patterns were overrepresented in the clinic group. Clinic boys were more likely than comparison boys to engage in provocative behavior when separated from their mothers. Contrary to our hypothesis, attachment variables showed little ability to explain concurrent or future variation in the problem severity or diagnostic status of clinic boys. We conclude that observable attachment behaviors exhibited during the preschool years are related to the initial identification of early onset conduct problems but may have little value by themselves in predicting the subsequent course and severity of problems in the 2 years following clinic referral.

We tested three competing models regarding the role of deviant friends in the trajectory linking early disruptiveness with later conduct problems through the use of a preventive intervention program. The program was implemented during the second and third grade. One model predicted that the program would positively affect later conduct problems by facilitating nondeviant peer association during early adolescence. The second model predicted a direct impact of the program on later conduct problems through the reduction of early disruptiveness. The third model predicted an interaction between postintervention disruptiveness and association with less deviant friends. The results showed that the program's effects on later conduct problems were mediated by the reduction in disruptiveness and by the association with less deviant friends. However, the positive effect of associating with less deviant friends depended on whether children's disruptiveness had been reduced or not by their participation in the program, thus supporting the third model. We recommend using intervention studies to test developmental models.

A three-wave longitudinal study design with two 6-month intervals was used to examine the stability and change in Internalizing, Externalizing, and Total Problem behavior among children and adolescents referred to outpatient mental health services. Our results indicated high stabilities for parent ratings of child psychopathology across a 1-year interval. Additionally, we found decreases in the level of problem behavior. Interindividual differences in change were found for Total Problems and Externalizing behavior but not for Internalizing. While both the child's temperament and intelligence level and family relations were related to the initial level of parent-rated problem behavior, only intermediary stressful life events had an influence on the rate of change of child psychopathology.

Most previous research has assumed that adolescent alcohol use and problem use represent a continuum and are influenced by the same psychosocial factors, with problem use representing more severe psychosocial impairment. The current study evaluated this assumption by identifying the correlates of adolescent alcohol use and those of problem use. Using a community sample of adolescent children of alcoholics (COAs) and a demographically matched comparison group (non-COAs), a typology of adolescent alcohol use was created, and alcohol use groups were compared on variables chosen from nine psychosocial domains. The correlates of problem alcohol use were different from those of moderate use. Problem use was associated with fundamental family disruptions and poor psychological functioning. In contrast, the determinants of moderate alcohol use reflected unconventionality and socialization specific to alcohol. Few psychosocial variables distinguished abstainers from light drinkers. Intervention and methodological implications of these findings are discussed.

Although a majority of adolescent mothers are graduating from high school, the processes that enhance the educational attainment of adolescent mothers are not well understood. With a sample of 93 African American and Puerto Rican adolescent mothers, we assessed the effects of material support from family (i.e., child care assistance from grandmother and residence with grandmother) and emotional support from family over and above pre- and postpregnancy risk factors (i.e., maternal age at first birth, delayed grade placement before pregnancy, ethnicity, depressive symptoms, stressful life events, and repeat pregnancy) during the first year postpartum on educational attainment at 6 years postpartum. Significant contributors to the explained variance in educational attainment included: delayed grade placement before pregnancy, maternal age at first birth, depressive symptoms, emotional support from family, and residence with grandmother. Unexpectedly, higher perceived emotional support from family and living with grandmother predicted lower educational attainment. Post hoc analysis of qualitative data suggested reasons for these latter findings and point to the need to reconceptualize and broaden the elements of social support that constitute protective factors for adolescent mothers.

The term self-organization has at least two meanings for developmental psychopathologists: the spontaneous emergence of order in developing systems and the consolidation of that part of the person called the self. The first meaning is shared across the sciences at large, and it denotes a general model of change and growth in complex systems. We review principles of self-organization from the natural sciences and discuss their application to the study of human development. We then suggest possible sources and consequences of terminological confusion in developmental psychology and offer some potential resolutions. The “self” in self-organization seems a special case of this confusion, and it can be addressed by modeling the self as both autonomous agent and emergent form. We outline preliminary directions for this modeling and then go on to a more general discussion of how principles of self-organization can help bring developmental psychopathology closer to its goals.