Research in the broad area of child maltreatment has investigated the effects of these phenomena globally and without much attempt to distinguish the nature and extent of such experiences. This study sought to examine the underlying structure of child maltreatment and relate this structure to current adolescent adjustment. A principal components analysis was conducted with 162 adolescents who had backgrounds of child maltreatment, using a comprehensive measure of such experiences at two developmental time periods (birth to 6 years, and 7–12 years). This analysis resulted in interpretable factors that were used to create scales measuring maltreatment in a continuous, nonredundant manner. These scales were used to test main and interaction effects of each type of maltreatment on current adjustment of adolescent males and females. For males (N = 71), the relationship between early maltreatment and adjustment was significantly enhanced when interactions between physical and psychological abuse and between partner abuse and neglect were entered into the equation. For females (N = 91), current adjustment was significantly related to the developmental period in which neglect or psychological abuse had occurred. Results are discussed in relation to measurement and theoretical issues.

This study examined dimensions of callous behaviors in early childhood and the role of these behaviors in the development of conduct problems, as well as responsiveness to a family-centered preventative intervention. Caregiver reports of callous behaviors were examined using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. Problem behavior was examined using within- and cross-informant reports of these behaviors. Parenting was measured using observational methods within the context of a randomized control trial of the Family Check-Up with a sample of 731 ethnically diverse boys and girls (followed from ages 2 to 4) at high risk for later conduct problems. Results demonstrated that a measure of deceitful–callous (DC) behaviors had acceptable factor loadings and internal consistency at ages 3 and 4. DC behaviors at age 3 predicted problem behavior concurrently and longitudinally within and across informant. However, DC behaviors did not reduce the effectiveness of the family preventative intervention. These findings have implications for our understanding of behaviors that may precede later callous–unemotional traits and for our understanding of the development and prevention of early starting conduct problems.

We review evidence on a group recently identified as “at risk,” that is, youth in upwardly mobile, upper-middle class community contexts. These youngsters are statistically more likely than normative samples to show serious disturbance across several domains including drug and alcohol use, as well as internalizing and externalizing problems. Extant data on these problems are reviewed with attention to gender-specific patterns, presenting quantitative developmental research findings along with relevant evidence across other disciplines. In considering possible reasons for elevated maladjustment, we appraise multiple pathways, including aspects of family dynamics, peer norms, pressures at schools, and policies in higher education. All of these pathways are considered within the context of broad, exosystemic mores: the pervasive emphasis, in contemporary American culture, on maximizing personal status, and how this can threaten the well-being of individuals and of communities. We then discuss issues that warrant attention in future research. The paper concludes with suggestions for interventions at multiple levels, targeting youth, parents, educators, as well as policymakers, toward reducing pressures and maximizing positive adaptation among “privileged but pressured” youth and their families.

This study was designed to delineate pathways between systems profiles of family functioning, children's emotional insecurity in the interparental relationship, and their psychological adjustment in a sample of 221 children and their parents. Consistent with family systems theory, cluster analyses conducted with assessments of marital, coparental, and parent–child functioning indicated that families fit into one of four profiles: (a) cohesive families, characterized by warmth, affection, and flexible well-defined boundaries in family relationships; (b) disengaged families, reflected in high levels of adversity and low levels of support across family subsystems; (c) enmeshed families, evidenced by high levels of discord and weak maintenance of relationship boundaries in the family unit; and (d) adequate families, defined by elevated parental psychological control within a larger family context of low discord and high warmth. In comparison to children in cohesive families, children in enmeshed and disengaged families exhibited greater signs of insecurity in the interparental relationship concurrently and internalizing and externalizing symptoms both concurrently and 1 year later. Structural equation models revealed that a latent, multimethod measure of insecurity in the interparental relationship partially mediated associations between family enmeshment and disengagement and children's psychological symptoms 1 year later. Results are discussed in relation to how they inform and refine a family-wide model of the emotional security hypothesis.This research was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health (Project R01 MH57318) awarded to Patrick T. Davies and E. Mark Cummings. Marcia A. Winter was supported by a predoctoral National Research Service Award from the National Institute of Mental Health (F31 MH068058). The authors are grateful to the children, parents, teachers, and school administrators who participated in this project and to the staff who assisted on various stages of the project, including Courtney Forbes, Marcie Goeke–Morey, Amy Keller, Michelle Sutton, and the graduate and undergraduate students at the University of Rochester and University of Notre Dame. We also thank Harry Reis for his valuable statistical advice.

The main objectives of this study were to prospectively examine the relationship between externalizing (substance use and delinquency) and internalizing (depression and anxiety) dimensions and academic achievement (grades and classroom adjustment), as well as continuity over time in these domains, within a sample of wealthy adolescents followed from 10th to 12th grades (n = 256). In both parts of the study, cluster analyses were used to group participants at 10th grade and then group differences were evaluated on adjustment outcomes over time. In Part 1, problem behavior clusters revealed differences on academic indices with the two marijuana using groups—marijuana users and multiproblem youth—exhibiting the worst academic outcomes at all three waves. For Part 2, the two lowest achieving groups reported the highest distress across all externalizing dimensions over time. Stability across the three waves was found for both personal and academic competence as well as the associations between these two domains. Results are discussed in relation to intervention efforts targeting wealthy students at risk.

The main aims of this study were to investigate if children with high-functioning autism (HFA) and children with Tourette syndrome (TS) can be differentiated in their executive functioning (EF) profile compared to normal controls (NCs) and compared to each other and to investigate whether children with HFA or children with TS and a comorbid group of children with both disorders are distinct conditions in terms of EF. Four groups of children participated in this study: HFA, TS, comorbid HFA + TS, and a NC group. All children were in the age range of 6 to 13 years. The groups were compared on five major domains of EF: inhibition, visual working memory, planning, cognitive flexibility, and verbal fluency. Children with HFA scored lower than NC children on all the EFs measured. Children with TS and NC children showed the same EF profile. The HFA group scored lower than the TS group for inhibition of a prepotent response and cognitive flexibility. Children with HFA performed poorer than children with comorbid HFA + TS on all functions, with the exception of inhibiting an ongoing response, interference control, and verbal fluency. Children with TS and children with comorbid HFA + TS could not be differentiated from one another in terms of EF. This study indicates that EF deficits are highly characteristic of children with HFA in comparison to children with TS and NC. The results suggest that for the comparison between HFA and TS groups, it is important to take into account comorbidity. A reevaluation of the EF hypothesis in children with TS is suggested.We thank the children and parents without whose participation this research would not have been possible.

The primary purpose of this longitudinal study was to examine, in a sample of Chinese children (initial M age = 8 years, N = 1,140), contributions of aggression to the development of social competence and academic achievement. Five waves of panel data on aggression and social and school performance were collected from peer evaluations, teacher ratings, and school records in Grades 2 to 5. Structural equation modeling revealed that aggression had unique effects on later social competence and academic achievement after their stabilities were controlled, particularly in the junior grades. Aggression also had significant indirect effects on social and academic outcomes through multiple pathways. Social competence and academic achievement contributed to the development of each other, but not aggression. The results indicate cascade effects of aggression in Chinese children from a developmental perspective.

“[A]n overview of the past suggests that today's investigators are as much determined by history as they are makers of it.” (Cairns, 1983, p. 90)

The effect of early physical maltreatment on the development of peer relationships was examined in a representative sample of 585 boys and girls. Subjects were assessed for physical maltreatment in the first 5 years of life and then followed for 5 consecutive years. The assessment was based on a clinical interview with parents. Twelve percent of the sample was identified as having experienced physical maltreatment. Peers, teachers, and mothers independently evaluated the maltreated group of children as being more disliked, less popular, and more socially withdrawn than the nonmaltreated group in every year of evaluation, with the magnitude of difference growing over time. These effects held even when family socioeconomic status was controlled. The findings were interpreted as being consistent with the hypothesis that early maltreatment disrupts attachment relationships with adult caregivers, and these disruptions then impair a child's ability to form effective peer relationships.

The maternal experience of stressful events during pregnancy has been associated with a number of adverse consequences for behavioral development in offspring, but the measurement and interpretation of prenatal stress varies among reported studies. The Raine Study recruited 2900 pregnancies and recorded life stress events experienced by 18 and 34 weeks' gestation along with numerous sociodemographic data. The mother's exposure to life stress events was further documented when the children were followed-up in conjunction with behavioral assessments at ages 2, 5, 8, 10, and 14 years using the Child Behavior Checklist. The maternal experience of multiple stressful events during pregnancy was associated with subsequent behavioral problems for offspring. Independent (e.g., death of a relative, job loss) and dependent stress events (e.g., financial problems, marital problems) were both significantly associated with a greater incidence of mental health morbidity between age 2 and 14 years. Exposure to stressful events in the first 18 weeks of pregnancy showed similar associations with subsequent total and externalizing morbidity to events reported at 34 weeks of gestation. These results were independent of postnatal stress exposure. Improved support for women with chronic stress exposure during pregnancy may improve the mental health of their offspring in later life.

This review addresses the phenomenology of mania/bipolar disorder from a developmental psychopathology perspective and uses cases with longitudinal information to illustrate major points. Beginning with a summary of the phenomenology of bipolar illness as it occurs in adults, the authors identify diagnostic complexities unique to children and adolescents. These include the challenges of characterizing elation and grandiosity; differentiating mania from comorbid symptoms, rages, sequelae of maltreatment, and typical developmental phenomena; and the unique manifestations of psychosis. We conclude with the observation that a significant difference between early and later onset bipolar disorder is that, in the former, there appears to be a global delay or arrest in the development of appropriate affect regulation; whereas in adult-onset bipolar illness, emotion dysregulation generally presents as an intermittent phenomenon. At this juncture, the study of childhood bipolar illness would benefit from a developmental psychopathology perspective to move beyond the level of cross-sectional symptom description to begin to study individuals over time, focusing on developmental, environmental, genetic, and neurobiological influences on manifest behavior.This review was supported in part by funding from NIMH Grant 44801 and grants from Janssen Pharmaceutica and Abbott Laboratories.

Early biobehavioral regulation, a major influence of later adaptation, develops through dyadic interactions with caregivers. Thus, identification of maternal characteristics that can ameliorate or exacerbate infants’ innate vulnerabilities is key for infant well-being and long-term healthy development. The present study evaluated the influence of maternal parenting, postpartum psychopathology, history of childhood maltreatment, and demographic risk on infant behavioral and physiological (i.e., salivary cortisol) regulation using the still-face paradigm. Our sample included 153 women with high rates of childhood maltreatment experiences. Mother–infant dyads completed a multimethod assessment at 7 months of age. Structural equation modeling showed that maternal positive (i.e., sensitive, warm, engaged, and joyful) and negative (i.e., overcontrolling and hostile) behaviors during interactions were associated with concurrent maternal depressive symptoms, single parent status, and low family income. In turn, positive parenting predicted improved infant behavioral regulation (i.e., positive affect and social behaviors following the stressor) and decreased cortisol reactivity (i.e., posttask levels that were similar to or lower than baseline cortisol). These findings suggest increased risk for those women experiencing high levels of depressive symptoms postpartum and highlight the importance of maternal positive interactive behaviors during the first year for children's neurodevelopment.

This study examined the relationships between perceived self-competence, intellectual ability, emotional understanding, and parent report of social adaptation in 18 nonretarded children with autism. Children who perceived themselves as less socially competent demonstrated stronger intellectual capabilities, greater understanding of others' emotional experiences, and were better able to access their own emotional experiences than were those who perceived themselves as more socially competent. According to their parents, children who reported less social competence also displayed more socially adaptive behavior, and expressed more interest and less sadness and fear than did those who reported greater social competence. Discussion focuses on potential effects of this heightened capacity for emotional understanding on self-esteem and implications for intervention with highly intelligent persons with autism.

This series of four studies examined the psychosocial functioning of children, adolescents, and adults with developmental dyslexia. One sample of nonreferred dyslexic and nondyslexic men, and three different samples of dyslexic and normally achieving control children and adolescents were studied. The child samples included both clinic-referred and nonreferred populations, and sibling and nonsibling control designs. Variables assessed included depressive and ADHD symptomatology, self-concept and, in the adult sample, socioeconomic status and other life adjustment variables.

We found that, across three samples, children and adolescents report lower global self-worth and lower perceived competence in scholastic domains, more depressive symptomatology, and (both by self- and parent report) more ADHD symptomatology than normal achievers. In contrast, adult dyslexic men, while also perceiving themselves as less intelligent than their peers, reporting more generalized psychological distress, and showing less social mobility, were nonetheless comparable to their peers in terms of global self-worth, depressive symptomatology, and other indices of adult adjustment and satisfaction. Results are discussed in terms of a developmental “niche-finding” model, in which the shift into adult life may foster more constructive experiences and internal processes.

Continuity in individual patterns of adaptation and maladaptation was examined across the years from infancy to preadolescence. Forty-seven preadolescent subjects from a 15-year longitudinal study of children at risk for developmental problems participated. Subjects were intensively observed in a 4-week summer daycamp at age 10. Children were then rated on scales of agency, social skill, dependency, positive and negative affect, and ranked on emotional health. In addition, Q-sorts were performed to obtain an overall description of the child's personality, and observations were made of child-adult interactions. Significant differences were found between secure and insecure attachment groups on molar measures of adaptation including social competence and ego resiliency. Children with anxious histories were also rated higher on dependency and were found to be more frequently involved in interactions with adults than children with secure histories. In addition, differences were found in the patterns of adaptation exhibited by children with the two types of anxious attachment history. Children with resistant histories were found to be more often the recipients of adult-initiated contact, specifically support and nurturance, than were children with avoidant attachment histories. Comparison of overall personality style through correlations of composite counselor Q-sorts identified children with secure and resistant attachment histories as most like other children with the same attachment history. Results for avoidant children did not achieve significance. Patterns of contemporary child behavior revealed through counselor Q-sorts were also found to be related to theoretically derived predictions from patterns observed in infancy.

Several authors have recently suggested that imitation may be a developmental “precursor” of a theory of mind and have linked impaired imitation in children with autism to their failure to develop a theory of mind. The present study investigated early-emerging procedural and gestural imitation abilities in children with autism. Children with autism were found to have intact basic-level gestural and procedural imitation. We discuss these results in terms of their relation to a specific developmental delay hypothesis of autism and re-assess the status of imitation as a developmental precursor of a theory of mind.

Developmental adaptations to violent environments involve a multitude of cascading effects spanning many levels of analysis from genes to behavior. In this review, we (a) examine the potentiating effects of violence on genetic vulnerabilities and the functioning of neurotransmitter systems in producing both internalizing and externalizing psychopathology; (b) describe implications of violence exposure for brain development, particularly within the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex; and (c) consider the effects of violence on developing human stress and startle responses. This review integrates literatures on the developmental effects of violence among rodents, nonhuman primates, and humans. Many neurobiological changes that are adaptive for survival in violent contexts become maladaptive in other environments, conferring life-long risk for psychopathology.

Intervention research with children and adolescents has suffered from a dearth of relevant theoretical grounding and from the lack of a reciprocal “feedback” mechanism by which clinical trials can inform relevant theorizing and conceptualization. There are hopeful signs, however, of increasing confluence between clinical efforts and theoretical models. Indeed, the key issue I discuss is how intervention studies can yield information about developmental and clinical theory as well as mechanisms related to psychopathology. Specific research examples in the field, particularly those emanating from the Multimodal Treatment Study of Children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (MTA study), reveal that probes of moderator and mediator variables can clearly enhance our knowledge of relevant processes and mechanisms. In fact, recent MTA findings have relevance for models of genetic and epigenetic influence on symptomatology related to attentional deficits and hyperactivity. It would be overzealous, however, to make premature claims regarding etiologic variables from intervention research, as treatment studies typically address variables that are causally far “downstream” from primary causal factors and most clinical trials have statistical power that is barely sufficient for main outcome questions, much less mediational linkages. Overall, the field has severely underutilized experimental intervention research to subserve the dual ends of improving the lives of youth and advancing theoretical conceptualization regarding development and psychopathology.

During the last quarter century, developmental psychopathology has become increasingly inclusive and now spans disciplines ranging from psychiatric genetics to primary prevention. As a result, developmental psychopathologists have extended traditional diathesis–stress and transactional models to include causal processes at and across all relevant levels of analysis. Such research is embodied in what is known as the multiple levels of analysis perspective. We describe how multiple levels of analysis research has informed our current thinking about antisocial and borderline personality development among trait impulsive and therefore vulnerable individuals. Our approach extends the multiple levels of analysis perspective beyond simple Biology × Environment interactions by evaluating impulsivity across physiological systems (genetic, autonomic, hormonal, neural), psychological constructs (social, affective, motivational), developmental epochs (preschool, middle childhood, adolescence, adulthood), sexes (male, female), and methods of inquiry (self-report, informant report, treatment outcome, cardiovascular, electrophysiological, neuroimaging). By conducting our research using any and all available methods across these levels of analysis, we have arrived at a developmental model of trait impulsivity that we believe confers a greater understanding of this highly heritable trait and captures at least some heterogeneity in key behavioral outcomes, including delinquency and suicide.

The relationship between developmental exposure to adversity and affective disorders is reviewed. Adversity discussed herein includes physical and sexual abuse, neglect, or loss of a caregiver in humans. While these stressors can occur at any point during development, the unique temporal relationship to specific depressive symptoms was the focus of discussion. Further influences of stress exposure during sensitive periods can vary by gender and duration of abuse as well. Data from animal studies are presented to provide greater translational and causal understanding of how sensitive periods, different types of psychosocial stressors, and sex interact to produce depressive-like behaviors. Findings from maternal separation, isolation rearing, chronic variable stress, and peer–peer rearing paradigms clarify interpretation about how various depressive behaviors are influenced by age of exposure. Depressive behaviors are broken down into the following categories: mood and affect, anhedonia, energy, working memory, sleep–wake, appetite changes, suicide, and general malaise. Cross-species evidence from humans, nonhuman primates, rats, and mice within each of these categories is discussed. In conclusion, sensitive periods for affective-related behaviors (anxiety, mood, and controllability) occur earlier in life, while other aspects of depression are associated with adversity later during adolescence.