This study explores the developmental trajectory of externalizing problems in a sample of 101 children of adolescent mothers from preschool through third grade using hierarchical linear models (HLM). First, a detailed assessment of the structure of the developmental trajectory of externalizing problems is provided. Second, the impact of three risk factors (infant attachment, maternal depressive symptomatology, and child sex) on the developmental course of externalizing problems is assessed. Both avoidant and disorganized attachment and higher levels of maternal depressive symptomatology were associated with higher levels of externalizing problems at 9 years of age. Girls also showed higher externalizing problems relative to their same-sex peers than did boys. In addition, maternal depressive symptomatology related to the rate of change in these problems over time; the greater the mother's depression, the faster externalizing problems tended to increase. Although the overall level of maternal depressive symptomatology was related to children's externalizing problems for secure, avoidant, and disorganized groups, changes in maternal depressive symptomatology over time predicted levels of externalizing problems only for children with avoidant insecure attachments.

This paper addresses the issue of whether prevention research methods, particularly those involving randomized prevention trials, can be used to test theories concerning the etiology of psychopathology. Based on recent empirical and theoretical work in developmental psychopathology, three aspects of etiologic theory are discussed: risk and protective mechanisms, the integration of environmental and genetic factors, and patterns of developmental progression in psychopathology across the life span. It is suggested that integration of prevention trial methods with methods from passive correlational designs, behavioral genetics, and longitudinal studies allows for unique opportunities to test hypotheses about etiology. Empirical literature on the development and prevention of internalizing disorders, particularly depression, is presented to support this argument. Limitations of prevention trials for testing theory are also reviewed.

Maternal cocaine use during pregnancy can affect the infant directly through toxic effects or indirectly through cocaine's influence on maternal psychological status. We followed 160 cocaine exposed and 56 nonexposed infants and their mothers identified at birth through interview and/or urine screen. Although cocaine exposure defined the groups, infant exposure to alcohol, marijuana, and tobacco was allowed to vary. Infants were 99% African American and poor. All mothers completed the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI) and infants were given the Bayley Scales of Mental (MDI) and Motor (PDI) Development at a mean corrected age of 17 ± 8 months. Both MDIs (94 ± 17 vs. 103 ± 16) and PDIs (101 ± 16 vs. 108 ± 12) were lower for cocaine exposed infants. Psychological distress was greater in cocaine using mothers. Hierarchical multiple regression was used to assess the relative effects of gestational age, maternal psychological distress, and cocaine and polydrug exposure on infant outcomes. Both psychological distress and cocaine and alcohol exposure predicted lower MDIs after controlling for prematurity. Neither psychological distress nor alcohol exposure predicted motor outcome, while cocaine had a significant effect. Tobacco and marijuana exposure were unrelated to outcome. These findings provide further support for direct effects of cocaine and alcohol on infant development, as well as highlight the need for studies to document maternal psychological factors, which may increase child risk for poorer outcomes.

Despite the detrimental consequences of child maltreatment on developmental processes, some individuals show remarkable resilience, with few signs of psychopathology, while others succumb to dysfunction. Given that oxytocin has been shown to be involved in social affiliation, attachment, social support, trust, empathy, and other social or reproductive behaviors, we chose to examine the possible moderation of maltreatment effects on perceived social support and on psychological symptoms by a common single nucleotide polymorphism (rs53576) in the oxytocin receptor gene. We studied adolescents (N = 425) aged approximately 13–15, including participants with objectively documented maltreatment histories (N = 263) and a nonmaltreated comparison group from a comparable low socioeconomic status background (N = 162). There was a significant genotype by maltreatment interaction, such that maltreated adolescents with the G/G genotype perceived significantly lower social support compared to maltreated A-carriers, with no effect of genotype in the comparison group. Maltreated G/Gs also reported higher levels of internalizing symptoms than did A-carriers, even though they did not differ from them on objective measures of maltreatment (type, duration, or severity). G/G homozygotes may be more attuned to negative social experiences, such as family maltreatment, while maltreated A-carriers were indistinguishable from nonmaltreated adolescents in levels of mental health symptoms.

This Special Issue of Development and Psychopathology is devoted to the psychological and biological consequences of stress across the developmental course. Contributions in this Special Issue address topics that are central to elucidating the impact that stress exerts on developmental outcomes. These issues are investigated through examining a diverse array of populations, including rodent and nonhuman primate samples, as well as cohorts of maltreated children and adolescents with and without posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), children who were adopted from Romanian orphanages at differing points during infancy, aging Holocaust survivors and their offspring, children with depressive disorder, adolescents with schizotypal personality disorder, and adults with bipolar and unipolar mood disorders.

Despite the assumed prevalence of risk-taking behavior in adolescence, the laboratory evidence of risk taking remains scarce, and the individual variation poorly understood. Drawing from neuroscience studies, we tested whether risk and reward orientation are influenced by the perspective that adolescents take when making risky decisions. Perspective taking was manipulated by cuing participants prior to each choice whether the decision was made for “self,” or from the perspective of an “other” (the experimenter in Experiment 1; a hypothetical peer in Experiment 2). In Experiment 1, we show a developmental decrease in risk-taking behavior across different stages of adolescence. In addition, all age groups made fewer risky choices for the experimenter, but the difference between self and other was larger in early adolescence. In Experiment 2, we show that high sensation-seeking (SS) adolescents make more risky choices than low SS adolescents, but both groups make a similar differentiation for other individuals (low risk-taking or high risk-taking peers). Together, the results show that younger adolescents and high SS adolescents make more risky choices for themselves, but can appreciate that others may make fewer risky choices. The developmental change toward more rational decisions versus emotional, impulsive decisions may reflect, in part, more efficient integration of others’ perspectives into one's decision making. These developmental results are discussed regarding brain systems important for risk taking and perspective taking.

This paper examines the relationship between childhood exposure to cumulative risk and three indicators of psychosocial adjustment in adulthood (educational attainment, mental health, and criminal behavior) and tests three different models (linear, quadratic, and interaction). Data were collected over several time points from individuals who were part of a prospective cohort design study that matched children with documented cases of abuse and/or neglect with children without such histories and followed them into adulthood. Hierarchical multiple regressions compared linear and quadratic models and then examined potential moderating effects of child abuse/neglect and gender. Exposure to a greater number of childhood risk factors was significantly related to fewer years of education, more anxiety and depression symptomatology, and more criminal arrests in adulthood. The relationship between cumulative risk and years of education demonstrated a curvilinear pattern, whereas the relationship between cumulative risk and both mental health and criminal arrests was linear. Child abuse/neglect did not moderate these relationships, although there were direct effects for both child abuse/neglect and gender on criminal arrests, with more arrests for abused/neglected individuals than controls and more for males than females. Gender interacted with cumulative risk to impact educational attainment and criminal behavior, suggesting that interventions may be more effective if tailored differently for males and females. Interventions may need to be multifaceted and designed to address these different domains of functioning.

The present study evaluated the independent and cumulative effects of recent life stress, previous trauma, and recent trauma exposure on salivary cortisol levels among school-aged children. Sixty-eight children (mean age = 10.7 years) reported their exposure to life stressors and traumatic events in the 12 months preceding the study. Children and their caregivers reported frequency of exposure to trauma earlier in life. Exposure to life stress within the past 12 months was related to higher afternoon cortisol levels. Exposure to high levels of recent trauma in combination with frequent exposure to trauma earlier in life was related to both lower morning cortisol levels and higher afternoon cortisol levels. Results suggest that frequency, duration, and severity of exposure to stress and trauma played key roles in the prediction of basal cortisol levels in a community sample of urban youth.

The field of developmental psychopathology has grown rapidly over the past several decades and research conducted within this framework has made substantial contributions to our understanding of human adaptation and maladaptation (Cicchetti & Cohen, 1995a, 1995b; Cicchetti & Richters, 1997; Cicchetti & Toth, 1998a). Influenced by the theoretical expositions of several prominent developmentalists, including Jay Belsky (1984), Uri Bronfenbrenner (1979), Robert Emde (1994), Donald Ford and Richard Lerner (1992), Michael Lewis (1997), Patricia Minuchin (1985), Arnold Sameroff (1983; Sameroff & Emde, 1989), Alan Sroufe (Sroufe, Egeland, & Kreutzer, 1990), and Esther Thelen and Linda Smith (1994), theorists have called attention to the importance of viewing the development of psychopathology within a continuously unfolding, dynamic, and ever changing context (see, for example, Belsky, 1993; Cicchetti & Aber, 1986; Cicchetti & Lynch, 1993; Cicchetti & Toth, 1998b; Coie & Jacobs, 1993; Jensen & Hoagwood, 1997; Richters & Cicchetti, 1993; Susman, 1993). Moreover, we now know that social contexts exert effects not only on psychological processes but also on biological structures and processes (Boyce, Frank, Jensen, Kessler, Nelson, Steinberg, et al., 1998; Cicchetti & Tucker, 1994; Eisenberg, 1995; Nelson & Bloom, 1997).

Two cohorts of adolescents who were categorized at either 21 or 31 months of age as extremely inhibited or uninhibited completed the Youth Self-Report (YSR), and their parents completed the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL). In the second year, inhibited children typically cease ongoing behavior and vocalizing, seek comfort from a familiar person, or withdraw in response to unfamiliar situations. By contrast uninhibited children do not become subdued by novelty and are sociable and outgoing, often vocalizing, smiling, and approaching unfamiliar persons or objects. The 13-year-old adolescents who had been categorized as inhibited at 21 months of age scored significantly lower than adolescents originally classified as uninhibited on the Total Externalizing, Delinquent Behavior, and Aggressive Behavior Scales. Parental ratings of Total Externalizing and Aggressive behavior on the CBCL agreed with the Youth Self-Report. The second cohort of adolescents who had been selected at 31 months yielded similar findings, but only for males. These results suggest that important aspects of the original temperamental profile have been preserved over a 12-year period.

We examined puberty-specific effects on affect-related behavior and on the psychophysiology of defensive and appetitive motivation while controlling for age. Adolescents (N = 94, ages = 12 and 13 years) viewed 75 pictures (International Affective Picture System: pleasant, neutral, and aversive) while listening to auditory probes. Startle response and postauricular (PA) reflex were collected as measures of defensive and appetitive motivation, respectively. Pubertal status and measures of anxiety/stress reaction and sensation/thrill seeking were obtained. Mid-/late pubertal adolescents showed enhanced startle amplitude across all picture valences. A Puberty × Valence interaction revealed that mid-/late pubertal adolescents showed appetitive potentiation of the PA, whereas pre-/early pubertal adolescents showed no modulation of the PA reflex. Mid-/late pubertal adolescents also scored significantly higher on measures of sensation/thrill seeking than did their pre-/early pubertal peers and puberty moderated the association between psychophysiology and behavioral measures, suggesting that it plays a role in reorganizing defensive and appetitive motivational systems.

The current study examined biomarkers of stress in war-exposed young children and addressed maternal and child factors that may correlate with children's stress response. Participants were 232 Israeli children aged 1.5–5 years, including 148 children exposed to continuous war. Similarly, 56 were diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and 92 were defined as exposed-no-PTSD. Child cortisol (CT) and salivary alpha amylase (sAA), biomarkers of the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal and sympathetic–adrenal–medullary arms of the stress response, were measured at baseline, following challenge, and at recovery. Maternal CT and sAA, PTSD symptoms, and reciprocal parenting, and child negative emotionality and regulatory strategies were assessed. Differences between war-exposed children and controls emerged, but these were related to child PTSD status. Children with PTSD exhibited consistently low CT and sAA, exposed-no-PTSD displayed consistently high CT and sAA, and controls showed increase in CT following challenge and decrease at recovery and low sAA. Exposed children showed higher negative emotionality; however, whereas exposed-no-PTSD children employed comfort-seeking strategies, children with PTSD used withdrawal. Predictors of child CT included maternal CT, PTSD symptoms, low reciprocity, and negative emotionality. Findings suggest that high physiological arousal combined with approach strategies may be associated with greater resilience in the context of early trauma.

Progress in the field of developmental psychopathology is appraised in general and with regard to the particular lens of our understanding of the development of disorder. In general, the outpouring of research on various features of disorder and underlying processes could not have even been imagined 25 years ago. The progress is dazzling. At the same time, work on the development of disorders, beginning with antecedent patterns of adaptation, pales in comparison with work on the correlates of disorder. However, progress has been made. It is well established that the brain develops in the context of experience and that organism and environment continually interact over time. Something is now known about pathways leading to certain disorders and what initiates and impels individuals along them. If developmental psychopathology is to completely fulfill its promise of offering new ways of conceptualizing disorder and new guidance for prevention and intervention, much more work on developmental processes and a new way of exploring the development of disorder will be needed. Such a path is suggested.

This longitudinal study extended previous work of Wiesner and Capaldi by examining the validity of differing offending pathways and the prediction from the pathways to substance use and depressive symptoms for 204 young men. Findings from this study indicated good external validity of the offending trajectories. Further, substance use and depressive symptoms in young adulthood (i.e., ages 23–24 through 25–26 years) varied depending on different trajectories of offending from early adolescence to young adulthood (i.e., ages 12–13 through 23–24 years), even after controlling for antisocial propensity, parental criminality, demographic factors, and prior levels of each outcome. Specifically, chronic high-level offenders had higher levels of depressive symptoms and engaged more often in drug use compared with very rare, decreasing low-level, and decreasing high-level offenders. Chronic low-level offenders, in contrast, displayed fewer systematic differences compared with the two decreasing offender groups and the chronic high-level offenders. The findings supported the contention that varying courses of offending may have plausible causal effects on young adult outcomes beyond the effects of an underlying propensity for crime.Support for the Oregon Youth Study was provided by a grant (R37 MH 37940) from the Prevention, Early Intervention, and Epidemiology Branch, National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), US Public Health Service (PHS). Support for the Couples Study was provided by a grant (HD 46364) from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) and National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), US PHS. Support was also provided by a grant (MH 46690) from the Prevention, Early Intervention, and Epidemiology Branch, NIMH, Office of Research on Minority Health, US PHS. We thank Jane Wilson, Rhody Hinks, and the Oregon Youth Study team for high-quality data collection, and Lee Owen for assistance with data preparation.

The thesis of this paper is that a reciprocal relation must develop between basic research on the developmental psychopathology of conduct disorder and applied treatment studies. Basic research can guide treatment design, and treatment outcomes can test developmental theories. The nature of conduct disorder seems to be one of multivariate components that act in self-perpetuating ways across development. These components include family, child-cognitive, peer group, and ecocommunity systems. Interventions that are directed toward just one component may be successful in producing proximal changes in the targeted domain, but they are not likely to be successful in long-term prevention of serious conduct disorder because other forces counteract these changes. The goal of treatment research needs to be long-term conduct disorder prevention. Two kinds of treatment studies are needed, one kind that is directed toward developing a technology of successful change procedures for individual processes and a second kind that uses these multiple change procedures in a comprehensive effort to prevent serious conduct disorder.

Although children's security in the context of the interparental relationship has been identified as a key explanatory mechanism in pathways between family discord and child psychopathology, little is known about the inner workings of emotional security as a goal system. Thus, the objective of this paper is to describe how our reformulation of emotional security theory within an ethological and evolutionary framework may advance the characterization of the architecture and operation of emotional security and, in the process, cultivate sustainable growing points in developmental psychopathology. The first section of the paper describes how children's security in the interparental relationship is organized around a distinctive behavioral system designed to defend against interpersonal threat. Building on this evolutionary foundation for emotional security, the paper offers an innovative taxonomy for identifying qualitatively different ways children try to preserve their security and its innovative implications for more precisely informing understanding of the mechanisms in pathways between family and developmental precursors and children's trajectories of mental health. In the final section, the paper highlights the potential of the reformulation of emotional security theory to stimulate new generations of research on understanding how children defend against social threats in ecologies beyond the interparental dyad, including both familial and extrafamilial settings.

The differential susceptibility to parenting model was examined in relation to toddler self-regulation in a prospective longitudinal study of infants born preterm or low birth weight. We followed 153 mother–infant dyads across five time points between the infant's Neonatal Intensive Care Unit stay and 24 months postterm. Assessments of infant temperament, quality of early parenting interactions, contextual variables, and toddler effortful control and behavior problems were conducted. Results supported differential susceptibility and dual risk models in addition to documenting main effects of early parenting on children's emerging self-regulation. Our data suggested that preterm or low birth weight infants who were prone to distress or rated by mothers as more difficult were particularly susceptible to the effects of early negative parenting.

Deterioration in premorbid functioning is a common feature of schizophrenia, but sensitivity to psychosis conversion among clinical high-risk samples has not been examined. This study evaluates premorbid functioning as a predictor of psychosis conversion among a clinical high-risk sample, controlling for effects of prior developmental periods. Participants were 270 clinical high-risk individuals in the North American Prodrome Longitudinal Study—I, 78 of whom converted to psychosis over the next 2.5 years. Social, academic, and total maladjustment in childhood, early adolescence, and late adolescence were rated using the Cannon–Spoor Premorbid Adjustment Scale. Early adolescent social dysfunction significantly predicted conversion to psychosis (hazard ratio = 1.30, p = .014), independently of childhood social maladjustment and independently of severity of most baseline positive and negative prodromal symptoms. Baseline prodromal symptoms of disorganized communication, social anhedonia, suspiciousness, and diminished ideational richness mediated this association. Early adolescent social maladjustment and baseline suspiciousness together demonstrated moderate positive predictive power (59%) and high specificity (92.1%) in predicting conversion. Deterioration of academic and total functioning, although observed, did not predict conversion to psychosis. Results indicate early adolescent social dysfunction to be an important early predictor of conversion. As such, it may be a good candidate for inclusion in prediction algorithms and could represent an advantageous target for early intervention.

This prospective, longitudinal study explored the relationship between mothers unresolved/disorganized (U/d) attachment status and frightened/frightening (FR) maternal behavior and investigated possible variations due to whether mothers were U/d for loss versus abuse. The role of other factors that might predict maternal FR behavior was also examined. Pregnant women (n = 116) were administered the Adult Attachment Interview and later observed at home for 30–40 min interacting with their first-born 8-month-olds. Women classified as U/d with respect to loss and/or abuse displayed substantially higher levels of FR behavior with their infants than did mothers who were not classified as U/d (i.e., secure/autonomous, dismissing, or preoccupied), but these groups did not differ on maternal sensitivity. Mothers classified as U/d who had a secondary secure/autonomous classification also showed FR behavior but at low levels than U/d-insecure mothers. Independent of U/d status, mothers who had lost a parent, versus those who did not, more often displayed FR behavior with their infants. Finally, U/d loss fully mediated the association between loss of an attachment figure other than the parent and FR behavior, and partially mediated the relationship between loss of a parent and FR behavior.This research was supported by the National Science Foundation and the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health. We are grateful to the mothers and infants for investing time and energy in this project. We also appreciate the thoughtful comments provided by the three reviewers.

Restricted and repetitive behaviors (RRBs) are hallmark symptoms of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs); however, it has proven difficult to understand the mechanisms underlying these behaviors. One hypothesis suggests that RRBs are the result of a core deficit in attention. Alternatively, abnormalities of the motor system may constitute the central mechanism underlying RRBs, given motor deficits observed in ASDs. In this experiment, we investigated the etiology of RRBs and the relationship between attention and motor deficits. Movement impairments (a) may be indirectly related to attention deficits, (b) may result from a shared compromised process, or (c) may be independent. Twenty-two adolescents with ASD and 20 typically developing participants performed a spatial attention task. Movement impairments were assessed with a rhythmic tapping task. Attentional orienting and motor control were found to be related and supported the hypothesis that these impairments in ASD arise from a shared process. In contrast, measures of attention switching and motor control were found to be independent. Stereotyped behaviors, as assessed by parental ratings, were related more to the degree of motor impairment than to deficits of attention. These results suggest that both attentional orienting deficits and stereotyped RRBs are related to a compromised motor system.