The validity of a developmentally based life-stress model of depression was evaluated in 88 clinic-referred youngsters. The model focused on (a) the role of child–environment transactions, (b) the specificity of stress–psychopathology relations, and (c) the consideration of both episodic and chronic stress. Semistructured diagnostic and life-stress interviews were administered to youngsters and their parents. As predicted, in the total sample child depression was associated with interpersonal episodic and chronic stress, whereas externalizing disorder was associated with noninterpersonal episodic and chronic stress. However, the pattern of results differed somewhat in boys and girls. Youngsters with comorbid depression and externalizing disorder tended to experience the highest stress levels. Support was obtained for a stress-generation model of depression, wherein children precipitate stressful events and circumstances. In fact, stress that was in part dependent on children's contribution distinguished best among diagnostic groups, whereas independent stress had little discriminative power. Results suggest that life-stress research may benefit from the application of transactional models of developmental psychopathology, which consider how children participate in the construction of stressful environments.

In the coming years we can look forward to research that clarifies specific mechanisms that account for the interplay between genetic and environmental influences on psychological development. Certain misconceptions, arising from research traditions initiated by Francis Galton on the one hand and G. Stanley Hall on the other, may now be set aside in the light of new evidence. Three important findings promise a new synthesis. First, while each of us is born with about 100,000 genes that, under ordinary circumstances, do not change, the expression of these genes on behavior is dynamic. Some genetic influences are expressed early in development, but others are manifest many years later. Second, genetic factors often account not only for some of the individual differences in the measures of adjustments we typically use to monitor development but also for individual differences in environmental experiences that covary with those measures of adjustment. Indeed, genetic factors have been found to account for a surprising amount of covariance between measures of the social environment and of adjustment in young children, adolescents, and adults. Third, the expression of genetic influences are very malleable and responsive to the social environment. These new findings are revealing specific mechanisms for the interplay of genetic and social environmental factors in four domains. First, the social environment may play both a necessary and specific role in the expression of particular genetic influences on a range of behaviors from depression to social responsibility. Second, an understanding of the interplay between the social environment and genetics may lead to a clearer definition of the phenotypic manifestations of particular genetic influences. Third, we will—as a result of these studies—have a clearer fix on the timing of important events and their sequence in development. Fourth, this new genre of work promises to illumine more completely mechanisms by which the social environment influences development independent of genetic influence.

We hypothesized that hyperactivity defines the first stage and that antisocial problems define a second stage in a progression that leads eventually to early-onset delinquency. As expected, a structural equation model (SEM) showed that a latent construct for hyperactivity was significantly related to a latent construct for antisocial problems. We hypothesized that this path reflected a shared mechanism, disrupted parental discipline. A second SEM showed that the relation between hyperactivity and antisocial behavior really reflected a shared disruption in parental discipline. A third SEM showed that having antisocial parents was uniquely correlated with antisocial children but not with hyperactivity. A fourth SEM showed that early-onset delinquency was predicted by a latent construct for antisocial child; but when this was partialed out, the contribution for hyperactivity was nonsignificant.

Social support can have significant stress-preventive and stress-buffering benefits for troubled individuals in everyday circumstances. Consequently, it is not surprising that many therapeutic and preventive programs enlist social support to address problems of child and family psychopathology, especially in the context of “two-generation interventions” that seek to improve child well-being by strengthening parental functioning and parent–child relationships. Home visitation programs are the best known of these two-generation strategies and have become the focus of state-level and national efforts to support families and prevent harm to children. The conclusions of basic research studies on social support converge significantly with the findings of evaluation studies of the impact of home visitation programs to yield important new insights into the conditions in which formal social support is likely to be beneficial, or ineffective, in improving child and family well-being. Both basic and applied research literatures emphasize the importance of linking formal social support to informal social networks in extended families, neighborhoods, and communities, and attending to the complex reactions of the recipients of support and the needs of support providers. These studies are reviewed and evaluated to highlight the connections between social support, developmental psychopathology, and social policy.

This article summarizes the research on the developmental outcomes of postinstitutionalized children and discusses the implications for social policy. Postinstitutionalized children often reach their adoptive families with varying degrees of physical growth retardation, cognitive delays, and socioemotional problems. Many children demonstrate remarkable recovery following adoption. Unfortunately, some of the children continue to display significant problems that require professional intervention. It appears that the children's recovery may be influenced by their early experiences with their birth family and in institutional care, and there is suggestive evidence that postadoption experiences also play a role. These findings indicate that preadoption and postadoption services may support the outcome of postinstitutionalized children.

Nongenetic factors have a major influence on psychopathology. Knowledge on specific psychosocial risk and protective mechanisms is more limited because of inadequate attention to measurement issues, person effects on the environment, and the possibility of genetic mediation. Nevertheless, a range of research strategies may be used to provide rigorous tests of causal hypotheses; these have shown the importance of environmentally mediated risks. Challenges for the future include greater use of such research strategies, improved measures of psychosocial risks that can be applied to large samples, investigation of origins of risks, identification of causes of time trends in levels of psychopathology, delineation of psychosocial effects on lifetime liability, understanding of environmental effects on the organism, appreciation of processes involved in developmental programming, and understanding of individual differences in susceptibility.

The number of children was incorrect in the original article published in 1998. The paragraphs (pp. 169 and 170) that contain the values are here reprinted. We regret the errors and any problems they may have caused.

The Relational Psychotherapy Mothers' Group (RPMG), a developmentally informed, supportive psychotherapy designed to serve heroin-addicted mothers with children up to 16 years of age, aims at addressing psychosocial vulnerabilities, and facilitating optimal parenting, among at-risk mothers. We present preliminary evidence on the efficacy of RPMG as an “add on” treatment in comparison with standard methadone counseling alone. At the end of the 24-week treatment period, mothers receiving RPMG plus standard methadone counseling demonstrated lower levels of risk for child maltreatment, greater involvement with their children, and more positive psychosocial adjustment than women who received methadone counseling alone. Children of RPMG participants also reflected fewer problems in multiple areas. At 6 months posttreatment, RPMG recipients continued to be at a relative advantage, although the magnitude of group differences was often attenuated. Notably, urinalyses indicated that RPMG mothers showed greater improvements in levels of opioid use over time than comparison mothers.

This article provides a targeted review of the scientific literature on the effects of experience on early brain and behavioral development and later outcome as it pertains to risk for some forms of child psychopathology. It is argued that ample evidence exists indicating that the prenatal and early postnatal years likely represent a sensitive period with respect to the effects of stress on the developing nervous system and behavioral outcome, and with respect to the long-term beneficial effects of early interventions on brain and behavioral development for some genetically based disorders, such as phenylketonuria and autism. Moreover, evidence suggests that parental mental health during the first years of life has a significant influence on early brain activity and behavior, and long-term behavioral outcome. It is concluded that, although prevention and early intervention efforts should not exclusively focus on the earliest years of development, such efforts should begin during this period. By directing such efforts toward promoting optimal prenatal and infant–toddler development, the long-term negative consequences of factors that have their greatest influences during early development and which set the stage for future development can be minimized or avoided entirely. Several recommendations for public policy and future research pertaining to the effects of early experience on child outcome are offered.

Psychoanalysis ushered in this century. Will its influence on developmental psychopathology end in the next? The paper explores some critical obstacles in the way of psychodynamic research, including the fragmentation of psychoanalytic theory, the relative independence of theory from its clinical and empirical base, the predominance of inductive scientific logic, the polymorphous use of terms, the privacy of clinical data, the dominance of the reconstructionist stance, and the isolation of psychoanalysis from psychology and neurobiology. Notwithstanding these limitations, core psychoanalytic precepts are not only consistent with some of the most important advances of the last decade but may also be helpful in elaborating these new discoveries in the next century. Psychoanalysis is centered on the notion that complex, conflicting, unconscious representations of mental states constitute a key facet of normal and abnormal development. This notion retains its power, and deserves a prominent position among the major frames of reference to guide developmental science in the next century.

Conceptions of mental illness in children are bound by cultural and social conventions of what constitutes healthy and unhealthy development. To understand current conceptualizations of disorders in children, we review the history of these conceptualizations from three intertwined perspectives: a sociopolitical history of American children and families, the history of the mental health fields and scientific disciplines involved in diagnosing children, and the evolution of children's role in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. We review where the field has been in its conception of childhood mental illness throughout the past century, where we believe it is now, and raise questions about the direction in which child diagnosis may be headed as we enter the new millennium. We conclude with social policy recommendations based on theory and research regarding mental disorders in children.

Child development involves both reactive and self-regulatory mechanisms that children develop in conjunction with social norms. A half-century of research has uncovered aspects of the physical basis of attentional networks that produce regulation, and has given us some knowledge of how the social environment may alter them. In this paper, we discuss six forms of developmental plasticity related to aspects of attention. We then focus on effortful or executive aspects of attention, reviewing research on temperamental individual differences and important pathways to normal and pathological development. Pathologies of development may arise when regulatory and reactive systems fail to reach the balance that allows for both self-expression and socially acceptable behavior. It remains a challenge for our society during the next millennium to obtain the information necessary to design systems that allow a successful balance to be realized by the largest possible number of children.

The focus of this article is on internalizing problems that are experienced by children and adolescents. We provide an historical perspective, selectively examine the current state of knowledge, consider advances and gaps in what is known, and identify new research directions. Diagnosis, epidemiology, theory, and research first are considered separately for anxiety and depressive disorders. These internalizing problems, however, whether clinical or subclinical, share many common features and show high comorbidity rates. We emphasize the importance of systematic analysis of comorbid anxiety and depression, including their comorbidity with externalizing problems. This could lead to more valid classification of subtypes of internalizing problems and further an understanding of the diverse conditions that constitute internalized distress. We highlight the need to study anxiety and depression within a developmental psychopathology framework, as well as to include both categorical and dimensional assessments of these problems in the same research designs. This will be essential for understanding the complex interplay of biological and environmental processes that contribute to the emergence, progression, and amelioration of internalizing problems over time.

An early onset of delinquency prior to age 13 years increases the risk of later serious, violent, and chronic offending by a factor of 2–3. Also child delinquents, compared to juveniles who start offending at a later age, tend to have longer delinquent careers. This article summarizes the report of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention's Study Group on Very Young Offenders, chaired by Rolf Loeber and David P. Farrington. The Study Group, consisting of 16 scholars and 23 coauthors, worked for 2 years on preparing a report, undertaking extensive secondary data analyses, and writing chapters in different speciality areas. The report consists of a state of the art review of the developmental background of child delinquents. The report also summarizes risk and protective factors in the individual, family, peer group, school, and neighborhood that affect that development. Lastly, the report renews relevant preventive and remedial interventions in the juvenile justice system, families, peer groups, schools, and neighborhoods, and makes a case for improvement in the integration of services for child delinquents. Policy recommendations are presented to improve methods of dealing with child delinquents by juvenile justice, child welfare, and mental health agencies.

In this article we address several issues regarding problem or antisocial behavior in adolescents. First, we discuss conceptualizations of adolescent problem behavior to answer the question “What do we think we know so far?” Then, we briefly characterize current interventions designed to reduce these behaviors, and their relative success in doing so. Next, we examine earlier attempts to prevent and ameliorate problem behavior (including juvenile delinquency), situating them in the historical context of America from the turn of the century to World War II. Here, we attempt to answer the questions “How did we get to where we are?” and “How can we learn from the past?” Following this, we try to answer the question “Where do we go from here?” and articulate some research and policy implications relevant to developmental psychopathology that arise from these considerations. We argue that problem behavior is viewed most productively in its double aspect, which John Hughlings Jackson called a “double symptom,” with the positive aspect of the symptom reflecting adolescents' attempts to satisfy their developmental needs.

The early emergence and developmental implications of externalizing behavior problems in toddlers and preschoolers are discussed with an emphasis on which young children are truly at risk for continuing problems. The extant literature is reviewed with a focus on the stability of early externalizing behavior and the diverse pathways that young children, primarily boys, with early-emerging problems may follow. Findings from a number of studies, both epidemiological and high risk, suggest that the small subgroup of boys with multiple risk factors that include especially high levels of early hyperactivity and aggression, and high levels of negative parenting and family stress, are most likely to evidence continuing problems at school entry. Sociodemographic and neighborhood influences are also discussed, as are implications for future research and policy.

This article considers whether Asperger syndrome (AS) or high-functioning autism (HFA) necessarily leads to disability or whether AS/HFA simply leads to “difference.” It concludes that the term “difference” in relation to AS/HFA is a more neutral, value-free, and fairer description than terms such as “impairment,” “deficiency,” or “disability”; that the term “disability” only applies to the lower functioning cases of autism; but that the term “disability” may need to be retained for AS/HFA as long as the legal framework provides financial and other support only for individuals with a disability. Two models are summarized which attempt to define in what way individuals with AS/HFA are “different”: the central coherence model, and the folk psychology–folk physics model. The challenge for research is to test the value of such models and to precisely characterize the differences in cognitive style.

Drug abuse research and theory has become much more sophisticated over the last 2 decades, and some of the advancements parallel concepts that are part of the developmental psychopathology approach. The application of the developmental psychopathology perspective to recent drug abuse research findings can provide a greater understanding of that information and point to important areas of future research. Among the drug abuse research areas discussed here and viewed from this perspective are antecedent and co-occurring psychopathological conditions and other problem behaviors; the diversity of the nature of, paths to, and processes and outcomes related to drug abuse; the role of intermediary influences; the interaction of individual and environmental predisposing and protective factors; the role of families and other social institutions in intervention; and developmental stage characteristics. Directions for future research are also discussed.

This is a critical review of the literature related to the neurodevelopmental hypothesis of schizophrenia which posits that the illness is related to abnormal brain development. The review focuses on data deriving from clinical studies, and it is organized according to the life phase from which the data were collected: conception and birth, infancy and childhood up to the onset of the illness, after illness onset, and postmortem. The neurodevelopmental hypothesis is supported by several pieces of evidence, including increased frequency of obstetric complications in patients with schizophrenia; the presence of minor physical anomalies; the presence of neurological, cognitive, and behavioral dysfunction long before illness onset; a course and outcome of the illness itself that is incompatible in most cases with a degenerative illness; the stability of brain structural measures over time; and the absence of postmortem evidence of neurodegeneration. A historical perspective on how this research accumulated and a section addressing important areas of future investigation are also provided. We conclude that schizophrenia is certainly not a degenerative brain disorder, and that it is likely that a brain insult in utero or at birth plays a role in its expression. Current evidence cannot completely exclude the role of environmental variables after birth. In addition, it is possible that other psychiatric disorders may also have a neurodevelopmental component.

This article presents policy recommendations relating to two aspects of primary prevention in mental health: (a) preventing adverse negative outcomes and (b) building health and wellness from the start and maintaining it thereafter. Recommendations for reducing diverse negative outcomes and end states reflect interconnections and bidirectional influences among physical, social–interpersonal, cognitive–academic, and “mental health” outcomes.