A narrative story-stem task was used to evaluate the efficacy of two competing, developmentally informed preventive interventions for maltreated preschoolers and their mothers designed to modify children's internal representations of self and of self in relation to other. One hundred and twenty-two mothers and their preschoolers (87 maltreated and 35 nonmaltreated) served as participants. Maltreating families were randomly assigned to either the preschooler–parent psychotherapy (PPP, n = 23), psychoeducational home visitation (PHV, n = 34), or community standard (CS, n = 30) intervention group at baseline. Thirty-five nonmaltreating (NC) families served as comparisons. Narratives were administered to children at baseline and at the postintervention evaluation. Children in the PPP intervention evidenced more of a decline in maladaptive maternal representations over time than PHV and CS children and displayed a greater decrease in negative self-representations than CS, PHV, and NC children. Also, the mother–child relationship expectations of PPP children became more positive over the course of the intervention, as compared to NC and PHV participants. These results suggest that an attachment-theory informed model of intervention (PPP) is more effective at improving representations of self and of caregivers than is a didactic model of intervention directed at parenting skills. Findings are discussed with respect to their implications for developmental theory, with a specific focus on attachment theory and internal working models of relationships.

Autism is a neurobiological disorder that is diagnosed through careful behavioral assessment in early childhood. In this paper, we review recent studies that have attempted to reveal the underlying causes of autism using a variety of techniques. Particular emphasis is placed on techniques that have been used by a number of different laboratories, including structural magnetic resonance imaging and postmortem studies of neuroanatomy. Neurobiological and neuropsychological data from individuals across a wide age range are examined from a neurodevelopmental perspective. We discuss how these recent advances have led us to develop a growth dysregulation hypothesis of autism. Finally, we discuss how this hypothesis may lead to new innovations in autism research.

The present study uses a population-based sample of 6,806 adult twins from same-sex and opposite-sex twin pairs to examine sex differences in the underlying genetic and environmental architecture of the development of antisocial behavior (AB). Retrospective reports of AB during three different developmental periods were obtained: prior to age 15 years (childhood), age 15–17 years (adolescent), and age 18 years and older (adult). Structural equation modeling analyses revealed that there was no evidence for sex-specific genetic or sex-specific shared family environmental influences on the development of AB; that is, the types of genetic and environmental influence were similar for males and females. For both sexes, a model that allowed for genetic influences on adolescent and adult AB that were not shared with childhood AB fit better than a model with a single genetic factor. In contrast, shared environmental influences on adolescent and adult AB overlapped entirely with shared environmental influences on childhood AB. Genetic factors played a larger role in variation in childhood AB among females, whereas shared environmental factors played a larger role among males. However, heritability of AB increased from childhood to adolescence and adulthood for both sexes, and the magnitude of genetic and environmental influences on adolescent and adult AB was approximately equal across sex. We speculate that sex differences in timing of puberty may account for the earlier presence of genetic effects among females.

A longitudinal study with a nested preventive intervention was used to test five hypotheses generated from developmental theories of antisocial behavior. The longitudinal study followed 909 boys from their kindergarten year up to 17 years of age. The randomized multimodal preventive intervention targeted a subsample of boys who were rated disruptive by their kindergarten teacher. Semiparametric analyses of developmental trajectories for self-reported physical aggression, vandalism, and theft identified more types of trajectories than expected from recent theoretical models. Also, these trajectories did not confirm theoretical models, which suggest a general increase of antisocial behavior during adolescence. The majority of boys were on either a low-level antisocial behavior trajectory or a declining trajectory. Less than 6% appeared to follow a trajectory of chronic antisocial behavior. Comparisons between disruptive and nondisruptive kindergarten boys confirmed the hypothesis that disruptive preschool children are at higher risk of following trajectories of frequent antisocial behavior. Comparisons between treated and untreated disruptive boys confirmed that an intensive preventive intervention between 7 and 9 years of age, which included parent training and social skills training, could change the long-term developmental trajectories of physical aggression, vandalism, and theft for disruptive kindergarten boys in low socioeconomic areas. The results suggest that trajectories of violent behavior can be deflected by interventions that do not specifically target the physiological deficits that are often hypothesized to be a causal factor. The value of longitudinal–experimental studies from early childhood onward is discussed.

In the authors' experience interactions between clinical and laboratory research have been greatly mutually facilitatory in the understanding and development of new treatments for the major mental illnesses. Examples in the literature are also highlighted to show how cross-disciplinary studies are important in understanding the subtle interactions of genetic and environmental mechanisms in psychiatric illness. Yet, the results of some current science policies encouraging project focus and superspecialization can lead to the separation of clinical and basic investigators, which threatens the integration of psychological complexity into the neurobiology of psychiatry at both a molecular and behavioral level. This paper endorses renewed effort toward the multidisciplinary team approach under the leadership of a physician–scientist in order to better integrate many fields of study critical to ameliorating the effects of psychiatric illness.

Etiological research spanning domains of inquiry as diverse as social psychology and molecular genetics has identified a number of potential factors that likely contribute to the development and clinical manifestation of schizophrenia. In this article, we first highlight the challenges inherent in developing cogent etiological models that represent both the diversity of suspected causal influences and their mechanisms of action. Then, using our own research program as a heuristic context, we present a general analytical framework for identifying and integrating multiple types of etiologic factors across different levels of analysis in the prediction of schizophrenia. In recognition of the myriad complexities of multifactorial causation, we argue that a multilevel causal perspective is required for the development and advancement of a fully nuanced theory of schizophrenia etiology and pathophysiology.

The Fast Track prevention trial was used to test hypotheses from the Early-Starter Model of the development of chronic conduct problems. We randomly assigned 891 high-risk first-grade boys and girls (51% African American) to receive the long-term Fast Track prevention or not. After 4 years, outcomes were assessed through teacher ratings, parent ratings, peer nominations, and child self-report. Positive effects of assignment to intervention were evident in teacher and parent ratings of conduct problems, peer social preference scores, and association with deviant peers. Assessments of proximal goals of intervention (e.g., hostile attributional bias, problem-solving skill, harsh parental discipline, aggressive and prosocial behavior at home and school) collected after grade 3 were found to partially mediate these effects. The findings are interpreted as consistent with developmental theory.

This study tests the contextual social–cognitive model, which has served as the basis for the Coping Power program, an indicated preventive intervention with at-risk preadolescent boys at the time of transition from elementary to middle school. The contextual social–cognitive model assumes that aggressive children have distortions in their social–cognitive appraisals and deficiencies in their social problem solving skills and that their parents have deficiencies in their parenting behaviors. To test this model, boys were identified as being at risk on the basis of fourth grade and fifth grade teachers' ratings of children's aggressive and disruptive behaviors, and interventions were delivered at the end of elementary school and the beginning of middle school. The intervention effect on delinquency, substance use, and school behavior outcomes was at least partially mediated through intervention-produced changes in child and parent variables that were targets for the intervention. These analyses provided unique support for the assumptions in the contextual social–cognitive model that changes in these mediating processes, even among high-risk boys, can have a meaningful impact on later negative outcomes.

This paper reviews the model-building approach to developmental psychopathology as it applies to understanding the influence of peers on adolescent problem behavior. Considerable longitudinal evidence suggests that deviant peer involvement is prognostic of escalations in various forms of problem behavior, including substance use, delinquent behavior, and violence. Most convincing, however, are data from randomized intervention trials that show alarming iatrogenic effects for aggregating high-risk peers. This paper shows that intervention research can also clarify the role of parents in reducing deviant peer involvement. Results from a 4-year prevention trial are reported for a community sample of multiethnic middle school youth. Random assignment to family-centered services in a school Family Resource center produced reduced growth in deviant peer involvement. The extensiveness of the parenting intervention was correlated with reduced growth in deviant peer involvement, especially among high-risk youth. Findings are discussed with respect to developmental theory and the design of future intervention trials that clarify the role of adults in structuring the emerging adolescents' world of peers.