This study examined risk factors from infancy associated with the development of preschool disruptive behavior problems across child, parent, and sociodemographic domains. Risk factors that consistently were associated with the prediction of disruptive behavior at age 5 years included disorganized attachment classification at 12 months, and maternal personality risk and child-rearing disagreements during the second year. In addition, infants with disorganized attachment status at 12 months whose mothers perceived them as difficult in the second year showed significantly higher aggressive problems at age 5 years than those with only one of the two risk factors present. When pathways leading to clinically elevated aggression at age 5 were explored, infant disorganized attachment status, maternal personality risk, and child-rearing disagreements demonstrated equivalent predictive validity as child aggression assessed at age 3 years.

A new instrument, the Why It Happened questionnaire, was developed for assessing characterological and behavior self-blame in two samples of third- through ninth-grade children (Sample 1: n = 121; sample 2: n = 322). Children's responses were very consistent within specific classes of negative events but only moderately consistent across time. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses of open-ended and self-rating responses, respectively, revealed that children's self-blame attributions were only moderately consistent across different classes of negative events, and that children's tendency to make characterological and behavioral attributions were unrelated for academic events and moderately correlated for social events. Multiple regression revealed that characterological self-blame about academic and social events were not significantly related to self-reported depression until ninth grade. Implications for cognitive diathesis-stress models of depression for children are discussed.

The most commonly reported finding from structural brain studies in autism is abnormality of the cerebellum. Autopsy and magnetic resonance imaging (MR) studies from nine independent research groups have found developmental abnormality of the cerebellar vermis or hemispheres in the majority of the more than 240 subjects with autism who were studied. We reported previously that patients with autism and those with acquired damage to the cerebellum were slow to shift attention between and within sensory modalities. In this study, we found that patients with autism who come from a group with significant cerebellar abnormality were also slow to orient attention in space.

A subgroup of these patients who have additional or corollary parietal abnormality, like previously studied patients with acquired parietal damage, were also slow to detect and respond to information outside an attended location. Posner, Walker, Friedrich, and Rafal (1984) showed that patients with parietal lesions were slow to respond to contralesional information if they were attending an ipsilesional location. This study has replicated that finding in patients with autism who have developmental bilateral parietal abnormality, and found a strong correlation between the attentional deficits and the amount of neuroanatomic parietal abnormality in these patients. This is the first time in the study of autism that there is evidence for a statistically significant association of the size of a specific brain structural abnormality with a specific behavioral deficit.

These findings illustrate that in autism different patterns of underlying brain pathology may result in different patterns of functional deficits. In conjunction with previous studies of patients with acquired lesions, these data have implications for the brain bases of normal attention. The cerebellum may affect the speed with which attentional resources can be activated, while the parietal cortex affects the ability to use those resources for efficient information processing at locations outside an attended focus. Deficits in the speed and efficiency with which neural activity can be modulated to facilitate processing can clearly influence cognitive function. Such deficits may contribute to the behavioral disabilities that characterize autism.

The maturation of corticolimbic systems that neurobiologically mediate essential affective and social regulatory functions is experience dependent. During the first and second years of life, the infant's affective experiences, especially those embedded in the relationship with the primary caregiver, elicit patterns of psychobiological alterations that influence the activity of subcortically produced trophic bioamines, peptides, and steroids that regulate the critical period growth and organization of the developing neocortex. Interactive attachment experiences of psychobiological attunemcnt, stressful misattunement, and stress-regulating repair and reattunement that maximize positive and minimize negative affect are imprinted into the orbitofrontal cortex — the hierarchical apex of the limbic system that is expanded in the early developing right hemisphere. During the critical period of maturation of this system, prolonged episodes of intense and unregulated interactive stress are manifest in disorganizing experiences of heightened negative affect and altered levels of stress hormones, and this chaotic biochemical alteration of the internal environment triggers an extensive apoptotic panellation of corticolimbic circuitries. In this manner less than optimal affect-regulating experiences with the primary caregiver are imprinted into the circuits of this frontolimbic system that is instrumental to attachment functions, thereby producing orbitofrontal organizations that neurobiologically express different patterns of insecure attachments. Such pathomorphogenetic outcomes result in structurally defective systems that, under stress, inefficiently regulate subcortical mechanisms that mediate the physiological processes that underlie emotion. The functional impairments of the cortical-subcortical circuitries of this prefrontal system are implicated in an enduring vulnerability to and the pathophysiology of various later forming psychiatric disorders.

In a sample of 112 psychiatric inpatients with mild mental retardation, lower premorbid social competence was significantly related to symptom expression in action compared to thought. Both of these variables were correlated with length of current hospitalization. Premorbid social competence and thought-action orientation have been major variables in developmental research on psychopathology in patients without mental retardation. These results indicate that these variables can be applied to differentiate developmental level among inpatients with mild mental retardation and that these developmental distinctions are related to other clinical variables, as has been found for inpatients without mental retardation. The findings also attest to the heterogeneity in developmental level among inpatients with mild mental retardation.

We examined whether the interaction of resting frontal electroencephalogram (EEG) asymmetry and social behavior during peer play was related to the occurrence of maladaptive behavior in preschoolers. Two independent cohorts of children were observed interacting in same-age and -gender play quartets at 4 years of age. Each child was also seen individually for a psychophysiology session during which time measures of EEG activity were recorded. We found that highly sociable children who exhibited greater relative right frontal EEG asymmetry were more likely to exhibit externalizing problems than sociable children who exhibited greater relative left frontal EEG asymmetry. We also found that shy children who exhibited greater relative right frontal EEG asymmetry were more likely to exhibit internalizing problems than shy children who exhibited left frontal EEG asymmetry. These findings suggest that the pattern of frontal EEG asymmetry in combination with social behavioral style is a significant predictor of maladaptive behavior problems during the preschool period.

We report data that support the distinction between childhood-onset and adolescent-onset type conduct problems. Natural histories are described from a representative birth cohort of 457 males studied longitudinally from age 3 to 18 years. Childhood- and adolescent-onset cases differed on temperament as early as age 3 years, but almost half of childhood-onset cases did not become seriously delinquent. Type comparisons were consistent with our contention that males whose antisocial behavior follows a life-course-persistent path differ from males who follow an adolescence-limited path. As adolescents, the two types differed on convictions for violent crime, personality profiles, school leaving, and bonds to family. These differences can be attributed to developmental history because the two groups were well matched on measures of antisocial conduct at age 18 years: parent-reports, self-reports, and adjudication records. By age 18 years, many conduct-problem boys had encountered factors that could ensnare them in an antisocial future: substance dependence, unsafe sex, dangerous driving habits, delinquent friends, delinquent perceptions, and unemployment. Implications for theory, research design, prevention, and therapeutic treatment of conduct problems are highlighted.

Hard-to-manage preschool boys and comparison boys were studied at age 4 years and followed at ages 6 and 9 years. Externalizing problems at ages 4 and 9 were associated with concurrent family stress, but this relationship was partially mediated by negative maternal control. Cross-lagged regressions indicated that despite the high stability in children's problem ratings, observed negative maternal control at age 4 and self-reported negative discipline at age 9 predicted externalizing problems at age 9 years, controlling for earlier levels of symptoms. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that problems were more likely to persist in the context of chronic family stress, defined as negative life events, marital dissatisfaction, and maternal depressive symptoms. When problem boys who met diagnostic criteria for Oppositional Disorder and/or Attention Deficit Disorder were compared with boys who were improved by age 9 years, family stress and earlier symptom levels, as well as maternal control differentiated between them. Teacher ratings suggested that these boys were on a clear pathway to persistent problems by age 6 years. A small sample of comparison boys with emerging problems also were living in more dysfunctional families and their mothers reported using more negative discipline at age 9 years.

Genetic influence on externalizing problems, internalizing problems, and attentional/activity problems in 5-year-olds was consistently identified across informants and assessment contexts. Effects of the shared environment were identified as well but with less consistency (i.e., only from parents, not teachers, and more from father than mother reports). Correlations between observed patterns of regulation at ages 3, 4, and 5 years and behavior problems at age 5 years were often significant, but low in magnitude and specific to teacher reports. Adaptive internalization of control at each age (e.g., frustration tolerance, capacity to attend and focus, good impulse control) predicted fewer externalizing problems. Internalization of standards, reflected in children's moral themes, understanding of reciprocity, and constructive social problem solving, also were sometimes associated with fewer problems. Significant correlations were low in magnitude and again specific to teacher reports. Externalizing problems were more prevalent for boys than girls, and regulation (i.e., internalization of control and standards) was more characteristic of girls than boys.

This study explores the coherence between different raters of adolescent psychopathology and examines the coherence of these ratings with earlier and later events associated with the development of psychopathology. In particular, teachers', mothers', and adolescents' ratings of the 13-year-old adolescents are examined. Additionally, the earlier factors of attachment status, environmental stress, and the friendship network are related to the different ratings. Both earlier factors and rater judgments are used to examine subsequent use of psychotherapy. The results show little coherence between raters on the presence of psychopathology in 13-year-olds and little coherence between earlier events and subsequent raters' judgments of psychopathology. However, earlier stress events and teachers' ratings of 13-year-olds' psychopathology are related to subsequent therapy use.

This study examined the link between hostile conflict in families with adolescents and adolescents' efforts to establish autonomy and relatedness in interactions with parents in both normal and psychiatrically impaired groups. Longitudinal, observational data were obtained by coding family interaction tasks involving 53 adolescents and their two parents at age 14 and age 16 years. Measures were obtained for hostile adolescent-parent conflict, hostile marital conflict, and indices of adolescents' success or difficultly in establishing autonomy and relatedness in interactions with parents. Relative increases in adolescent-parent hostile conflict from age 14 to 16 years were predicted by adolescents' behaviors actively undermining autonomy in disagreements with parents at age 14 years. Hostile marital conflict observed by the adolescent at age 14 years predicted adolescent withdrawal from the hostile parent over time, a prediction that was not mediated by observed parenting behaviors. Difficulties in establishing autonomy and relatedness were linked to prior history of psychiatric difficulty. A developmental view of conflict as both reflecting and predicting difficulties in adolescents' establishing autonomy and relatedness in interactions with parents is proposed.

From teachers' rating in kindergarten through third grade, mutually exclusive groups of internalized, externalized, and mixed behavior problems were examined as pathways to three groups of psychiatric diagnosis in later adolescence: depression/anxiety, conduct/oppositional defiant, and other disorders. In looking both forward and backwards, the relation between behavior problems in the early school years, regardless of type, and psychopathology in adolescence, regardless of diagnosis, was very strong. The relations between type of early problems and specific outcomes were weak. The findings provided support for both the constructs of multifinality and equifinality; however the nature of the pathways differed somewhat by disorder. There was a substantial amount of multifinality (dispersion of outcomes) for the early internalizing pathway. There was less multifinality for the externalizing pathway, in that there was greater correspondence between early externalizing and later antisocial outcomes than for the internalizing pathway and depressed/anxious outcomes.

The participants (originally 196 boys and 173 girls) in an ongoing longitudinal study were examined using peer nomination and teacher rating at ages 8 and 14 years. Criminal records were collected at age 27 years. The results showed that (a) criminal offenses were best predicted if the accumulation of behavior problems over the school years was considered; (b) the risk for different types of offenses was highest for boys who exhibited escalating conduct problems and school failure over the school years; (c) norm-breaking behavior in early adolescence was strongly related to a propensity to later criminal offenses; (d) childhood aggressiveness did not predict arrests without the presence of other problems. When followed by norm-breaking in early adolescence, it predicted violent offenses, and when followed by poor school success, it predicted property offenses; (e) interestingly, low prosociality turned out to have a significant independent relationship to arrests; and (f) the distinction between an early-onset path and a late-onset path proved to be valid.

Emotional security is a central concept in many accounts of normal development and the development of psychopathology. However, the construct has rarely been subject to precise explication, and the conceptualization of emotional security as deriving from qualities of family functioning as a whole requires development. Emotional security as a regulatory system is defined and related to current approaches to emotions as regulatory processes. Although our model is built upon attachment theory, the emphasis is shifted from the evolutionary/ethological origins of attachment theory to the regulation of emotional well being and security as a goal in itself. Emotional security is conceptualized from a contextualistic perspective, emphasizing the interplay between socioemotional and biological processes. Felt-security as a goal is defined from an organizational perspective, reflecting the entire pattern of the individual's reactions to events in relation to emotional security as a goal, as opposed to simply those reactions that are “conscious” or reported as “feelings.” Component regulatory systems are specified (e.g., processes of emotion regulation, regulation of exposure to family affect), with illustrations centering on the impact of marital and parent-child relations on children's security.

Samples of poor and normal readers were followed into early adulthood to assess the implications of childhood reading difficulties for the transition to adulthood, and for early adult psychosocial functioning. Some group differences were found in patterns of early adult transitions, and, for women only, on wider measures of early adult functioning. Global self-esteem in adulthood did not differ between the childhood reading groups, and there were few marked variations in vulnerability to later psychiatric disorder. The findings are discussed in regard to differing developmental pathways for problems in adult functioning, ant the possible role of contextual changes in enabling more positive functioning for many childhood poor readers.

The relations of regulation and emotionality to elementary school children's problem behavior was examined. Parents and teachers reported on children's problem behavior. One parent and teachers rated children on various measures of regulation (including resiliency) and emotionality; children's baseline heart rate and facial reactivity were assessed; and physiological and facial distress and gaze aversion while viewing a distress film sequence were measured. In general, low regulation, negative emotionality, and general and positive emotional intensity predicted problem behaviors. Teachers' reports of negative emotionality and regulation interacted in their relation to problem behaviors, with regulation apparently buffering the effects of moderate and high negative emotionality. Baseline heart rate and facial distress were related to low levels of problem behavior, and gaze aversion during the distress film segment was associated with low levels of problem behavior.

Although there is some evidence to suggest that depressive symptoms show age-related changes, it remains uncertain as to whether there are also developmental variations in the etiology of depression. In this article, we present findings from a population-based study of twins aged 8 to 16 years with the aim of examining the genetic etiology of depressive symptoms and the effects of age. The results suggest that environmental factors influence the transmission of depressive symptoms in childhood. However depressive symptoms in adolescence appear to be highly heritable. The etiology of depressive symptoms was further explored using factor-derived scores that again suggested the importance of genetic factors in adolescence. However there was some suggestion that genetic influences may contribute to certain types of symptoms (self-deprecation/self-esteem) even in childhood.

The capacity to manage emotion is based on the growth of self-regulatory capacities in the early years, but is also affected by situational demands, influences from other people, and the child's goals for regulating emotion in a particular setting. For most children growing up in supportive contexts, the growth of emotional regulation is associated with enhanced psychosocial well-being and socioemotional competence. But for children who are at risk for the development of psychopathology owing to environmental stresses or intrinsic vulnerability (or their interaction), emotional regulation often entails inherent trade-offs that make nonoptimal strategics of managing emotion expectable, perhaps inevitable, in a context of difficult environmental demands and conflicting emotional goals. This analysis discusses how emotional regulation in children at risk may simultaneously foster both resiliency and vulnerability by considering how emotion is managed when children (a) are living with a parent who is depressed, (b) witness or experience domestic violence, or (c) are temperamentally inhibited when encountering novel challenges. In each case, the child's efforts to manage emotion may simultaneously buffer against certain stresses while also enhancing the child's vulnerability to other risks and demands. This double-edged sword of emotional regulation in conditions of risk for children cautions against using “optimal” emotional regulation as an evaluative standard for such children or assuming that emotional regulation necessarily improves psychosocial well-being. It also suggests how the study of emotional regulation must consider the goals for regulating emotion and the contexts in which those goals are sought.