Toward the Development of the Science of Developmental Psychopathology

In this chapter, a developmental psychopathology conceptualization of child maltreatment is presented as an overarching heuristic with relevance for understanding the development of alcohol and substance use and abuse. This chapter also provides illustrations from research on how child maltreatment contributes to problem substance use in adolescence. Child maltreatment represents an extreme failure of the caregiving environment to provide many of the expectable experiences necessary to facilitate normal developmental processes. Maltreatment ushers in a probabilistic epigenesis for children characterized by an increased likelihood of failure and disruption in the successful resolution of major developmental tasks. These repeated disruptions lead to compromised developmental organizations of diverse developmental systems that increase the probability of the emergence of maladaptation, psychopathology, and substance abuse as negative transactions between the child and the environment ensue. Person-centered personality organizations and genetic moderation of maltreatment risk on substance use outcomes are also highlighted.

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Perinatal Depression as an Early Stress

The Oxford Handbook of Stress and Mental Health ◽

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190681777.013.13 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 286-312

Author(s):

Sherryl H. Goodman ◽

Meeka S. Halperin

Keyword(s):

Mental Health ◽

Health Outcomes ◽

Developmental Psychopathology ◽

Perinatal Depression ◽

Mental Health Outcomes ◽

Future Directions ◽

Causal Relations ◽

Early Stress ◽

Critical Issues ◽

Per Se

This chapter provides a review of research and a description of the central issues regarding the stressor of depression in mothers during pregnancy and the postpartum periods in relation to risk for the development of psychopathology in offspring. Where evidence allows, causal relations are emphasized; otherwise, limitations are noted, especially those regarding being able to draw causal conclusions from the correlational approaches typically taken in this area of study. Evidence for mechanisms in the transmission of risk is also described, given the potential for understanding causal relations. With the developmental psychopathology perspective of depression as a stressor for offspring, the focus is on vulnerabilities to and early signs of disorder as well as mental health outcomes per se. The chapter concludes with suggested critical issues in the field and recommendations for future directions for research.

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Coping with longitudinal data in research on developmental psychopathology

International Journal of Behavioral Development ◽

10.1177/0165025406059969 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 30 (1) ◽

pp. 20-25 ◽

Cited By ~ 35

Author(s):

David A. Cole

Keyword(s):

Data Collection ◽

Longitudinal Data ◽

Developmental Psychopathology ◽

Careful Consideration ◽

Two Dimensions ◽

The Other ◽

Outcome Variable ◽

The Third ◽

Data Analytic ◽

Over Time

Many outcome variables in developmental psychopathology research are highly stable over time. In conventional longitudinal data analytic approaches such as multiple regression, controlling for prior levels of the outcome variable often yields little (if any) reliable variance in the dependent variable for putative predictors to explain. Three strategies for coping with this problem are described. One involves focusing on developmental periods of transition, in which the outcome of interest may be less stable. A second is to give careful consideration to the amount of time allowed to elapse between waves of data collection. The third is to consider trait-state-occasion models that partition the outcome variable into two dimensions: one entirely stable and trait-like, the other less stable and subject to occasion-specific fluctuations.

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Maternal and paternal unsupportive parenting and children's externalizing symptoms: The mediational role of children's attention biases to negative emotion

Development and Psychopathology ◽

10.1017/s0954579421000171 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-17

Author(s):

Patrick T. Davies ◽

Morgan J. Thompson ◽

Jesse L. Coe ◽

Melissa L. Sturge-Apple

Keyword(s):

Developmental Psychopathology ◽

Negative Emotion ◽

Negative Emotions ◽

Externalizing Symptoms ◽

Family Adversity ◽

Children's Attention ◽

Specific Association ◽

Mediational Role ◽

And Behavior

Abstract This study examined children's duration of attention to negative emotions (i.e., anger, sadness, fear) as a mediator of associations among maternal and paternal unsupportive parenting and children's externalizing symptoms in a sample of 240 mothers, fathers, and their preschool children (Mage = 4.64 years). The multimethod, multi-informant design consisted of three annual measurement occasions. Analysis of maternal and paternal unsupportive parenting as predictors in latent difference changes in children's affect-biased attention and behavior problems indicated that children's attention to negative emotions mediated the specific association between maternal unsupportive parenting and children's subsequent increases in externalizing symptoms. Maternal unsupportive parenting at Wave 1 predicted decreases in children's attention to negative facial expressions of adults from Wave 1 to 2. Reductions in children's attention to negative emotion, in turn, predicted increases in their externalizing symptoms from Wave 1 to 3. Additional tests of children's fearful distress and hostile responses to parental conflict as explanatory mechanisms revealed that increases in children's fearful distress reactivity from Wave 1 to 2 accounted for the association between maternal unsupportive parenting and concomitant decreases in their attention to negative emotions. Results are discussed in the context of information processing models of family adversity and developmental psychopathology.

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