The articles in this special issue of the "Journal of Cognition and Development" examine the cognitive development of children who are following typical and atypical developmental pathways. The articles offer a mixture of theory-based considerations, reviews of the literature, and new empirical data addressing fundamental aspects of…

This article introduces a novel hypothesis regarding amygdala function in psychopathy. The first part of this article introduces the concept of psychopathy and describes the main cognitive and affective impairments demonstrated by this population; that is, a deficit in fear-recognition, lower conditioned fear responses and poor performance in…

The article describes the use of structural neuroimaging to understand the psychopathology of childhood-onset schizophrenia. Results showed an increase in lateral volumes, reduced total and regional volumes of gray matter in the cortex and increased basal ganglia volumes as in adult-onset schizophrenia in comparison with healthy subjects.

The past 50 years have seen dramatic changes in childhood psychopathology research. The goal of this overview is to contrast observational and experimental research approaches; both have grown more complex such that the boundary between these approaches may be blurred. Both are essential. Landmark observational studies with long-term follow-up…

Recent studies of the relationship between parenting and child development have included a focus on the parent's capacity to treat the child as a psychological agent. Several constructs have been developed to refer to this capacity, for example maternal mind-mindedness, reflective functioning, and parental mentalizing. In this review article, we…

In this monograph, the authors have brought the findings of the English and Romanian Adoptee (ERA) study up to age 15 years and, in so doing, have focused especially on the question of whether there are deprivation-specific psychological patterns (DSPs) that differ meaningfully from other forms of psychopathology. For this purpose, their main…

Presents results of a study that evaluated using popular movie clips, shown in the first class meeting of an abnormal psychology course, in relation to student enthusiasm. Compares two classes of female juniors, one using clips and one class not using them. States that the films portrayed psychological disorders. (CMK)

Empirical research shows that poor emotional competence is an early risk factor for the development of psychopathology. Numerous school-based prevention programs have been developed with the goal of decreasing behavior problems. Several of these programs include a discrete emotions component, but none of them are solely or primarily guided by…