Developmental Psychopathology: Foundations, Contexts, Methods, and Assessment

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering key concepts across child psychopathology, developmental trajectories, research methodologies, etiology, and clinical diagnostic systems.

Developmental Psychopathology

An integrative approach that unites the study of typical developmental processes with child and adolescent psychopathology to understand how psychological difficulties begin, develop, persist, improve, or change over time.

Syndrome

A group or cluster of symptoms that tend to occur together, without inherently indicating whether the underlying etiology is biological or psychological.

Somatogenesis

The historical belief that psychological disturbance originates from physical or bodily dysfunction and biological imbalances.

Psychogenesis

The belief that psychological disorders originate from psychological causes, conflicts, or variables.

Law of Effect

Edward Thorndike's principle stating that behaviours followed by satisfying consequences become more likely to recur, whereas behaviours followed by unpleasant consequences become less likely to recur.

Secular Trends

Changes in the rates or patterns of psychological disorders across historical time.

Interactional Model

A developmental framework that assumes several variables combine or interact to influence an outcome, without those variables necessarily altering or changing one another across time.

Transactional Model

A model viewing development as the result of continuous, reciprocal, and bidirectional interactions where the child and the environment continually influence and transform one another over time.

Mediator

An intervening variable or process that explains how or why an independent variable influences a particular outcome, representing the underlying mechanism.

Moderator

A factor that alters the strength or direction of the relationship between two other variables, explaining under what conditions or for whom an effect occurs.

Necessary Cause

A causal condition that must be present for a specific disorder or outcome to develop.

Sufficient Cause

A causal factor that can produce an outcome entirely on its own, without requiring other causal influences.

Contributing Cause

A factor that increases the likelihood of a disorder or outcome, but is neither independently necessary nor sufficient.

Equifinality

The developmental principle that different early experiences, pathways, and risk factors can lead to the same psychological outcome.

Multifinality

The developmental principle that the same initial experience, adversity, or risk factor can lead to diverse and varied developmental outcomes.

Resilience

The capacity to withstand, adapt to, or recover from significant adversity, trauma, or developmental difficulties.

Vulnerability–Stress Model

A perspective proposing that psychopathology emerges when a child's underlying personal or biological vulnerability combines with a sufficient degree of environmental stress.

Orchid Child vs. Dandelion Child

A metaphor describing differences in environmental sensitivity; dandelion children function reasonably well across most environments, whereas orchid children are highly susceptible to their environment, showing poor outcomes under adversity but thriving exceptionally under supportive conditions.

Homotypic Continuity

The persistence of the exact same or very similar symptom pattern or disorder expression across development over time.

Heterotypic Continuity

The persistence of an underlying developmental impairment over time while its outward behavioural manifestation or symptom form changes.

Secure Base

A caregiver who provides a safe emotional foundation that allows a child to explore their environment and return for comfort when distressed.

Goodness of Fit

The degree of compatibility and match between a child's temperament and their environment's expectations, demands, and parenting styles.

Negative Attribution Bias

A social-cognitive processing error in which an individual routinely interprets ambiguous social situations and intentions as intentionally hostile or negative.

Neurogenesis

The biological process of producing new neurons, occurring rapidly during prenatal development.

Synaptogenesis

The rapid formation of neural connections and communication points (synapses) between neurons.

Synaptic Pruning

The selective elimination of unused or inefficient neural connections, consolidating frequently activated neural pathways based on experience.

Myelination

The coating of axons with an insulating fatty sheath of myelin, substantially increasing the speed and efficiency of neural communication.

Teratogen

An environmental agent (such as a drug, toxin, or disease) that can interfere with normal prenatal development and cause abnormalities.

Epigenetics

Environmental influences on gene activity and activation that alter gene expression without modifying the underlying DNA sequence.

Gene–Environment Interaction ($G \times E$)

A phenomenon wherein the phenotypic effect of an environmental exposure depends on an individual's genotype, or genetic vulnerability depends on environmental experiences.

Passive Gene–Environment Correlation

An association occurring when biological parents transmit genetic predispositions while also providing an environment shaped by their own traits.

Evocative Gene–Environment Correlation

An association occurring when a child's genetically influenced characteristics and behaviours evoke specific reactions and responses from others in their environment.

Active Gene–Environment Correlation

An association occurring when children actively select, build, and seek out specific environments that match their genetically influenced interests and tendencies.

Linkage Analysis

A molecular genetics method that examines whether specific genetic markers are co-inherited with a particular disorder or trait within families.

Association Studies

A molecular genetics approach comparing whether specific genetic variants appear more frequently in individuals displaying a disorder than in unaffected individuals.

Authoritative Parenting

A parenting style characterized by high warmth and acceptance paired with high, developmentally appropriate control and clear boundaries.

Authoritarian Parenting

A parenting style characterized by low warmth and acceptance paired with high, rigid control, strict rules, and punitive discipline.

Collective Efficacy

The shared ability and willingness of neighbourhood community members to maintain social cohesion, provide informal supervision, and support positive goals.

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)

Potentially traumatic childhood events whose cumulative accumulation exhibits a dose-response relationship with elevated risk for later psychological, health, and social difficulties.

Operational Definition

A clear, precise description explaining exactly how a variable or behaviour is identified, observed, measured, or manipulated in research.

Interrater Reliability

The degree of consistency or agreement between two or more independent raters or observers assessing the same target behaviour.

Internal Validity

The degree of confidence that an observed change in the dependent variable was directly caused by the independent variable rather than confounding variables.

External Validity

The extent to which research conclusions can be legitimately generalized across other participants, settings, ages, and real-world conditions.

Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT)

An experimental research design that randomly assigns participants to an intervention group or a comparison control group to evaluate treatment efficacy.

Accelerated Longitudinal Design

A developmental research design following multiple overlapping age cohorts simultaneously over time, combining cross-sectional and longitudinal elements to separate age changes from cohort effects.

Reactivity

A methodological concern where individuals alter their natural behaviour because they are aware they are being watched or evaluated.

Attrition

The loss or dropout of study participants over time in longitudinal research, which introduces bias if those leaving differ systematically from those remaining.

Nonmaleficence

The ethical duty to avoid causing physical, psychological, economic, or legal harm to research participants and clinical clients.

Beneficence

The ethical obligation to act in ways that promote participant well-being and ensure potential benefits justify any involved research risks.

Assent

A child's developmentally appropriate, informed agreement to participate in clinical assessment or research, sought alongside legal parental consent.

Categorical Classification

A diagnostic system that treats disorders as discrete, all-or-none categories based on whether a client satisfies specific diagnostic criteria thresholds.

Dimensional View of Psychopathology

An assessment perspective that views psychological difficulties and symptoms as existing along a quantitative continuum of severity.

Heterogeneity

The presence of substantial individual differences in symptom presentations, severity, and functioning among children sharing the exact same diagnostic category.

Comorbidity

The simultaneous co-occurrence of two or more distinct psychological disorders within the same individual.

Transdiagnostic Process

A shared core mechanism or functional difficulty (such as impulsivity or emotion regulation) that cuts across multiple separate diagnostic categories.

Broadband Syndromes

Broad clusters of statistically related behaviours identified through empirical factor analysis, most notably internalizing and externalizing dimensions.

Narrowband Syndromes

More specific symptom constellations nested within larger broadband dimensions, such as somatic complaints, rule-breaking behaviour, or anxious/depressed scales.

Universal Prevention

Preventive interventions delivered comprehensively to an entire population or group without screening or selecting individuals based on elevated personal risk.

Selective Prevention

Preventive strategies targeted specifically at biological, psychological, or environmental groups known to carry elevated risk for developing difficulties.

Indicated Prevention

Targeted interventions designed for individuals who already exhibit early detectable signs, mild symptoms, or subclinical manifestations of a disorder.