Dickstein has collaborated on several NIH grants within the
realm of developmental psychopathology, attachment theory, family risk, maternal depression, and early childhood mental health issues, and assessment of child outcomes in Head Start.
Low's research interests are in the
area of developmental psychopathology; early childhood mental health; development of children and families in high - risk contexts; parent - child relationships and family functioning; early childhood community - based mental health consultation; child care health consultation, and program evaluation.
According to neurologist and educator Judy Willis (and suggested by a research - rich chapter in the second
edition of Developmental Psychopathology, among many other publications), neuroplasticity is defined as the selective organizing of connections between neurons in our brains.
The investigation of such processes in humans, although not feasible at present, would offer an opportunity to gain a deeper
understanding of developmental psychopathology and the intergenerational transmission of attachment and parenting.
Consistent with the
frameworks of developmental psychopathology and developmental science [16, 98, 99], we recognize that these complex developmental risk mechanisms must consider transactional processes across multiple levels of analysis (e.g., genetic, neurobiological, behavioral, dyadic, environmental), over time, and across development [12 • •].
In recent years, the interest of researchers in developmental psychopathology has shifted from assessing the relative contribution of genetic and environmental influences to investigating the role of gene — environment correlation and gene — environment interaction in the
causation of developmental psychopathology.
To test this theory, Thao Ha of the
Department of Developmental Psychopathology at Radboud University in the Netherlands recently led a study that examined how adolescent romantic partners behaved during conflicts, and how this affected the future of their relationships.
Models
of developmental psychopathology emphasize both mediation and moderation processes among child and caregiving attributes; however, little research has examined both these processes simultaneously on the development of internalizing problems.
For 2 decades, Dr. Dickstein was director of the Bradley Hospital Early Childhood Clinical Research Center (part of the Bradley / Hasbro Children's Research Center), and collaborated on research within the
realm of developmental psychopathology, attachment theory, family risk, maternal depression, and early childhood mental health.
Although the reciprocal effects of parenting and child behavior have long been recognized, the emphasis of empirical study in the
field of developmental psychopathology has been on parenting effects on children.
Handbook
of developmental psychopathology (2nd Ed., pp. 689 - 722).
From the perspective
of developmental psychopathology it has been proposed that in addition to biological mechanisms (e.g., genetic inheritance; Tsuang and Faraone 1990) and stressful contextual factors (e.g., marital conflict; Cummings et al. 2005; Papp et al. 2004), parental psychological problems affect child development via impaired parenting (Goodman and Godlib 1999).
Temperament variables, such as negative affect and effortful control have gained considerable interest within the field
of developmental psychopathology.