Recent data suggest that a disturbance in the development of joint attention skills is a specific characteristic of young autistic children. This observation may have both theoretical and clinical significance. However, many pertinent issues remain to be addressed with regard to the parameters of joint attention disturbance in children with autism. This study attempted to address several of these issues. The study examines the effects of mental age and IQ on the joint attention skills of children with autism, mental retardation, and normal development. The study also examined the relation of joint attention behaviors to the parent's report of symptoms presented by children with autism. The results suggested that, differences in IQ and mental age may be related to differences in the type of joint attention skill deficits displayed by children with autism. The results also suggested that joint attention disturbance is associated with a circumscribed, but social cluster of symptoms observed among young autistic children by their parents. The implications of these findings for developmental models of autism are discussed.

Nineteen autistic children were examined in a modified version of Ainsworth's Strange Situation. The attachment security of 15 children could be classified. Each of these children displayed disorganized attachment patterns, but almost half (40%) of them were subclassified as securely attached. To assess the validity of the attachment classifications, children and their mothers were observed in a separate interaction. Mothers of children who were subclassified as securely attached displayed greater sensitivity than mothers of children who were subclassified as insecurely attached. Children who were subclassified as securely attached more frequently initiated social interaction with their mothers than did children who were subclassified as insecurely attached. Children with secure and insecure subclassifications were compared to investigate correlations between attachment organization and representational ability and social-emotional understanding. Although children with underlying secure attachments were no more likely to initiate joint attention, they were more responsive to bids for joint attention, made requests more frequently, and demonstrated greater receptive language ability than children subclassified as insecurely attached. Discussion focuses on dynamics that may contribute to individual differences in the attachment organization of autistic children and on the reciprocal relationship between advances in our understanding of normal and pathological development.

From their early roots in embryology, parallels are drawn between the major psychological and biological foci of organismic theories. Neural plasticity and concepts of causality in developmental systems are discussed. Because the nature of the developmental process necessitates addressing the nonlinear dynamics of complex systems, it is theorized that causal explanations in neural development, just as is the case with psychological processes, should emphasize the individual's active strivings for self-organization as the major determinant of ontogenesis. Whether or not they cohere to form an integrated self, it is hypothesized that the homeostatic, self-regulatory structures of the mind are the major stabilities in the chaotic dynamics of psychological and neural development.

This study compared a group of 18 high-functioning children with autism (9–16 years of age) and a group of 14 normally developing children (9–14 years of age) on their abilities to take the perceptual perspective of someone else and to seriate objects based on length, size, weight, and color. Results indicated that the high-functioning children with autism were as able as the normally developing children to seriate the various objects. In contrast, significant differences emerged on the perceptual perspective-taking tasks with the high-functioning children with autism as a group performing less well than the normally developing children. However, the majority of autistic children showed good perspective-taking ability. The implications of these results to our understanding of autism are discussed.

The ability to talk about the internal states (ISs) and feelings of self and other is an age-appropriate development of late toddlerhood hypothesized to reflect toddlers' emergent self–other understanding and to be fundamental to the regulation of social interaction. This study examined the effects of child maltreatment on the emergence of low-socioeconomic status 30-month-old toddlers' IS lexicons. Children's lexicons were derived both from maternal interviews and from observations of children's spontaneous IS utterances in four laboratory contexts. Results from both data sources indicated that maltreated toddlers produced significantly fewer IS words, fewer IS word types, and proportionately fewer IS words denoting physiological states and negative affect than nonmaltreated toddlers. In addition, maltreated toddlers were more context bound in IS language use and more restricted in their attributions of internal states to self and other. Gender differences were also observed. Individual differences in children's IS language production were significantly related to general linguistic maturity in both groups but to toddlers' conversational skills only in the comparison group. In addition, a cumulative risk model describing the effects of the child's attachment relationship with the caregiver on early IS language was tested. Toddlers most severely at risk (maltreated/insecure) had the most compromised IS language. Thus, secure attachment may serve as a protective mechanism against self-dysfunction in maltreated toddlers.

Parcellation and heterochrony (neoteny) reflect the pattern and rate of a growth mechanism in morphogenesis. Structure (morphology) and function (behavior) are staged realizations of morphogenetic process. This process continues into adult cognition in the actualization of the mind/brain state. Parcellation obtains in the pruning of cells and connections in early growth, whereas inhibition obtains in a relatively stable morphology with constraints on context: item transforms in microgeny. Selective retardation in process (neoteny) leads to growth at earlier (juvenile) phases. This accounts for the specification of the language areas and elaboration at preliminary phases in mind — for example, dominance, introspection, and creativity.

Several authors have recently suggested that imitation may be a developmental “precursor” of a theory of mind and have linked impaired imitation in children with autism to their failure to develop a theory of mind. The present study investigated early-emerging procedural and gestural imitation abilities in children with autism. Children with autism were found to have intact basic-level gestural and procedural imitation. We discuss these results in terms of their relation to a specific developmental delay hypothesis of autism and re-assess the status of imitation as a developmental precursor of a theory of mind.

The ability to use language to identify causes for emotion and to describe the subjective experience of various emotions was examined in 28 male and female children and adolescents with autism compared to 28 normally developing and mentally handicapped subjects of equivalent chronological age and mean length of utterance. Mentally handicapped and lower functioning autistic subjects were also similar in verbal IQ. Individuals with autism did not grossly differ from other participants in their descriptions of emotion but were less likely to relate emotions to either reaching a goal or social interaction and more likely to attribute positive emotions to concrete events (e.g., going on a trip). Results are discussed in terms of current cognitive and affective theories of autism.

This study reports observationally based assessments of the responses of physically abused and nonabused boys to interadult anger involving their mothers. Physically abused boys were more behaviorally reactive to interadult anger than comparison subjects, evidencing more problem-focused coping behaviors and greater aggressiveness. Thus, rather than habituating to others' hostility due to their history of exposure to familial violence, abused children appeared more aroused and angered by it and more motivated to intervene. As the matched low-socioeconomic status nonmaltreated sample was also exposed to interparent physical aggression, the results suggest that greater anger and aggression across multiple family subsystems (parent-child, interparental) may have cumulative effects. The study thus advances knowledge toward a more specific process-based understanding of relations between history of family conflict and child outcomes.

Both executive function and theory of mind impairment have been suggested as primary deficits of autism. One test of the primacy of a deficit is its persistence and stability throughout development. This longitudinal study examined development of executive function and theory of mind abilities over a 3-year time period, comparing nonretarded autistic adolescents with learning-disabled controls matched on age, IQ, gender, and socioeconomic status (SES). Results indicate that both executive function and theory of mind abilities are seriously deficient in autistic individuals, improve little with development, may never reach normal functioning levels, and appear to eventually hit a developmental ceiling. Developmental variables showed little relationship to overall task performance or improvement in either cognitive domain. The similar developmental trajectories of executive function and theory of mind performance found in this investigation suggest that these skills may be related and interdependent, rather than independent modules of cognitive function. Implications for the neurological basis of autism and intervention are also discussed.

A new theory of frontal lobe development is presented in which the role of the human frontal lobes during normal development and the psychopathological consequences of early frontal lobe injury are explored. Analyses of the development of human electroencephalograph (EEG) coherence indicate that there are oscillations and cyclic growth processes along the mediolateral and anterior-posterior planes of the brain. The cycles of EEG coherence are interpreted as repetitive sequences of increasing and decreasing synaptic effectiveness that reflects a convergence process that narrows the disparity between structure and function by slowly sculpting and reshaping the brain's microanatomy. This process is modeled as a developmental spiral staircase in which brain structures are periodically revisited resulting in stepwise increases in differentiation and integration. The frontal lobes play a crucial role because they are largely responsible for the selection and pruning of synaptic contacts throughout the postnatal period. A mathematical model of cycles of synaptic effectiveness is presented in which the frontal lobes behave as gentle synaptic “predators” whereas posterior cortical regions behave as synaptic “prey” in a periodic reorganization process. The psychopathological consequences of early frontal lobe damage are discussed in the context of this model.

The effect of early physical maltreatment on the development of peer relationships was examined in a representative sample of 585 boys and girls. Subjects were assessed for physical maltreatment in the first 5 years of life and then followed for 5 consecutive years. The assessment was based on a clinical interview with parents. Twelve percent of the sample was identified as having experienced physical maltreatment. Peers, teachers, and mothers independently evaluated the maltreated group of children as being more disliked, less popular, and more socially withdrawn than the nonmaltreated group in every year of evaluation, with the magnitude of difference growing over time. These effects held even when family socioeconomic status was controlled. The findings were interpreted as being consistent with the hypothesis that early maltreatment disrupts attachment relationships with adult caregivers, and these disruptions then impair a child's ability to form effective peer relationships.

Disorders of emotion, communication, and learning in early childhood are considered in light of evidence on human brain growth from embryo stages. We cite microbehavioral evidence indicating that infants are born able to express the internal activity of their brains, including dynamic “motive states” that drive learning. Infant expressions stimulate the development of imitative and reciprocal relations with corresponding dynamic brain states of caregivers. The infant's mind must have an “innate self-with-other representation” of the inter-mind correspondence and reciprocity of feelings that can be generated with an adult.

Primordial motive systems appear in subcortical and limbic systems of the embryo before the cerebral cortex. These are presumed to continue to guide the growth of a child's brain after birth. We propose that an “intrinsic motive formation” is assembled prenatally and is ready at birth to share emotion with caregivers for regulation of the child's cortical development, on which cultural cognition and learning depend.

The intrinsic potentiality for “intersubjectivity” can be disorganized if the epigenetic program for the infant's brain fails. Indeed, many psychological disorders of childhood can be traced to faults in early stages of brain development when core motive systems form.

This study examined elicited (posed) affective expressions in children, adolescents, and young adults with autism (N = 18) or Down's syndrome (N = 24). Subjects were asked to (a) imitate five modeled expressions (Imitation task) and (b) produce five labeled expressions (Expression task). Subjects with autism produced recognizable expressions in both tasks, but they produced fewer than did subjects with Down's syndrome when target emotions were labeled but not modeled (Expression). Imitation and Expression tasks were equally difficult for subjects with autism, but subjects with Down's syndrome performed better in Expression than in Imitation. In both tasks, the responses of subjects with autism contained many unusual behaviors, such as bizarre expressions and those that looked “mechanical.” Results suggest that producing elicited affective expressions is more difficult for persons with autism than for persons with Down's syndrome of similar chronological age, mental age, and IQ.

The purpose of this work was to investigate the way in which boys, ages 6, 8, and 10 years, who are behaviorally disturbed, understand motives behind human behavior, compared to normally functioning peers. Four tasks were administered that differed in surface features but that shared an underlying conceptual structure. A structural analysis of response protocols was undertaken to assess the level of cognitive complexity of their productions. Age-appropriate performance required varying degrees of intentional understanding (i.e., the reciprocal causal relations between action and mental states such as feelings and desires). The results of this analysis supported our predictions that behaviorally disturbed children use developmentally naive reasoning in the domain of conflict resolution, compared with their normal peers. Additionally, a thematic analysis of the content of responses was performed. The results of this analysis showed that the two groups' reasoning also differed qualitatively, in that the aggressive boys showed greater evidence of socially maladaptive thought, whereas the comparison group's performance was largely adaptive. We propose that early-formed primitive defense mechanisms may interfere with the aggressive group's construction of prosocial mental models of the social world. The results suggest that this line of research, which integrates developmental and psychoanalytic theory, has the potential to offer insight into the mechanisms underlying behavioral aggression.

The objective of this study was to test a social interactional model of physical aggression. Specifically, this model hypothesizes that the performance of physical aggression has its roots in socialization settings that are characterized by high densities of aversive stimuli and that provide frequent reinforcement for escalation to high intensity aversive behavior during social conflict. Social conflicts were observed during 10 hr of interaction of each of 20 mothers and their 5-year-old sons; half of the sons were selected based on evidence of frequent aggression in home and school settings. Simple descriptive and sequential analyses indicated that aggressive relative to nonaggressive dyad members were more likely to engage in conflict, engaged in longer conflicts, were more likely to escalate to higher levels of aversiveness, and were less likely to de-escalate the intensity of conflict. In aggressive and nonaggressive dyads, the cessation of conflict contingent on the escalation of one dyad member was reliably associated with an increased likelihood of escalation and with escalation to higher levels of aversiveness by that member in the subsequent conflict. However, escalation occurred more frequently and was more likely to result in cessation of conflicts in aggressive than nonaggressive dyads.

Although spanking of children is almost universal in U.S. society, its effects are not well understood. We examined the longitudinal relation between parental spanking and other physical punishment of preschool children and children's aggressive behavior toward peers later in kindergarten. A total of 273 boys and girls from diverse backgrounds served as subjects. The findings were consistent with a socialization model in which higher levels of severity in parental punishment practices are associated with higher levels of children's subsequent aggression toward peers. Findings indicated that children who had been spanked evidenced levels of aggression that were higher than those who had not been spanked, and children who had been the objects of violent discipline became the most aggressive of all groups. Patterns were qualified by the sexes of the parent and child and subtypes of child aggression (reactive, bullying, and instrumental). The findings suggest that in spite of parents' goals, spanking fails to promote prosocial development and, instead, is associated with higher rates of aggression toward peers.

The term plasticity is often confined to changes due to learning. We believe, however, that the rapid lability of human behavior as different mental contents receive attention represents an important form of plasticity. Recent research in temperament and cognitive neuroscience provides an account of the development of a specific neural system involved in attentional self-regulation. In this paper, we concentrate on a network involved in orienting. We describe what is currently known about this network and its development during the first years of life. This network interacts with other attentional networks that come to control orienting to remembered events as well as those currently present. Orienting reflects processes that are both deeply biological and also open to cultural influences through learning. Attention is influenced by the current emotional state and is also important in achieving control over the emotional state. We present evidence on how learning influences eye position between 4 and 18 months of life and indicate influences of orienting on important aspects of infant behavior. Like any biological system, problems can arise in these mechanisms. We speculate on how individual differences in distress proneness and orienting may relate to the development of psychopathology.

Behavioral and emotional self-regulation are important aspects of competence in school-age children. Despite the apparent interrelatedness of behavioral and affective processes, empirical approaches to the development of self-regulation typically have investigated these systems separately. As a result, their relative effects upon social competence remain, for the most part, an open question. This study, working from an organizational and developmental psychopathology perspective, attempted to investigate developmental processes that place maltreated children at risk for impaired peer relationships by assessing the independent and relative influences of behavioral and emotional regulation on social competence in school-age children. Subjects were maltreated children, who are at risk for both attenuated self-regulation and impaired peer relationships, and economically disadvantaged nonmaltreated comparison children. Observations were conducted during a summer day camp, an ecologically valid context in which to study children's social interactions. As predicted, maltreated children were found to be deficient in behavioral and affective regulation, relative to nonmaltreated children.

Furthermore, attenuated self-regulation mediated the effects of maltreatment on children's social competence. Results highlighted the unique contributions of both behavior and affect in predicting peer competence, suggesting that a more comprehensive approach to the study of self-regulation is warranted.