Stability of Maternal Autonomy Support between Infancy and Preschool Age : Stability of Maternal Autonomy Support

It is the "developmental" component of developmental psychopathology that distinguishes this discipline from abnormal psychology, psychiatry, and even clinical child psychology. At the same time, the focus on individual patterns of adaptation and maladaptation distinguishes this field from the larger discipline of developmental psychology. In this essay a developmental perspective is presented, and the implications of this perspective for research in developmental psychopathology are discussed. A primary consideration is the complexity of the adaptational process, with developmental transformation being the rule. Thus, links between earlier adaptation and later pathology generally will not be simple or direct. It will be necessary to understand both individual patterns of adaptation with respect to salient issues of a given developmental period and the transaction between prior adaptation, maturational change, and subsequent environmental challenges. Some examples are discussed, with special attention to the case of depression.

Contemporary attachment research is based on the assumption that at least three types of infant attachment patterns exist: secure, avoidant, and resistant. It is not known, however, whether individual differences in attachment organization are more consistent with a continuous or a categorical model. The authors addressed this issue by applying P. E. Meehl's (1973, 1992) taxometric techniques for distinguishing latent types (i.e., classes, natural kinds) from latent continua (i.e., dimensions) to Strange Situation data on 1,139 fifteen-month-old children from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care. The results indicate that variation in attachment patterns is largely continuous, not categorical. The discussion focuses on the implications of dimensional models of individual differences for attachment theory and research.