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    Broadly, Developmental Psychopathology is the study of psychological problems in the context of human development.  This orientation views psychopathology within the context of antecedents and consequent events and relates it to normal development.  The following quotes have been selected from the vast literature to provide a more broad view of Developmental Psychopathology (contents are organized alphabetically by author).

    “The concept of developmental psychopathology is broader than can be exemplified by any single study, theory, or explanation.” (Achenbach, 1990, p. 3)

    “Specifically, a focus on the interplay between normal and atypical development, an interest in diverse domains of functioning, and an emphasis on the utilization of a developmental framework for understanding adaptation across the life course are among those elements that are integral to a developmental psychopathology approach.” (Cicchetti & Cohen, 1995, p. 3)

    “Developmental psychopathologists focus their interests predominantly on the investigation of high-risk and disordered populations.” (Cicchetti & Cohen, 1995, p. 6)

    “In practice, this entails a comprehension of and appreciation for the developmental transformations and reorganizations that occur over time; an analysis of the risk and protective factors and mechanisms operating in the child and his or her environment; the investigation of how emergent functions, competencies, and developmental tasks modify the expression of a disorder or lead to new symptoms and difficulties; and the recognition that a particular stress or underlying mechanism may result in different behavioral difficulties, at different times in the developmental process and in different contexts.” (Cicchetti, Nurcombe & Garber, 1992, p. 2)

    “Developmental psychopathology is an emerging discipline that seeks to unify, within a developmental, life-span framework, the many contributions to the study of the mood disorders emanating for multiple fields of inquiry, including psychology, psychoanalytic theory, psychiatry, the neurosciences, sociology, cultural anthropology, and epidemiology.” (Cicchetti & Toth, 1995, p. 373)

    “... developmental psychopathology represents a movement toward comprehending the causes and determinants, course, sequelae, and treatment of the disorders through its synthesis of knowledge from multiple disciplines within a developmental framework.” (Cicchetti & Toth, 1995, p. 373)

    “The developmental position challenges us to move beyond identifying isolated aberrations in cognitive, affective, interpersonal, and biological components of depressive presentations, to understand how these components have evolved developmentally, and to understand how they are integrated within and across biological and psychological systems of the individual embedded within a multilevel social ecology.”  (Cicchetti & Toth, 1998).

    "Developmental psychopathology incorporates a developmental life-span perspective into the study of abnormal behavior.  ... According to this perspective, the path between risk and outcome in not invariant. Developmental psychopathologists view the ultimate outcome of risk to be the result of transactions between the organism, its environment, and the mechanisms and/or processes underlying the diathesis (Cicchetti, 1990; Cicchetti & Schneider-Rosen, 1986)." (Gooding & Iacono, 1995, p. 535)

    “Developmental psychopathology, rapidly emerging as the organizational framework for the study of behavior problems in children and adolescents, has as its goal the understanding of psychopathology in the full context of human development.  This framework represents integration of several scientific traditions in child psychology and experimental psychopathology, as well as clinical traditions in psychiatry and psychology.” (Masten & Braswell, 1991, p. 35)

    “... the study of adaptation, its variations and vicissitudes” (Masten, 1989, p. 289)

    “The concept of adaptation is central to developmental psychopathology as a comprehensive effort to understand psychological problems in the context of development.”  (Masten & Coatsworth, p.715)

    “When maladaption is viewed as development rather than a disease, a transformed understanding results and a fundamentally different research agenda emerges.” (Sroufe, 1997, p. 251)

    “Within a developmental perspective, maladaption is viewed as evolving through the successive adaptations of persons in their environments.  It is not something a person “has” or an ineluctable expression of an endogenous pathogen.  It is the complex result of a myriad of risk and protective factors operating over time.” (Sroufe, 1997, p. 251)

    “Just as personality or the emergence of competence involves a progressive, dynamic unfolding in which prior adaptation interacts with current circumstances in a ongoing way, so too does maladaptation or disorder.” (Sroufe, 1997, p. 252)

    “Pathology is not something a child 'has'; it is a pattern of adaptation reflecting the totality of the developmental context to that point." (Sroufe, 1997, p. 258)

    “Psychopathology is normal development gone awry.” (Wenar, 1994, p. 23)

    “.... the study of origins and lifecourse of individual patterns of behavioral maladaptation” (Sroufe & Rutter, 1984)

    “Developmental psychopathology is a general framework for understanding disordered behavior in relation to normal development.” (Wicks-Nelson & Israel, 1997)

    "The more we understand about normal achievements and sequences, the firmer is our foundation for identifying, understanding, and treating disorder.  Such knowledge comes from charting the course of typical development across the lifespan, in conjunction with theories and models of development.” (Wicks-Nelson & Israel, p. 17)

    “Developmental psychopathology is interested not only in the origins and developmental course of disordered behavior but also in individual adaptation and success.” (Wicks-Nelson & Israel, p. 17)
 

References

     Achenbach, T. (1990).  Conceptualization of Developmental Psychopathology. In M. Lewis and S. Miller (Eds.), Handbook of Developmental Psychopathology (pp. 3-27).  New York: Plenum Press.

     Cicchetti, D. & Cohen, D. J. (1995).  Perspectives on developmental psychopathology.  In D. Cicchetti & D. J. Cohen (Eds.) Developmental psychopathology, Vol. I:  Theory and methods (pp. 3-22).  New York:  John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

     Cicchetti, D., Nurcombe, B., & Garber, J.  (1992).  Editorial:  Developmental approaches to depression.  Development and Psychopathology, 4, 1-3.

     Cicchetti, D. & Toth, S.  (1995).  Developmental Psychopathology and Disorders of Affect.  In D. Cicchetti and D. Cohen (Eds.).  Developmental Psychopathology--Volume 2:  Risk, Disorder, and Adaptation (pp. 369-420).  New York:  John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

     Cicchetti, D. & Toth, S.L.  (1998).  The Development of Depression in Children and Adolescents.  American Psychologist, 53 (2), 221-241.

     Gooding, D. C., & Iacono, W. G.  (1995).  Schizophrenia through the lens of a developmental psychopathology perspective.  In D. Cicchetti and D. Cohen (Eds.), Developmental psychopathology-Volume 2:  Risk, disorder, and adaptation (pp. 535-580).  New York:  John Wiley & Sons.

     Masten, A., & Braswell, L. (1991).  Developmental psychopathology: An integrative framework.  In P.R. Martin (Ed.) Handbook of behavior therapy and psychological science: An integrative approach (pp. 35-56).  New York: Pergamon.

     Masten, A. (1989).  Resilience in development: Implications of the study of successful adaptation for developmental psychopathology. In D. Cicchetti (Ed.), The emergence of a discipline: Rochester Symposium on Developmental Psychopathology (Vol. 1: pp. 261-294). Rochester: University of Rochester Press.

     Masten A., & Coatsworth, D. (1995).  Competence, Resilience, and Psychopathology.  In D. Cicchetti and D. Cohen (Eds.).  Developmental Psychopathology -Volume 2: Risk, Disorder, and Adaptation (pp. 715-752).  New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

     Sroufe, L. A. (1997).  Psychopathology as an outcome of development.  Development and Psychopathology, 9, 251-268.
 Sroufe, L. A. (1984).  The domain of developmental psychopathology. Child Development,  55, 17-29.

     Wenar, C. (1994).  Developmental Psychopathology: From Infancy through Adolescence (Third Edition).  New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc.

     Wicks-Nelson, R. & Israel, A.  (1997).  Behavior disorders of childhood.  New Jersey:  Prentice-Hall, Inc.
 

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