The importance of callous-unemotional traits for extending the concept of psychopathy to children

This study focused on the use of callous-unemotional (CU) traits to identify a subgroup of children with both attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and a conduct problem diagnosis (oppositional defiant disorder [ODD] or conduct disorder [CD] who show characteristics similar to adults with psychopathy. In a clinic-referred sample of children aged 6 to 13 years (N = 154), those with diagnoses of both ADHD and ODD/CD were divided on the basis of teacher ratings of CU traits. Children high on these traits showed features typically associated with psychopathy, such as a lack of fearfulness and a reward-dominant response style. Furthermore, children with CU traits seemed less distressed by their behavior problems. These findings are consistent with research on adults showing that impulsivity and antisocial behavior alone are insufficient to document persons who fit the construct of psychopathy.     

Laboratory and performance-based measures of childhood disorders: introduction to the special section

Serves as an introduction to a special section of the journal on laboratory and performance-based measures of childhood disorders. The articles in the special section were part of the work of a task force established by Division 12 of the American Psychological Association on "Upgrading the Science and Technology of Assessment and Diagnosis." In this introduction, I raise a number of issues involved in the use of laboratory and performance-based measures for the assessment of childhood psychopathology that cut across the different disorders covered in the special section. Some of these issues are common to most techniques used in the assessment of childhood psychopathology; others are more specific to this particular method of assessment. However, by focusing on these issues related to the use of laboratory and performance-based measures, it will hopefully encourage a critical examination of all techniques currently being used in the assessment of psychopathology and highlight important issues involved in translating measures that were developed primarily for use in research into forms that are useful in clinical practice.     

Patterns of Physical and Relational Aggression in a School-Based Sample of Boys and Girls

The current study investigated the patterns of aggressive behavior displayed in a sample of 282 students in the 4th through 7th grades (M age = 11.28; SD = 1.82). Using cluster analyses, two distinct patterns of physical aggression emerged for both boys and girls with one aggressive cluster showing mild levels of reactive aggression and one group showing high levels of both reactive and proactive aggression. Both aggressive clusters showed problems with anger dysregulation, impulsivity, thrill and adventure seeking, positive outcome expectancies for aggression, and higher rates of bullying. However, the combined cluster was most severe on all of these variables and only the combined aggressive group differed from non-aggressive students on their level of callous-unemotional traits. Similar patterns of findings emerged for relational aggression but only for girls.     

Building an evidence base for DSM-5 conceptualizations of oppositional defiant disorder and conduct disorder: introduction to the special section

The DSM-5 ADHD and Disruptive Behavior Disorders Work Group recently outlined a research agenda designed to support possible revisions to the diagnostic criteria for oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) and conduct disorder (CD). Some of the areas in need of further investigation include (a) examining the clinical utility of the current diagnostic system in girls, (b) further clarifying the developmental progression from ODD to CD, (c) determining whether facets of ODD symptoms can help explain heterotypic continuity and enhance predictive validity, (d) evaluating the clinical utility of a new subtyping scheme for CD on the basis of the presence of callous-unemotional traits, and (e) comparing the clinical utility of dimensional versus categorical conceptualizations of ODD and CD. This special section was organized in an attempt to provide data on these issues using a diverse array of longitudinal data sets consisting of both epidemiological and clinic-based samples that collectively cover a large developmental span ranging from childhood through early adulthood.     

Implicit Learning and Concept Learning

In Experiments 1 and 2, subjects were exposed to letter strings that followed a pattern—the second letter was always the same. This exposure was disguised as a test of immediate memory. Following this training, subjects could discriminate new letter strings following the pattern from letter strings not following the pattern more often than would be expected by chance, which is the traditional evidence for concept learning. Discrimination was also better than would be predicted from subjects' explicit report of the pattern, demonstrating the co-occurrence of concept learning and implicit learning. In Experiment 3, rules were learned explicitly. Discrimination was worse than would be predicted from subjects' explicit report, validating the implicit learning paradigm. In Experiment 4, deviations from a prototypical pattern were presented during training. In the test of discrimination, prototypes were as familiar as old deviations and more familiar than new deviations, even when considering only implicit knowledge. Experiment 5 found implicit knowledge of a familiar concept. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that the distinguishing features of a concept can be learned implicitly, and that one type of implicit learning is concept learning.