TABLE 1.

Recommendations for Future Research on Childhood Adversity and Youth Psychopathology

Develop and utilize a consistent definition of childhood adversity

Integrate studies of typical development with those focused on understanding the impact of childhood adversity; in particular, research that can shed light on sensitive periods in emotional, social, cognitive, and neurobiological development is needed

Identify developmental mechanisms linking adverse environmental experiences in childhood to the onset of multiple forms of psychopathology (i.e., mechanisms that explain multifinality)

Identify distinct dimensions of environmental experience that might differentially influence developmental mechanisms

Measure multiple dimensions of environmental experience in studies of childhood adversity to distinguish between common and specific underlying mechanisms linking different forms of adversity to psychopathology

Identify protective factors that buffer children from the negative consequences of adversity at two levels: (a) factors that modify the association between childhood adversity and the maladaptive patterns of emotional, cognitive, social, and neurobiological development that serve as intermediate phenotypes (i.e., mechanisms) linking adversity with psychopathology, and (b) factors that moderate the influence of intermediate phenotypes on the emergence of psychopathology, leading to divergent trajectories of adaptation across children