Child Maltreatment A Developmental Psychopathology Approach

Child maltreatment has enormous costs, both at the individual and the societal level. While we are better equipped than ever to help maltreated children, fundamental questions remain. How does normal development go awry in these children? Why are some children more affected than others? And how can concerned professionals best help these children and their families?

This book explains the science of developmental psychopathology for clinicians and other professionals who work with at-risk children. The authors focus particularly on how maltreatment differentially affects children at key stages of their lives, from infancy to early adulthood. Armed with this understanding, clinicians can be aware of age-specific vulnerabilities and better tailor their interventions.

Kathryn Becker-Blease, PhD, is a developmental psychologist and an assistant professor in the School of Psychological Science at Oregon State University. Her major research interests include developmental traumatology — how trauma affects people at different stages of the life course and how prior trauma affects people as they develop over the lifespan. She has published articles on children's trauma as well as on ethical ways to research child abuse and other trauma in journals including American Psychologist, Science, and Child Development.
 
Dr. Becker-Blease has more recently developed a research interest in the science of teaching and learning, including interventions to boost student performance and adaptive learning. She is currently working on a National Science Foundation-funded project to develop and evaluate new educational materials to teach college students research design and graph reading. Her newest work focuses on trauma-informed academic interventions to support academic success for college students who have experienced child abuse, sexual assault, and other trauma.
 
Patricia K. Kerig, PhD, received her doctorate in clinical psychology from the University of California at Berkeley and currently is a professor and director of clinical training in the Department of Psychology at the University of Utah.
 
She is the author of more than 100 books, chapters, and scientific papers devoted to understanding the factors that predict risk, recovery, and resilience among children and families coping with adversity and traumatic stress, including a textbook, Developmental Psychopathology, now in its sixth edition, and a forthcoming book to be published by APA on the role of relationships as sources of risk and resilience for girls on the pathway to delinquency. She is an associate editor of the Journal of Traumatic Stress and serves on the editorial boards of several other journals.
 
In addition to her teaching, clinical work, and research devoted to investigating the mechanisms accounting for the link between trauma and youth outcomes, Dr. Kerig is on the faculty of the Center for Trauma Recovery and Juvenile Justice of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, whose mission is to disseminate trauma-informed assessment and intervention strategies to the juvenile justice system and the youth and families it serves.