The social problem posed by family conflict to the physical and psychological health and well-being of children, parents, and underlying family relationships is a cause for concern. Inter-parental and parent-child conflict are linked with children's behavioral, emotional, social, academic, and health problems, with children's risk particularly…

Rachman's ("Behaviour Research and Therapy" 15:372-387, 1977; "Clinical Psychology Review" 11:155-173, 1991) three pathways theory proposed that childhood fears not only arise as a consequence of direct learning experiences, but can also be elicited by means of threat information transmission. This review looks at the scientific evidence for this…

Nearly one-quarter of the refugees worldwide are children. There have been numerous studies reporting their levels of psychological distress. The aim of this paper is to review systematically and synthesize the epidemiological research concerning the mental health of refugee children residing in Western countries. A Cochrane Collaboration style…

One of the major questions of human development is how early experience impacts the course of development years later. Children adopted from institutional care experience varying levels of deprivation in their early life followed by qualitatively better care in an adoptive home, providing a unique opportunity to study the lasting effects of early…

This paper comprehensively reviews the published literature investigating health-related quality of life (HRQOL) following general traumatic injury in individuals between birth and 18 years. Studies were not considered if they primarily compared medical treatment options, evaluated physical function but not other aspects of HRQOL, or focused on…

In this review, a conceptualization of oppositional defiant (ODD) and conduct disorder (CD) is presented according to which social learning processes in these disorders are affected by neurocognitive dysfunctions. Neurobiological studies in ODD and CD suggest that the ability to make associations between behaviors and negative and positive…

There is considerable evidence that children and adolescents with autistic spectrum disorders (ASD) are at increased risk of anxiety and anxiety disorders. However, it is less clear which of the specific DSM-IV anxiety disorders occur most in this population. The present study used meta-analytic techniques to help clarify this issue. A systematic…

Many children in developing countries are at risk of emotional and behavioral difficulties, which are likely to be elevated due to the effects of poverty. Parenting programs have shown to be effective preventative strategies in high-income countries, but to date the research on their effectiveness in lower-income countries is limited.…

The focus of this paper is children with disabilities exposed to a broad range of violence types including child maltreatment, domestic violence, community violence, and war and terrorism. Because disability research must be interpreted on the basis of the definitional paradigm employed, definitions of disability status and current prevalence…

Raising a child with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can be an overwhelming experience for parents and families. The pervasive and severe deficits often present in children with ASD are associated with a plethora of difficulties in caregivers, including decreased parenting efficacy, increased parenting stress, and an increase in mental and…

A comprehensive review of structured family support programs in children's mental health was conducted in collaboration with leadership from key national family organizations. The goals were to identify typologies of family support services for which evaluation data existed and identify research gaps. Over 200 programs were examined; 50 met…

Child exposure to intimate partner violence (IPV) is widely acknowledged as a threat to the psycho-social and academic well-being of children. Unfortunately, as reflected in the literature, the specific link between such exposure and childhood outcomes is ambiguous. Based on a review of the literature, this article suggests that this state of…

The effects on children of political violence are matters of international concern, with many negative effects well-documented. At the same time, relations between war, terrorism, or other forms of political violence and child development do not occur in a vacuum. The impact can be understood as related to changes in the communities, families and…

Worry is a common phenomenon in children and adolescents, with some experiencing excessive worries that cause significant distress and interference. The metacognitive model of generalized anxiety disorder (Wells 1995, 2009) was developed to explain cognitive processes associated with pathological worry in adults, particularly the role of positive…

Although childhood generalized anxiety disorder is generally understudied, worry, the cardinal feature of GAD, appears to be relatively common in youth. Despite its prevalence, there are few conceptual models of the development of clinical worry in children. The current review provides a framework for integrating the developmental psychopathology…