Objective: To examine whether oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) rather than conduct disorder (CD) may explain the comorbidity between behavioral disorders and depression; to test whether distinct affective and behavioral dimensions can be discerned within the symptoms of ODD; and to determine whether an affective dimension of ODD symptoms is…

Objective: A callous-unemotional (CU) subtype of conduct disorder (CD) has been proposed as an addition to the fifth edition of the "Diagnostic and Statistic Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5)." This study tested the hypothesis that young girls with the CU subtype of CD would exhibit more severe antisocial behavior and less severe internalizing…

The Pittsburgh Girls Study is a longitudinal, community-based study of 2,451 girls who were initially recruited when they were between the ages of 5 and 8 years. The primary aim of the study was testing developmental models of conduct disorder, major depressive disorder, and their co-occurrence in girls. In the current article, we summarize the…

Little is known about the relative predictive utility of maternal characteristics and parenting skills on the development of girls' disruptive behavior. The current study used five waves of parent- and child-report data from the ongoing Pittsburgh Girls Study to examine these relationships in a sample of 1,942 girls from age 7 to 12 years.…

Little empirical evidence exists regarding the developmental links between childhood psychopathology and borderline personality disorder (BPD) in adolescence. The current study addresses this gap by examining symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) as potential precursors. ADHD and BPD…

Clusters of pre-sexual and sexual behaviors were identified in an urban US sample of 546 mid-adolescent girls. No distinct group of girls engaging in sexually risky behavior was revealed. Sexually active girls were older, lived with a single parent, and reported more substance use and depression, but similar levels of conduct problems, impulsivity…

Background: Little is known about the role of oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) dimensions on the temporal unfolding of conduct disorder (CD) and depression in girls between childhood and adolescence. Method: The year-to-year associations between CD and depressive symptomatology were examined using nine waves of annually collected data (ages 8…

Background: The presence of callous-unemotional (CU) features may delineate a severe and persistent form of conduct problems in children with unique developmental origins. Contextual risk factors such as poor parenting, delinquent peers, or neighborhood risk are believed to influence the development of conduct problems primarily in children with…

This study examined how girls' initial use of alcohol, cigarettes, and marijuana related to changes in depressive, generalized anxiety, and social anxiety symptoms, and whether these changes varied based on which internalizing symptom trajectories the girls were on. Data came from the Pittsburgh Girls Study, a community-based study of girls…

In recent years, concern has been raised about girls' involvement in sexual activity at progressively younger ages. Little is known about the prevalence of emerging intimate behaviors, the psychosocial factors associated with these behaviors, or the moderating effects of ethnicity on these associations in early adolescence. In the current…

The article discusses a research instrument developed and utilized by the Pittsburgh Girls Study that asked young girls (ages 7 and 8) and their caretakers to report on the girls' involvement in a variety of problem behaviors. In this article, the authors evaluate whether comprehension, prevalence, and caretaker-child concordance of problem…

Relatively little is known about the factor structure of disruptive behavior among preadolescent girls. The present study reports on exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses of disruptive girl behavior over four successive data waves as rated by parents and teachers in a large, representative community sample of girls (N = 2,451). Five factors…

This study examined concurrent and longitudinal associations between peer deviance, parenting practices, and conduct and oppositional problems among young girls ages 7 and 8. Participants were 588 African American and European American girls who were part of a population-based study of the development of conduct problems and delinquency among…

Although the reciprocal effects of parenting and child behavior have long been recognized, the emphasis of empirical study in the field of developmental psychopathology has been on parenting effects on children. For girls in particular, little is known about unique parenting effects on conduct problems in comparison to depression, or vice versa.…

The interpersonal (e.g., manipulative, deceitful) and affective (e.g., callous, unemotional) features associated with adult psychopathy have been identified in children and adolescents. Although early research suggests that these features have clinical utility in identifying a particularly severe and recalcitrant form of antisocial behavior with…