Developmental Models of Childhood Disorders
Chair: Susan B. Campbell

In this symposium, three leading figures, whose work integrates the child psychiatry/psychopathology and developmental psychopathology perspectives, will present a developmental and conceptual model of one of the disorders mentioned above (i.e. Depression, Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, Conduct Disorder) with a focus on general and specific risk factors, developmental pathways, and the model’s implications for the next generation of research in this complex area. Diagnostic and treatment implications may also be addressed. Our distinguished discussant, Dr. Peter Jensen, former Chief of the Childhood Disorders Branch of NIMH, will provide a commentary on the strengths of these models, clinical implications, and directions for future research.

Cultural Perspectives of Chinese Socialization
Chair: Ruth Chao, Heidi Fung

This symposium will provide a cultural examination of the socialization of Chinese children and adolescents. All the papers provide analyses of the cultural processes underlying the socialization of Chinese children through both qualitative and quantitative methods. These cultural processes are captured through different aspects of the child’s socialization experiences and development. These socialization experiences encompass the child’s parents or parental control, learning and schooling, the preschool setting, and finally the child’s emerging sense of self and parents’ role.

Emotion Regulation, the Next Generation: Points of Consensus, Paths to Resolution

Chair: Pamela M. Cole

Emotion regulation is a concept that has captivated psychology. It seems so central to our current understanding of child development, and yet its study has been plagued by conceptual confusion and methodological limitations. A recent issue of Child Development (March/April 2004) grappled with these thorny problems. This symposium extends the discussion, identifying points of agreement on key issues and articulating research strategies to address points of disagreement. Three overarching questions are broached in each presentation. Is emotion regulation distinct from emotion or is this fundamentally a false distinction that impedes scientific progress? Second, how can biological approaches advance the study of emotion regulation, and how can the study of behavior and context contribute to those biological advances? Although progress in affective neuroscience provides new lenses through which to examine emotion regulation, how do we best capture an emergent phenomenon that is central to all aspects of development?

What Can the Study of Schools and Schooling Contribute to Understanding Development and How It Can Be Studied? – The 2005 Lawrence Frank Symposium
Chair: Robert Pianta, University of Virginia

Increasing attention is being paid to conceptual and research links between education and developmental psychology. However the relationship of developmental research and theory with educational settings and processes historically has been limited to research-to-practice links, recruitment of samples for basic research studies or tests of interventions, or locations for the assessment of outcomes of interest. Less often have developmental and educational processes been examined within more integrative conceptual and research frameworks, resulting in perhaps a somewhat limited view of both education and development. The 2005 Lawrence Frank Symposium addresses this need for integration by examining the contribution of research on schools and schooling processes to the understanding of development. The symposium brings together developmental scientists involved in the study of school contexts at multiple levels: School and organizational reform, school climate and classroom processes, and social and instructional interactions with peers and adults in classrooms to address the ways in which studying development in settings that are devoted to changing development, has implications for developmental theory, knowledge, and research in the domains of peer relations and problem behavior, positive youth development and achievement, and cognition and learning. The presenters each draw from their own work studying schools and school effects in these domains to address the larger issue of what can be learned about development and research on development from the study of schools and schooling processes.

Imaging the Development of Face and Emotion Processing in Typical and Atypical Development
Chair: Kathleen Thomas, University of Minnesota

This symposium brings together junior and senior investigators exploring the brain bases of face processing and/or emotion processing in typical and atypical child development using neuro-imaging techniques such as functional MRI. Emotion processing and emotion regulation are essential aspects of normative social development, but are also related to other domains of cognitive function. Face processing and emotion processing have been implicated in developmental disorders such as autism and anxiety disorders. The intersection of brain development and emotion processing in childhood represents the cutting edge of neuro-imaging research in developmental affective neuroscience.

Lesbian Mothers and Their Children: New Data From Three Countries
Chair: Charlotte J. Patterson, University of Virginia

To what degree does parental sexual orientation affect child development? This symposium will present four studies from a new generation of research on lesbian mothers and their children, designed to address questions about the role of parental sexual orientation in human development. Drawing on presenters' programs of research in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada, the symposium will unveil new data on psychosocial development of children and adolescents with lesbian mothers. The discussant, Ellen Perrin, is a pediatrician whose recent review of research on children of lesbian and gay parents for the American Academy of Pediatrics has been widely praised.