Sheree L Toth

• Ph.D.
• Managing Director at University of Rochester

Purpose Childhood maltreatment (CM) and intimate partner violence (IPV) are two deleterious relational experiences that have significant negative consequences during the prenatal period. The current study had two aims: (a) use person-centered analyses to identify classes of pregnant individuals based on exposure to different types of CM and IPV and...

Identifying proximal and multigenerational distal risk mechanisms through which adversity exposure may shape neuroendocrine dysregulation among children is critical to advancing effective preventive interventions for adversity-exposed individuals. Utilizing longitudinal data ( N = 247), the current study examined maternal and offspring history of c...

Exposure to child maltreatment and maternal substance use disorder represent two highly consequential and co-occurring experiences of family-level adversity for the development of concerning substance use behaviors among offspring. The present study uses latent class analysis to identify how characteristics of childhood maltreatment and maternal su...

In this article, we celebrate Dante Cicchetti’s extensive contributions to the discipline of developmental psychopathology. In his seminal article, he articulated why developmental psychopathology was imperative to create research portfolios that could inform the causes, consequences, and trajectories for adults often initiated by early lived exper...

Child maltreatment constitutes a significant environmental risk for children, with carryover effects into future generations. There is a need to characterize protective factors that may buffer against the intergenerational transmission of maltreatment. The current study addresses this gap through two primary aims: 1) the development and validation...

This study uses a 2-wave, longitudinal design to evaluate mother-child attachment security (child-reported) and emotion regulation capacities (wave 1, age 10-12) as mediators linking childhood maltreatment chronicity and emotion regulation (ER) patterns in emerging adulthood (wave 2; N = 399; 48.1% male; 77.2% Black/African-American, 11.3% White, 7...

Recent research highlights the use of artificial boundaries between distinct types of adverse experiences, including forms of maltreatment. Commonly-utilized methods that isolate the impact of one maltreatment subtype over others and fail to consider the often co-occurring nature of maltreatment may not adequately capture the complex heterogeneous...

The present study illustrates the utility of latent class analysis, a person-centered data analytic approach, as an innovative method for identifying naturally occurring patterns of polygenic risk, specifically within the dopaminergic system. Moreover, this study tests whether latent classes of polygenic variation moderate the effect of child maltr...

Child maltreatment (CM) is a robust risk factor for adolescent depressive and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms. Quality attachment relationships have been posited as a protective factor but findings are equivocal and studies have not adequately considered the complex network of interpersonal relationships that adolescents rely on. The...

Background Child maltreatment is a potent risk factor for depression across the life course, with maltreatment and depression demonstrated to disproportionately impact youth of color. Despite evidence for mechanisms (e.g., social information processing; SIP) accounting for the effects of maltreatment on youth broadly, pathways of risk for depressio...

Despite findings that developmental timing of maltreatment is a critical factor in predicting subsequent outcomes, children's developmental stage is understudied in maltreatment research. Moreover, childhood maltreatment is associated with the development of maladaptive peer relationships and psychopathology, with social cognition identified as a p...

Co-occurring maternal depression and antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) are associated with the development of psychopathology in children, yet little is known about risk mechanisms. In a sample of 122 racially diverse and economically disadvantaged families, we prospectively investigated (a) to what extent child socioemotional problems were re...

Adolescent risk for depression and passive or active suicidal ideation (PASI) involves disturbance across multiple systems (e.g., arousal regulatory, affective valence, neurocognitive). Exposure to maltreatment while growing up as a child or teenager may potentiate this risk by noxiously impacting these systems. However, research exploring how coor...

Adolescent pregnancy (AP) is a significant public health issue. Child maltreatment (CM) represents an established risk factor, yet little is known about the explanatory mechanisms linking the phenomena. Informed by developmental theory, this study prospectively tested seven multi-level, indirect pathways that could plausibly explain the relationshi...

Distinguishing profiles of trauma exposure among low-income adolescent females with depressive symptoms is important for understanding comorbidity, family relationships, and treatment. Specifically, child maltreatment is essential to examine in comparison to other traumas. Participants included 170 adolescent females (65.3% Black; 21.2% White; 13.5...

Depression is a prevalent, chronic, and burdensome developmental disorder that represents an urgent public health priority. The developmental psychopathology perspective provides an important framework for conceptualizing the development of child and adolescent depression and will guide this chapter. A complete understanding of the unfolding of dep...

Exposure to childhood maltreatment (CM) may disrupt typical development of neural systems underlying impulse control and emotion regulation. Yet resilient outcomes are observed in some individuals exposed to CM. Individual differences in adult functioning may result from variation in inhibitory control in the context of emotional distractions, unde...

In response to the commentaries provided by Chu et al. (2020), Harmon et al. (2020), and McMahon & Maxwell (2020) on our longitudinal follow-up of Child-Parent Psychotherapy (CPP) with mothers with depression and their children, we focus on two domains: accessibility and scalability of CPP and identifying empirically supported mechanisms of change...

Background Exposure to child maltreatment is a well-known risk factor for suicide ideation among adolescents. Recent stressful life events may also contribute to this risk. However, the association between these risk factors is unclear in the etiology of suicide ideation for adolescents from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds. Objective...

As a founder of the field of applied developmental psychology, Dr Edward Zigler promoted public policy that translated scientific knowledge into real-world programs to improve the outcomes of high-risk children and families. Many researchers, practitioners, and public policy proponents have sought to carry on his legacy through integration of empir...

The present investigation examined the longitudinal effects of Child-Parent Psychotherapy (CPP) for toddlers and their mothers with depression on: a) maternal affective expression, b) child affective expression, and c) mother-child cohesion. Mothers with depression (Mage = 31.7 years; 92.8% White, 3.5% Black, 2.1% Hispanic, 2.3% other) and their to...

Purpose: Childhood maltreatment is associated with increased suicide risk. However, not all maltreated children report self-injurious thoughts and behaviors, highlighting the presence of other risk factors. Notably, adolescent dating violence (ADV) and child maltreatment are highly comorbid, with ADV also linked to suicide risk among adolescents....

Adolescent girls are at heightened risk of depression, and because adolescent depression may initiate a negative developmental cascade, intervention early in adolescence has potential for altering a negative developmental trajectory. Identifying risk factors that impact response to intervention may inform decisions about the type of treatment to pr...

Adolescent females are disproportionately at risk for depression, which is expected to represent the leading cause of disability in 2030 (National Institute of Mental Health [NIMH] 2019). Although prior research has suggested that both child maltreatment and adolescent pregnancy increase the risk for depressive symptoms, less is known about how the...

The current study examined the development of toddler attachment and early childhood behavior among children of mothers with a history of childhood maltreatment and current major depressive disorder. Maternal depression, maternal sensitivity, and toddler attachment were assessed as mediators of the association between maternal history of childhood...

Trauma exposure in children and adolescents is a pervasive and detrimental public health concern. It can have many immediate and long‐term deleterious effects on a child's physical and mental health. Children who experience trauma may go on to develop psychopathology, often in the form of trauma and stress‐related disorders. This entry summarizes t...

Background: Maternal depression is a widely recognized public health concern with significant implications for child functioning, including the development of negative child affect and risk for later depression. Negative mental representations may partially account for the association between maternal depression and child negative affect. Methods...

The quality of early caregiving may partially shape brain structure and circuits involved in regulating emotions, including the frontal cortex, affecting vulnerability to the development of psychopathology and maladaptation. Given the profound impact of child maltreatment (CM) on psychological and neural development, we tested whether CM alters the...

Multidomain approaches toward understanding the transmission of harsh caregiving across generations have been largely overlooked in the literature. To address this, the current study examined how maternal and child factors may operate as mediating mechanisms in the association between maternal history of child maltreatment and maternal caregiving b...

Child maltreatment represents a pervasive societal problem. Exposure to maltreatment is predictive of maladjustment across development with enduring negative effects found in adulthood. Compelling evidence suggests that some parents with a history of child abuse and neglect are at elevated risk for the maltreatment of their own children. However, a...

Child maltreatment is a heterogeneous phenomenon that frequently results in negative developmental trajectories across many domains of child functioning. In this article, we selectively review the literature on child maltreatment from the perspective of developmental psychopathology, emphasizing the central role of attachment in setting the path fo...

Objective The aim of the present study was to investigate whether mother‐daughter relationship quality and mother‐daughter conflict represent mechanisms underlying the association between child maltreatment and adolescent passive or active suicide ideation. Method The sample included 164 socioeconomically disadvantaged depressed adolescent girls a...

Background: Women with depression and childhood sexual abuse histories constitute more than 20% of the female patient population in publicly funded community mental health centers (CMHCs). Interventions are needed that address depression and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms and social health. Method: We compared Interpersonal Psycho...

Previous research has provided evidence for the robust relation between maltreatment and the development of externalizing behavior, including aggression. However, less empirical attention has been given to the specific role of neglect. The current study aimed to examine the role of working memory in the association between early neglect and aggress...

Offspring of mothers diagnosed with major depression are at increased risk for a wide range of psychological problems. Previous research has shown that individual differences in personality development can be informative for predicting risk and resilience to psychopathology, especially within at-risk populations. In the present study, we examined w...

Childhood maltreatment negatively impacts the development of maternal and peer relationships and may put adolescents at risk for depression. The present study examined gender differences in maternal relationship quality and peer social acceptance as mediators of the association between childhood maltreatment and adolescent depressive symptoms in 34...

Background: Individuals with a history of maltreatment show altered amygdala reactivity to emotional stimuli, atypical frontal regulatory control, and differences in frontolimbic connectivity compared to non-maltreated controls. However, despite early trauma, many individuals who experience maltreatment show resilience, or adaptive functioning in a...

Disorganized/Disoriented (D) attachment has seen widespread interest from policy makers, practitioners, and clinicians in recent years. However, some of this interest seems to have been based on some false assumptions that (1) attachment measures can be used as definitive assessments of the individual in forensic/child protection settings and that...

Using a developmental cascades framework, the current study investigated whether treating maternal depression via interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT) may lead to more widespread positive adaptation for offspring and mothers including benefits to toddler attachment and temperament, and maternal parenting self-efficacy. The participants ( N = 125 mothe...

Numerous investigations have demonstrated that child–parent psychotherapy (CPP) promotes secure attachment between mothers and offspring. However, the role of postintervention attachment security as it relates to long-term child outcomes has never been evaluated. The present study therefore examined postintervention attachment status as a mediator...

This chapter highlights evidence-based interventions for prevention of the intergenerational transmission of child maltreatment. We begin with a brief summary of the deleterious effects of early maltreatment on attachment to caregiver(s), and the long-term sequelae that may contribute to the intergenerational transmission of abuse and neglect. The...

In the present investigation, differential methylation analyses of the whole genome were conducted among a sample of 548 school-aged low-income children (47.8% female, 67.7% Black, M age = 9.40 years), 54.4% of whom had a history of child maltreatment. In the context of a summer research camp, DNA samples via saliva were obtained. Using GenomeStudi...

A genome-wide methylation study was conducted among a sample of 114 infants ( M age = 13.2 months, SD = 1.08) of low-income urban women with ( n = 73) and without ( n = 41) major depressive disorder. The Illumina HumanMethylation450 BeadChip array with a GenomeStudio Methylation Module and Illumina Custom model were used to conduct differential met...

We utilize a perspective derived from developmental psychopathology to guide our discussion of advances that have been made in the field of prevention science over the last decade. After addressing definitional perspectives on prevention, we review programmatic preventive initiatives that are consistent with the goals of a developmental psychopatho...

In this chapter, we provide an overview of the historical issues accompanying the study of child maltreatment and address advances and challenges that have emerged over decades of research in this area. A developmental psychopathology perspective provides a framework for discussing etiological models, psychological and biological sequelae, and meth...

This chapter highlights the potential for developmental and clinical researchers to export theory and research to the broader community, especially those families involved with child welfare. It first summarizes what we know about the impact of child maltreatment, with an emphasis on its deleterious effects on attachment and self-development in you...

Multilevel developmental perspectives on child maltreatment - Volume 27 Issue 4pt2 - Dante Cicchetti, Sheree L. Toth

Childhood maltreatment is a serious individual, familial, and societal threat that compromises healthy development and is associated with lasting alterations to emotion perception, processing, and regulation (Cicchetti & Curtis, 2005; Pollak, Cicchetti, Hornung, & Reed, 2000; Pollak & Tolley-Schell, 2003). Individuals with a history of maltreatment...

The present study applies a multilevel approach to an examination of the effect of two randomized preventive interventions with mothers in neglectful families who are also contending with elevated levels of impoverishment and ecological risk. Specifically, we examined how participation in either child-parent psychotherapy (CPP) or psychoeducational...

The overarching goal of this chapter is to elaborate a developmental psychopathology approach to prevention science. In the first part of the chapter, we review basic research on normal and abnormal development and developmental psychopathology and articulate its integral relation to preventive interventions. As theory informs practice, practice al...

The primary aim of the current study was to examine self-criticism as a potential mechanism mediating the relation between mothers' own childhood maltreatment history and changes in subsequent maternal efficacy beliefs in a diverse sample of low-income mothers with and without major depressive disorder. Longitudinal data were drawn from a larger ra...

Given the interdependent nature of relationships within the family system, the purpose of this study was to examine the potential role of child-parent psychotherapy (CPP) to extend its positive influence beyond the mother-child relationship within families challenged by maternal depression. Accordingly, we analyzed longitudinal associations between...

Childhood maltreatment represents a complex stressor, with the developmental timing, duration, frequency, and type of maltreatment varying with each child (Barnett, Manly, & Cicchetti, 1993; Cicchetti & Manly, 2001). Multiple brain regions and neural circuits are disrupted by the experience of child maltreatment (Cicchetti & Toth, in press; DeBelli...

Genetic moderation of interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT) efficacy for economically disadvantaged women with major depressive disorder was examined. Specifically, we investigated whether genotypic variation in corticotropin releasing hormone receptor 1 (CRHR1) and the linked polymorphic region of the serotonin transporter gene (5-HTTLPR) moderated ef...

Research has documented that maternal expressed emotion-criticism (EE-Crit) from the Five-Minute Speech Sample (FMSS) predicts family conflict and children's externalizing behavior in clinical and community samples. However, studies have not examined EE-Crit in maltreating or separated/divorced families, or whether these family risks exacerbate the...

A randomized clinical trial was conducted to evaluate the efficacy of interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT) for ethnically and racially diverse, economically disadvantaged women with major depressive disorder. Non-treatment-seeking urban women (N = 128; M age = 25.40, SD = 4.98) with infants were recruited from the community. Participants were at or be...

Thirteen-month-old maltreated infants (n = 137) and their mothers were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: child-parent psychotherapy (CPP), psychoeducational parenting intervention (PPI), or community standard (CS). A fourth group of nonmaltreated infants (n = 52) and their mothers served as a nonmaltreated comparison (NC) group. A prior...

It is well established that child maltreatment has significant deleterious effects for the individual as well as for society. We briefly review research regarding the impact of child maltreatment on the attachment relationship, highlighting the need for relational interventions for maltreated children and their families to effectively thwart negati...

Child maltreatment is a complex, insidious problem that, although predominant in impoverished families (Pelton, 1978), cuts across all sectors of society. The American Association for Protecting Children (1986) tallied 1,727,000 reports of suspected child maltreatment in 1984. Forty two percent of these reports were substantiated. A national survey...

Given the vast economic expense of treating mental disorders in children, adolescents, and adults, as well as the waste and erosion of potential that human disorder, misery, and dysfunction entail, E. L. Cowen (1991, 1994) has argued that a social strategy focused on the promotion and implementation of wellness-enhancement as early as possible in t...

Background: Research has consistently demonstrated the deleterious consequences of child maltreatment, not only during childhood but also across the life course. In particular, maltreatment negatively affects child attachment, with high percentages of maltreated children developing insecure or disorganized attachments with their primary caregiver....

Direct and indirect relations among maternal depression, maternal Expressed Emotion (EE: Self- and Child-Criticism), child internalizing and externalizing symptoms, and child attachment were examined. Participants were mothers with depression (n = 130) and comparison mothers (n = 68) and their toddlers (M age = 20 mo.; 53% male). Assessments includ...

Child maltreatment has been associated with a wide range of negative developmental outcomes for children and families as well as significant economic consequences. While efficacious intervention strategies have been demonstrated to reduce symptoms of trauma and to improve behavioral and emotional functioning, these models have not been widely adopt...

Longitudinal effects of child maltreatment on cortisol regulation in infants from age 1 to 3 years were investigated in the context of a randomized preventive intervention trial. Thirteen-month-old infants from maltreating families (N = 91) and their mothers were randomly assigned to one of three intervention conditions: child-parent psychotherapy,...

Mother-child play of maltreating and nonmaltreating families was analyzed when infants were 12 months old (Time 1), and 2 years old (Time 2), as a context to examine children's developing cognitive and social skills. At Time 1, infants from abusing families demonstrated less independent and more imitative behavior during play than did infants from...

To examine illogical thinking in children from low-income families with and without histories of child maltreatment. Maltreated (n = 91) and nonmaltreated (n = 43) school-age children individually participated in a story game designed to elicit speech samples. Children were instructed to listen to two recorded stories and prompted to retell the sto...

This investigation examined the extent to which polymorphisms of the serotonin transporter linked promoter region (5-HTTLPR) and the dopamine receptor D4 (DRD4) genes differentially influenced the development of attachment security and disorganization in maltreated and nonmaltreated infants at age 13 months, and the extent to which the efficacy of...

To assess the effectiveness of social-emotional screening in the primary care setting for youths in foster care. The setting was a primary care practice for all youth in home-based foster care in 1 county. Subjects were youths, aged 11 to 17 years, and their foster parents; both completed a Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire at well-child vis...

In the 2006, Handbook of Child Psychology, Irving Sigel queried, "Do research findings in child development influence relevant practice and is practice influential in planning research?" (p. 1017). After examining 100 years of cumulative child development research, his conclusion was "no" however, he acknowledged that the somewhat dismal situation...

The authors examined 284 maltreated and nonmaltreated children's (6- to 12-year-olds) ability to inhibit true and false memories for neutral and emotional information using the Deese/Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm. Children studied either emotional or neutral DRM lists in a control condition or were given directed-remembering or directed-forgett...

Attachment security and internal representations of mothers, and of the mother-child relationship, were examined in an ethnically diverse and economically disadvantaged sample of maltreated (N = 92) and nonmaltreated (N = 31) preschool-aged children. Maltreated preschoolers had lower rates of secure attachment and higher rates of disorganized attac...

Previous research suggests that child maltreatment is transmitted across familial generations. However, extant studies focused exclusively on single maltreatment subtypes, instead of the more common experience of multitype maltreatment. This limitation is addressed in the first known study to examine the maternal intergenerational transmission of c...

Research has shown that children of depressed mothers are at risk for problems in a variety of developmental domains; however, little is known about the effects of maternal depression on children's emerging understanding of false beliefs. In this study, 3 false belief tasks were administered to 5-year-old children whose mothers had either met crite...

Maltreatment involves a significant deviation from the average expected environment, and, as such, has consistently been shown to be detrimental to development. Children, who suffer abuse, neglect, or both are at increased risk for atypical emotion regulation, disorganized attachment, diminished cognitive development, and delayed language developme...

This investigation examined basic memory processes, cortisol, and dissociation in maltreated children. School-aged children (age range=6-13), 143 maltreated and 174 non-maltreated, were administered the California Verbal Learning Test-Children (D. C. Delis, J. H. Kramer, E. Kaplan, & B. A. Ober, 1994) in a week-long camp setting, daily morning cort...

The impact of early physical and sexual abuse (EPA/SA) occurring in the first 5 years of life was investigated in relation to depressive and internalizing symptomatology and diurnal cortisol regulation. In a summer camp context, school-aged maltreated (n = 265) and nonmaltreated (n = 288) children provided morning and late afternoon saliva samples...

The historical origins of the field of developmental psychopathology are discussed and the meaning of a developmental psychopathology perspective is described. The definitional principles and tenets of the discipline of developmental psychopathology are delineated and they are utilized to highlight diversity in process and outcome. The definitional...

Purpose: Although it is known that MH disorders are the most significant health problem for the half million US children and youth in foster care, the population-wide prevalence of MH problems is not well understood. In addition, little is known about best practices for MH assessment of teens in foster care, including concordance between parent a...

To investigate whether genotypic variation of the serotonin transporter gene-linked promoter region (5-HTTLPR) moderates the effect of maltreatment on suicidal ideation in school-aged children. Eight hundred and fifty low-income children (478 maltreated; 372 non-maltreated) provided DNA samples and self-reported depressive and suicidal symptoms. Ge...

This investigation addresses whether there are differences in the form and content of autobiographical memory recall as a function of maltreatment, and examines the roles of self-system functioning and psychopathology in autobiographical memory processes. Autobiographical memory for positive and negative nontraumatic events was evaluated among abus...

Relations among maternal depression, child attachment, and children's representations of parents and self were examined. Participants included toddlers and their mothers with a history of major depressive disorder (n= 63) or no history of mental disorder (n= 68). Attachment was assessed at 20 and 36 months and representations of parents and self we...

Over the past decades, developmental psychopathology has coalesced into a discipline that has made significant contributions toward the understanding of risk, psychopathology, and resilience in individuals across the life course. The overarching goal of the discipline has been to elucidate the interplay among biological, psychological, and social-c...

Research has informed practice since the origins of developmental psychology, but only recently has basic science and practice begun to be consistently integrated with one another. In addition, considerable research documents the utility of empirically-supported interventions, yet it has been difficult to implement such interventions outside of the...

A depth-of-processing incidental recall task for maternal-referent stimuli was utilized to assess basic memory processes and the affective valence of maternal representations among abused (N = 63), neglected (N = 33), and nonmaltreated (N = 128) school-aged children (ages 8-13.5 years old). Self-reported and observer-rated indices of internalizing...

This chapter briefly reviews the extant literature on trauma and memory, with a particular focus on child maltreatment and memory. This serves as the foundation for examining the clinical and social policy implications of this research for children who have been victimized by abuse and neglect. There is increasing evidence that the experience of ma...

The current investigation addresses the manner through which trauma affects basic memory and self-system processes. True and false recall for self-referent stimuli were assessed in conjunction with dissociative symptomatology among abused (N=76), neglected (N=92), and nonmaltreated (N=116) school-aged children. Abused, neglected, and nonmaltreated...

Research has informed practice since the origins of developmental psychology, but only recently has basic science and practice begun to be consistently integrated with one another. In addition, considerable research documents the utility of empirically-supported interventions, yet it has been difficult to implement such interventions outside of the...

This longitudinal investigation examined the effects of maternal depression and concomitant negative parenting behaviors on children's emotion regulation patterns and socioemotional functioning. One hundred fifty-one mothers and their children were assessed when children were approximately 1 1/2-, 3-, 4-, and 5-years of age. Ninety-three of the chi...

This chapter focuses on two high-risk groups, including children with histories of maltreatment and the offspring of mothers with a major depressive disorder, in order to illustrate how theory and research guided by a developmental psychopathology perspective can inform the implementation, conduct, and evaluation of preventive interventions for hig...

The development of insecure attachment relationships in the offspring of mothers with major depressive disorder (MDD) may initiate a negative trajectory leading to future psychopathology. Therefore, the provision of theoretically guided interventions designed to promote secure attachment is of paramount importance. Mothers who had experienced MDD s...

In this closing commentary, we discuss the policy implications of research concerning child maltreatment. We describe the links between the topics reviewed in this special issue and interventions for child victims as well as the state of research concerning consequences of maltreatment more broadly. We further discuss the implications of current re...

Mother-child play of 12-month-old infants (N=130) from maltreating (N=78) and non-maltreating (N=52) families was analyzed as a context that integrates infants' developing social and cognitive skills. Play was coded from semistructured and unstructured play paradigms. No group differences were found in infants' play maturity. Infants from abusing f...

To improve the health and well-being of individuals, it has become clear that scientific discoveries must be translated into practical applications (Insel & Fernald, 2004; Moses, Dorsey, Matheson, & Thier, 2005). Historically, such discoveries, particularly in the health sciences, have begun at "the bench," with basic research at the molecular or c...