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The papers included in this year's Annual Research Review represent a heterogenous mix of concerns, zooming out, in some cases, to summarize the state of the science for a particular condition or developmental process and zooming in, in other cases, to identify effects of specific (and timely) risk factors for child and adolescent mental health. These papers highlight where the field has made significant strides in advancing our understanding of etiology or mechanisms of change or stability and they highlight how much is left to learn about the causes of psychopathology and the conditions under which developmental trajectories are maintained or disrupted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the JCPP marks its 50th year of publication, this paper revisits the founding philosophy and traces the journey from the first issue through to the present. The history of the JCPP reflects the many changes that have come about in the fields of developmental psychology and child and adolescent psychiatry and the changes introduced both to meet the needs and shape the practices of clinicians and researchers. It documents the achievements of the Journal and the contributions made by many in enabling its success. As the JCPP moves forward it will enjoy the benefits of the major technological and other advances being made in research, in the evolving and expanding knowledge base, and in the modes of publication, as well as needing to manage the associated challenges that will inevitably impact on its future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As in life generally, so in scholarly publishing, the turn of the year inevitably encourages editors to reflect soberly and take honest stock of the progress their journals have made over the previous 12 months. In this frame of mind, my own thoughts turned to our beloved Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. Of course I say ours because we who currently work at the journal, know it actually belongs to you, the world-wide community of child and adolescent psychologists and psychiatrists: We are only its stewards. We hold it in trust for the whole field. We understand the important role that it has served, in shaping the field of scientific child psychology and psychiatry. We know it has a special place in both your intellectual and working lives. We are aware how important it is to you that the journal continues, on your behalf, to help drive the promotion of science-driven and evidence-based solutions to the great, and, in some aspects, growing, burden of suffering imposed by childhood mental and neuro-developmental disorders. It is vital that we have your confidence that we do this in a transparent and fair way - without fear or favour - not letting our own preconceptions, prejudices or vested interests influence the content of what we publish - unless it is our prejudice towards, and vested interest in, finding out 'the truth of the matter'. We are acutely aware of the responsibility that all this places on our shoulders - a yoke we feel privileged to bear. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses various reports published within the issue including one by Dykens and Roof on children with Prader-Willi syndrome and another by Loo et al. on children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

The world is a different place than it was more than 2 years ago, at the start of the COVID‐19 pandemic. The times are always changing, but events of the recent past have radically shifted how we work, when and how we interact with each other, and how we understand our history. The papers in the current issue echo this spirit of change, challenging us to fundamentally re‐think how we conceptualize psychopathology, where we define boundaries between 'normal' and 'abnormal' (and, who gets to define those boundaries), and whether our current conceptual models are generalizable to ever more diverse groups. These challenges represent healthy and timely critiques of dominant paradigms. Collectively, the authors who contributed to the current Annual Research Review make the case that these new frameworks will have big pay‐offs in terms of improving clinical practice and policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this Editorial Perspective, we take a systematic look at the overall nature of the Covid‐19 related research on mental health in children and young people, to gain insight into the major trends in this area of research and inform future lines of investigation, clinical practices, and policies. By means of state‐of‐the‐art scientometric approaches, we identified 3,692 relevant research outputs, mainly clustering around the following themes: (a) mental health consequences of the Covid‐19 pandemic in children and young people; (b) impact of the pandemic on pre‐existing psychiatric disorders; (c) family outcomes (i.e., family violence and parental mental health); and (d) link between physical and mental conditions. Only 23% of the retrieved publications reported new data, the remaining ones being reviews, editorials, opinion papers, and other nonempirical reports. The majority of the empirical studies used a cross‐sectional design. We suggest that future research efforts should prioritise: (a) longitudinal follow‐up of existing cohorts; (b) quasi‐experimental studies to gain insight into causal mechanisms underlying pandemic‐related psychopathology in children and young people; (c) pragmatic randomised controlled trials (RCTs) to test evidence‐based intervention strategies; and (d) evidence‐based guidelines for clinicians and policymakers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper by Le et al. (2020) is a valuable addition to the literature because it provides evidence regarding the trajectories of health‐related quality of life (HRQoL) in children with language disorders from the ages of 4–13 years. The authors found that higher language scores were associated with better HRQoL particularly in the school and social domains. Of the children in the low language group, 40% were in the stable‐high HRQoL trajectory, while the others were in the reduced‐slow‐decline (26%) and low‐rapid‐decline (34%) HRQoL groups. Despite the prevalence of language disorder and its impact on many aspects of children's everyday lives, many professionals and members of the public are still unaware of this condition and its potential consequences. The publication of the Le et al. (2020) paper is timely because it coincides with a call to action to support these children by McGregor (2020). McGregor (2020) argued that we fail children with developmental language disorders both in terms of research and service provision. In her recent discussion paper, she provided evidence that these children face significant risks with regard to academic achievement: they are 6 times more likely to have reading disabilities, 6 times more likely to have spelling difficulties, 4 times more likely to have difficulties with mathematics and 12 times more likely to present with all three difficulties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Childhood Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) is common and impairing. The recommended treatment is a disorder specific form of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) that includes social skills training and, whilst they appear to be more effective than more general treatments, it is not clear whether social skills training is the critical component involved in improved outcomes, particularly given that evidence for the relationship between social anxiety and social skills deficits in children is inconsistent. This may be partly due to an overlap in their observable features, and because the nature of the association may vary in different contexts (e.g. according to child age). An alternative approach is to examine the association between social anxiety and the social cognitive capacities that underpin social skills. This paper aims to examine the association between social anxiety and social cognition in children and adolescents, and examine conceptual and methodological moderators of this relationship. Methods: Papers published between 1980 and 2019 were screened systematically. Fifty studies were identified from which an effect size could be calculated for the relationship between social anxiety and social cognition, including 15,411 children and adolescents. Results: An overall significant, but moderate effect (r = −.15) was identified, where increased social anxiety was associated with lower social cognitive ability. Moderation analyses revealed specific associations within studies examining social anxiety among participants with and without ASD who were older than 7 years old, and studies assessing the relationship between social anxiety and specific aspects of Theory of Mind (ToM). No significant association was identified between social anxiety and emotion recognition. Conclusions: Significant associations between social anxiety and social cognitive abilities appear to be accounted for by elevated social anxiety among children with ASD, and those with difficulties in specific aspects of ToM but not broader social skills, such as emotion recognition. This reinforces the importance of accurately identifying and treating social anxiety within ASD populations. In addition, treatments for social anxiety among neurotypical populations may benefit from targeting particular aspects of ToM rather than emotion recognition and other broad social skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developmental language disorders ( DLD) are common and have far-reaching developmental consequences. Nevertheless, public awareness of DLD is poor, and one goal of this special issue is to showcase a set of papers that provide a clear and coherent message about the nature and impact of DLD, and the potential of intervention to mitigate these impacts. In this editorial, we highlight seminal papers JCPP has published on language disorders over the last 40 years. Many of the issues raised then are still relevant now; however, the papers that comprise this special issue exemplify how far the field has come in achieving consensus on terminology and diagnostic criteria, and producing highly consistent findings on the stability and impact of DLD, and the potential for language change in response to targeted interventions. The editorial concludes with a road map for future research and clinical priorities that includes the need for randomised controlled trials that specifically address the impact of co-morbidities on response to treatment, impacts of intervention on broader developmental outcomes, and the experiences of adults with DLD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]