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The use of lockdown to slow the spread of COVID-19 has been unprecedented in its scale, scope and duration despite early predictions that such a measure would have a negative impact on the mental health and well-being of many young people and their families. From a developmental psychopathology perspective both direct and indirect effects of lockdown-related harms to young people's mental health were predictable: Direct effects, for instance, being due to the negative psychological impact of social isolation and confinement on children; Indirect effects being exerted via negative impacts on family and parent mental health and wellbeing. That these effects would vary from person-to-person was also predicted from this perspective; with vulnerable individuals with pre-existing conditions and those living in high-risk settings being at particular risk. The presumption has been that such negative effects, if they do occur, would be time limited and that everything would return to normal once lockdowns ended. But this is not necessarily the case. In this editorial we ask whether lockdowns could have long-term effects on young people's mental health and then briefly outline three putative mechanisms through which such long-term effects might occur.

Studies of risk and vulnerability processes may provide important ways of identifying new treatment targets - based on the principle that mending something is much easier if you know in what way it is broken. However, in our field, knowing its source may not always tell us about how to remediate impairment. Studies focusing on resilience may be more informative from this perspective. In this editorial I discuss four papers that highlight the value of resilience studies from a translational perspective - in particular contrasting the strengths and limitations of observational and experimental designs.

Diagnostic formulations attempt to impose order on the messy reality of psychopathological phenomena. By doing this, so their advocates argue, they provide both the platform necessary for systematic scientific study, and, crucially, the bridge of shared terms and concepts vital if psychiatric science is to be truly translational; where scientific endeavour is guided by clinical priorities and, in-turn, scientific findings innovate clinical practice. The diagnostic schemes we currently work with, taking DSM-5 as the obvious case, are the product of an interesting historical process of ongoing revision – at the same time pragmatic and scientific. On the one hand, it is a process both anchored firmly in historical precedent and constrained by the practical needs of clinicians, patients and health insurance companies. On the other hand, it is a process open to new empirical data about how to best cluster symptomatic expressions and differentiate clinical presentations – so that over historical time diagnostic categories achieve an increasingly accurate mapping of the taxonomy (i.e., underlying structure), and related pathophysiology, of psychiatric phenomenon. Resolving the inevitable tensions that arise when trying to reconcile these pragmatic (economic and professional) and scientific priorities has proved to be both challenging and contentious. The study of heterogeneity as exemplified by the articles highlighted in this editorial indicate a range of different approaches that can be effectively used to refine psychiatric taxonomies by incorporating developmental and pathophysiological data to help identify new putative subtypes of potential therapeutic significance.

The JCPP works at the cutting edge of clinical science to publish ground-breaking research across the full range of topics in the field of child psychology and psychiatry. As JCPP editors, who are also active researchers in our own right, we are conscious of the threat posed to our field by what has come to be known as the reproducibility crisis - the fact that many published findings, initially trumpeted as important developments in the field, cannot be replicated and are therefore likely to be spurious (Nature Human Behaviour, 1, 2017, 21). The JCPP is conscious of its responsibility to play its part in addressing this issue as best it can. The roots of the problem are complex and its causes multifaceted. As one part of its response, the JCPP embraces the principles of open science and encourage preregistration of study protocols. Furthermore, we are working towards implementing new systems to promote preregistration with the hope of increasing scientific transparency and accountability and reducing the risks of selective reporting and posthoc rationalisation of findings (Journal of Child Psychology & Psychiatry, 59, 2018, 1).

Barker et al.'s. (2018) review addresses one of the most fundamental questions in the fields of child psychology and psychiatry - How can adverse experiences shape development to a sufficient degree and in profound and enduring ways to create long term risk for later mental disorder and disability? In particular they discuss the plausibility of differential methylation as an epigenetic mechanism by which such exposures can become neuro-biologically embedded. Our commentary rises six question relating to key issues that need to be addressed as we search for definitive evidence from human studies that such mechanisms actually do make an important causal contribution to abnormal trajectories of development to disorder.

Background Preschool hyperactivity is an early risk factor for adult mental health problems and criminality. Little is known about; (a) the patterns of long-term service costs associated with this behavioural marker in the general population and (b) the specific factors predicting hyperactivity-related costs. We undertook a prospective study investigating associations between preschool hyperactivity and average individual annual service costs up to late adolescent and young adulthood. Methods One-hundred and seventy individuals rated as hyperactive by their parents and 88 nonhyperactive controls were identified from a community sample of 4,215 three years olds. Baseline information about behaviour/emotional problems and background characteristics were collected. At follow-up (when individuals were aged between 14 and 25 years) information was obtained on service use, and associated costs since the age of three. Based on this information we calculated the average cost per annum incurred by each individual. Results Compared to controls, preschoolers with hyperactivity had 17.6 times higher average costs per annum across domains (apart from nonmental health costs). These were £562 for each hyperactive individual compared with £30 for controls. Average annual costs decreased as a function of age, with higher costs incurred at younger ages. The effects of hyperactivity remained significant when other baseline factors were added to the model. Effects were fully mediated by later psychiatric morbidity. When the hyperactive group were examined separately, costs were consistently predicted by male gender and, for some cost codes, by conduct problems. Conclusions Preventative approaches targeting early hyperactivity may be of value. Services should be targeted towards high-risk individuals with careful consideration given to the cost-to-benefit trade-off of early intervention strategies.

This Editorial focuses on diet and behaviour problems - seeking to disentangle the modern urban myth of the toxic effects of the modern diet on children's brains from the reality of its actual effects on behaviour. It suggests we need to navigate a course between these two opposing extremes, seeing the proposed diet–behaviour link more as a hypothesis to test, than a truth to defend or a myth to debunk. It summarises the history and standing of the current diet-behaviour hypothesis and the use of dietary exclusions and dietary supplements for behaviour problems, in the light of current empirical evidence and the impetus this provides for further research in this field.

Historians of science continue to debate the importance of individual inspiration and personal creativity as fuel in the engine of scientific progress. While true that, in general, scientific knowledge advances cautiously by careful experimentation, painstaking observation and the gradual accumulation of evidence occasionally a field of enquiry can be revolutionised by a single, perhaps simple, yet inspired and profound insight. Such breakthroughs are most likely to occur when an individual moves outside the intellectual tramlines that normally constrain scientific thinking, leaving them able to look at old evidence in new and original ways. The reception of such original insights by the research community varies considerably, of course. Some insights may be 'too original' - a step too far in what is normally an incremental journey of discovery. Some ideas, enthusiastically accepted initially, may burn out before making any real impression. Other ideas revolutionize a field - producing a cascade of hypotheses and lines of enquiry that lead to new discoveries which permanently change the scientific landscape. The issue of scientific creativity was very much in my mind when reading through the papers slated to appear in the current journal number. One article in particular, by Pannekoeke and colleagues on intrinsic brain organisation in depressed adolescents, initiated a chain of thought that led me to my focus for this editorial. A development that provides perhaps the most compelling recent example of the transformative power of individual inspiration in the field of cognitive neuroscience - a development which is also beginning to have profound implications for models of childhood mental disorders. Language: en

The JCPP has just published a virtual issue focusing specifically on the journal's contribution to progress in the field of ADHD neuropsychology over last 30 years and its role in establishing the foundations of next generation ADHD neuropsychology models. The virtual issue is structured around six themes. Here we provide a precis of the issue summarizing these themes and illustrating each with a reference to an influential paper published over the last 5 years.

Background: The ‘New Forest Parenting Package’ (NFPP), an 8-week home-based intervention for parents of preschoolers with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), fosters constructive parenting to target ADHD-related dysfunctions in attention and impulse control. Although NFPP has improved parent and laboratory measures of ADHD in community samples of children with ADHD-like problems, its efficacy in a clinical sample, and relative to an active treatment comparator, is unknown. The aims are to evaluate the short- and long-term efficacy and generalization effects of NFPP compared to an established clinic-based parenting intervention for treating noncompliant behavior [‘Helping the Noncompliant Child’ (HNC)] in young children with ADHD. Methods: A randomized controlled trial with three parallel arms was the design for this study. A total of 164 3–4-year-olds, 73.8% male, meeting DSM-IV ADHD diagnostic criteria were randomized to NFPP (N = 67), HNC (N = 63), or wait-list control (WL, N = 34). All participants were assessed at post-treatment. NFPP and HNC participants were assessed at follow-up in the next school year. Primary outcomes were ADHD ratings by teachers blind to and uninvolved in treatment, and by parents. Secondary ADHD outcomes included clinician assessments, and laboratory measures of on-task behavior and delay of gratification. Other outcomes included parent and teacher ratings of oppositional behavior, and parenting measures. (Trial name: Home-Based Parent Training in ADHD Preschoolers; Registry: ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT01320098; URL: http://www/clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01320098). Results: In both treatment groups, children's ADHD and ODD behaviors, as well as aspects of parenting, were rated improved by parents at the end of treatment compared to controls. Most of these gains in the children's behavior and in some parenting practices were sustained at follow-up. However, these parent-reported improvements were not corroborated by teacher ratings or objective observations. NFPP was not significantly better, and on a few outcomes significantly less effective, than HNC. Conclusions: The results do not support the claim that NFPP addresses putative dysfunctions underlying ADHD, bringing about generalized change in ADHD, and its underpinning self-regulatory processes. The findings support documented difficulties in achieving generalization across nontargeted settings, and the importance of using blinded measures to provide meaningful assessments of treatment effects.

In the U.S. the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), the main funder of mental health research in the world, has recently changed its funding model to promote a radically new perspective for mental health science. This bold, and for some controversial, initiative, termed the Research Diagnostic Criteria (or RDoC for short), intends to shift the focus of research, and eventually clinical practice, away from existing diagnostic categories, as recently updated in the DSM-5, towards 'new ways of classifying psychopathology based on dimensions of observable behavior and neurobiological measures.' This reorientation from discrete categorical disorder manifestations to underlying cross-cutting dimensions of individual functioning has generated considerable debate across the community of mental health researchers and clinicians (with strong views voiced both pro and con). Given its pivotal role in defining the research agenda globally, there is little doubt that this US science funding initiative will also have ramifications for researchers and clinicians worldwide. In this Editorial we focus specifically on the translational potential of the dimensional RDoC approach, properly extended to developmental models of early risk, in terms of its value as a potential driver of early intervention/prevention models; in the current issue of the JCPP this is exemplified by a number of papers thata address the mapping of underlying dimensions of core functioning to disorder risk, providing evidence for their potential predictive power as early markers of later disorder processes.

Background: Despite the evidence on anomalous attachment patterns, there has been a tendency to interpret most of these as reflecting differences in security/insecurity. Methods: Empirical research findings are reviewed in relation to attachment/insecurity as evident in both infancy and later childhood, disorganised attachment, inhibited attachment disorder, and disinhibited attachment disorder. Findings: Substantial differences are found in the correlates and meaning of these different features, as well as in the patterns associated with conditions such as autism, psychopathy, and Williams syndrome. Conclusions: It is seriously misleading to view all of these patterns through the lens of security/insecurity. This heterogeneity in social relationship features necessarily has implications for the assessment measures for social relationships that need to be used.

Background: disinhibited attachment is an important sequel of an institutional rearing, but questions remain regarding its measurement, its persistence, the specificity of the association with institutional rearing and on whether or not it constitutes a meaningful disorder. Method: children initially reared in profoundly depriving institutions in Romania and subsequently adopted into UK families were compared with respect to findings at 11 years with children who had not experienced institutional deprivation and who had been adopted within the UK before the age of 6 months. Measures included parental reports, a Strange Situation procedure modified for use in the home and systematic standardised investigator ratings of the children's behaviour. Results: disinhibited attachment, as reported by parents, showed a high degree of persistence from 6 to 11, but also a reduction over time in its frequency. Investigator ratings validated the parental reports but suggested that much of the fall in rate of disinhibited attachment was a function of the parental measure being less developmentally appropriate at 11 than it had been at 6. Disinhibited attachment was strongly associated with institutional rearing but there was not a significant increase in relation to duration of institutional deprivation beyond the age of 6 months. Mild, but not marked, disinhibited attachment was quite frequent in non-institutionalised adopted children but both the course and correlates indicated that its meaning was probably quite different. In the institution-reared children, disinhibited attachment was associated with a marked increase in service usage and associations with other forms of psychopathology. Conclusions: disinhibited attachment constitutes a valid, and handicapping, clinical pattern that is strongly associated with an institutional rearing.

Background: The selective attention of children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD) to briefly exposed delay-related cues was examined in two experiments using a dot-probe conditioning paradigm. Method: Colour cues were paired with negatively (i.e., imposition of delay) and positively valenced cues (i.e., escape from or avoidance of delay) during a conditioning phase. These cues were presented alongside neutral cues in a subsequent dot-probe detection phase. Results: In experiment 1 teacher-identified children with AD/HD (N = 12), but not controls (N = 12), displayed an attentional bias towards both positively and negatively valenced cues. In experiment 2 children with a diagnosis of hyperkinetic disorder (N = 15), but not controls (N = 15), displayed a bias towards delay-related cues. However, this effect was largely carried by the response to positively valenced cues. Conclusions: These results confirm the dot-probe conditioning paradigm as a useful test of motivational influence on attention. They provide the first evidence of qualitative differences in the attentional style of children with AD/HD and give further support to those theories that highlight the motivational significance of delay in AD/HD.

The claim that impulsiveness associated with hyperactivity is the result of deficits in inhibition of responses over time was examined. The cognitive style of hyperactive children was studied under two conditions. As in previous studies hyperactive children appeared impulsive (i.e. gave shorter latencies and made more errors than controls) under conditions where this style led to shorter trials. In contrast, in a revised condition where each error led to an enforced/fixed trial length, hyperactive children waited as long as controls before responding, but still made more errors. Hyperactive children withheld responses when this offered them the best chance of avoiding extra delay. They were however, unable to use the extra time provided as effectively as controls. The link between hyperactive children's aversion to delay and their poor use of time is discussed.

The relationship between behaviour problems and intelligence was examined in a sample of 106 three-year-old boys and girls selected for the presence of either conduct problems or hyperactivity. Parents' reports of hyperactivity, but not conduct problems, were negatively related to IQ, scores for both boys and girls. There was a significant sex difference in the association between conduct problems and IQ. For girls IQ was positively correlated with conduct problems. The implications of the results for existing models of the relationship between behavioural deviance and cognitive functioning in childhood is discussed.