Submission for a Research Career Award (K08). The main objective is to establish the candidate, Dr. David Rettew, as an independent investigator in the contribution of child/parent temperament in developmental psychopathology. Specifically, this application focuses on the incorporation of temperamental assessment and behavioral genetic approaches to provide refined phenotypes for future research in molecular genetics and early intervention. To reach this overall career objective, additional skills in three areas are identified as Traininq Goals: (1) Temperament assessment, (2) Behavioral genetics, (3) Relationship between temperamant and child psychopathology. Jim Hudziak, M.D. and Thomas Achenbach, Ph.D. will serve as sponsors for this award. Other consultants include Dorret Boomsma, Ph.D. (Vrije Univeristy Amsterdam- The Netherlands) and Dina Hirshfeld-Becker, Ph.D. (Harvard Medical School). These training goals will be met through the following means: (A) Course work. I will attend advanced classes in child development, behavioral genetics methodology, temperament and personality, and advanced statistical analysis at my own institution and at the Institute for Behavioral Genetics (Boulder, CO); (B) Tutorials. I will receive extensive collaboration and instruction in the areas described above at my institution and those of my mentors; (C) Supervised research experience. There are two main projects. The first is to analyze temperamental and clinical data from a large adolescent Dutch twin sample assessed at two time points approximately 2 years apart. The second project is to analyze temperament data on probands, their siblings, and parents from a Vermont family study. Studies from these two samples will address five Specific Aims (SA): (SA1) Comparisons of dimensional and categorical conceptualizations of temperament and psychopathology; (SA2) Child temperament profiles in subjects with and without psychopathology; (SA3) Parent temperament profiles of children with and without psychopathology; (SA4) Genetic analyses of temperament in twin longitudinal data; and (SA5) Relations between temperament and differential parenting practices. The long-term goal of this research training is to prepare the applicant to submit applications that will study the genetic and environmental contributions of temperament to child psychopathology in a longitudinal population using extended twin-family designs.
