MAPping affective dimensions of behavior: Methodologic and pragmatic advancement of the Multidimensional Assessment Profiles scales

Abstract

Rigorous validation of the full developmentally sensitive normal:abnormal spectrum, including evaluating the incremental value of age-specific behaviors, is necessary for nuanced characterization of dimensional features of psychopathology. To maximize the clinical utility of transdiagnostic approaches to risk identification, derivation of psychometrically sound, pragmatic versions with empirically derived cutoffs is also key. This special section has a central focus on rigorous, developmentally-based measurement of irritability as an exemplar of this theory- and pragmatically-based approach. Elevated irritability is a robust transdiagnostic predictor of the common psychopathologies of childhood. The Multidimensional Assessment Profiles Temper Loss (MAPS-TL) Scales are the only irritability tool specifically designed to capture the normal:abnormal dimensional spectrum. These have been extensively investigated in preschool age but lack rigorous modeling at older and younger ages. In this special issue, (with three independent—and one longitudinal—set of samples), we test and improve measurement of irritability as a transdiagnostic phenotype of psychopathology risk as it unfolds across development, expanding the MAPS-TL scale in three important ways: (1) extending irritability dimensional modeling and the developmental specification approach to older ages, (2) advancing science to practice translation by generating pragmatic irritability screening tools across ages, and (3) extending the dimensional, developmental specification approach to other dimensions of behavior, that is, internalizing. Collectively, the special issue operationalizes and advances application of a neurodevelopmental, dimensional and transdiagnostic approach to psychopathology.