Age at onset studies have been an important approach to understanding disease across all medical specialties. Over the last few decades, genetic research has led to the identification of unique genes and, in some cases, physiologically different disorders. These advances bring us closer to identifying genetic vulnerability and implementing prevention programs for psychopathology.

Childhood Onset of "Adult" Psychopathology: Clinical and Research Advances provides an understanding of the childhood onsets of adult psychiatric disorders, including when and in what sequence psychiatric disorders begin in childhood, and how these disorders evolve over the life span. This book examines * Studies on the growing volume of data on very early forms of depression, criminality, alcoholism, schizophrenia, and anxiety* Genetics, evolution, and the significance of age at onset in terms of individual variability and the course of disease* The biological manner in which early-onset disorders progress* New insights into the disease etiology of schizophrenia and the neurodevelopmental hypothesis* The long-debated subject of whether depressive disorder in preadolescent children is the same as depressive disorder in adults and studies of individuals at risk for disorders of anxiety and depression* The implications for prevention of adult psychiatric disorders, alcoholism, and antisocial personality disorder

Complete with extensive references and tables, this text provides practitioners with a better understanding of adult psychopathology and insight into early detection and prevention methods.