The strong relationship between childhood adversity and developmental outcomes has generated considerable interest in identifying the mechanisms that explain these associations. A small but rapidly growing body of work has examined the impact of childhood adversity on neural structure and function. However, this work has suffered from lack of attention to identifying the underlying dimensions of environmental experience that might plausibly influence neural development and its behavioral correlates.

We have developed a novel conceptual framework for understanding the impact of adversity on development that differentiates between experiences of deprivation and threat. Deprivation is characterized by low complexity environments are those in which children are not offered an array of cognitive stimulating materials and experience. Threat exposures are those that represent significant threats to survival and activate the neural circuitry underlying fear learning.

This framework is largely based on evidence from small laboratory-based studies of children exposed to different forms of adversity. There are few population-based or longitudinal studies that measure the dimensions of deprivation and threat as well as the cognitive and emotional outcomes that we expect them to predict. ALSPAC is one of the only studies we have found that measures each of these constructs and incorporates a longitudinal design. The current data request is focused on variables that would allow us to test specific hypotheses about how distinct types of environmental adversity in childhood influence cognitive and emotional development.