Applied Developmental Science
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The focus of this journal is the synthesis of research and application to promote positive development across the life span. Applied developmental scientists use descriptive and explanatory knowledge about human development to provide preventive and/or enhancing interventions. The conceptual base of Applied Developmental Science reflects the view that individual and family functioning is a combined and interactive product of biology and the physical and social environments that continuously evolve and change over time. ADS emphasizes the nature of reciprocal person-environment interactions among people and across settings. Within a multidisciplinary approach, ADS stresses the variation of individual development across the life span‹including both individual differences and within-person change‹and the wide range of familial, societal, cultural, physical, ecological, and historical settings of human development. The applied developmental science orientation is defined by three conjoint emphases. The applied aspect reflects its direct implication for what individuals, families, practitioners, and policymakers do. The developmental aspect emphasizes a focus on systematic and successive changes within human systems that occur across the life span. This assumption stresses the importance of understanding normative and atypical processes as they emerge within different developmental periods and across diverse physical and cultural settings. The science aspect stresses the need to utilize a range of research methods to collect reliable and objective information in a systematic manner to test the validity of theory and application. The convergence of these three aspects leads to a fostering of a reciprocal relationship between theory and application as a cornerstone of applied developmental science, one wherein empirically based theory not only guides intervention strategies and social policy, but is influenced by the outcome of these community activities. Furthermore, it calls for a multidisciplinary perspective aimed at integrating information and skills drawn from relevant biological, social, and behavioral science disciplines. Given this multidisciplinary orientation, the journal publishes research employing any of a diverse array of methodologies‹multivariate-longitudinal studies, demographic analyses, evaluation research, intensive measurement studies, ethnographic analyses, laboratory experiments, analyses of policy and/or policy engagement studies, or animal comparative studies‹when they have important implications for the application of developmental science across the life span. Manuscripts pertinent to the diversity of development throughout the life span cross-national and cross-cultural studies, systematic studies of psychopathology, and studies pertinent to gender, ethnic, and racial diversity are particularly welcome.