Serious conduct problems in high-risk girls: Translating research into intervention

Until recently, research on serious conduct problems focused primarily on boys and men. In the past decade, however, we have gained a better understanding of the unique and shared risk and protective factors for girls and boys, and the role of gender in relation to developmental pathways associated with such problems. In this paper we discuss findings from the Gender and Aggression Project on risk and protective factors for girls who are perpetrators but also victims of violence. We discuss our findings from a developmental perspective, with the goal of understanding how exposure to adversity and violence early in life places girls at risk for aggression and violence, among other problems, and how continued exposure to trauma and the disruption of interpersonal and self-regulatory developmental processes cascades into ever deeper and broader problems. This research points more clearly to the need for accessible, evidence-based, and developmentally sensitive intervention.