How Developmental Psychologists Think About Family Process and Child Development in Low Income Families

The overarching purpose of this theory paper is to contribute to the study, design, prediction, and understanding of the impact of welfare reform on children and families. In forging our conference plan, we believe that welfare reform must be examined within the theoretical and empirical context of poverty and its impact on children -- a view shared by most of the participants. To turn to the purpose of this paper, "How do Developmental Psychologists Think About Family Process and Child Development in Low Income Families?," one answer is that the hallmark of developmental psychology is comprised of theory and measurement to explain and document the development of all children from infancy to adulthood, i.e., universal principles. A second major focus of developmental psychology is family process: how does the functioning of families promote healthy child development? A third goal of developmental psychology is what is called the "individual difference approach." In addition to the dedication of the science to theories and measurement of universal aspects of development, developmental psychology is also devoted to explaining variation within groups of children. Why are some children more competent and successful? Why are others not doing well? Why are some children able to develop healthily despite tremendous odds? In this paper, I will tackle each of these three aspects of developmental psychology in turn, apply them to what we know about the effects of poverty on children, and make suggestions regarding what we need to know about the effects of welfare reform.