For nearly 20 years, a transactional–ecological conceptualization of development in maltreated children has been promoted (Cicchetti & Lynch, 1993; Cicchetti & Valentino, 2006).Within this model the organizational structure of development is articulated, whereby competencies and liabilities attained at successive stages of development are hierarchically integrated within and among developmental systems to influence subsequent development. Child maltreatment has been regarded as a severe, fundamental failure of the caregiving system to provide essential experience-expectant nutriments for optimal psychological development (Cicchetti & Lynch, 1995). As a consequence, across the course of early ontogenesis, maltreated children have been shown to evince compromised developmental competencies on important developmental tasks, including emotion regulation, attachment organization, autonomous self development, representational development, peer relationship functioning, adaptation to school, adolescent autonomy, romantic relationships, and identity formation (Cicchetti & Rogosch, 2002; Cicchetti & Valentino, 2006; Masten & Coatsworth, 1998). Given the probability of accumulating compromises in early development, maltreated children are vulnerable to the emergence of behavioral maladaptation and psychopathology during childhood and across the life course. A wide range of psychopathological disorders have been shown to be potential sequelae
