Profiles of competence and adaptation in preschoolers as related to the quality of parent–child interaction

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Abstract

In a sample of 107 five-year-olds, cluster analysis was used to identify groups of children with similar profiles of competence and adaptation. A comprehensive set of child characteristics was included in the analysis, together covering the most important aspects of five-year-olds’ development and functioning. Three groups of children emerged, which were labeled Well-adapted/Competent, Underachieving/Internalizing, and Maladapted/Externalizing. Well-adapted/Competent children (59%) were competent and well-adjusted in all domains. The Maladapted/Externalizing children (22%) scored low in almost all domains of competence and functioning, and the Underachieving/Internalizing children (22%) showed a mixed profile of competence and adaptation. The differences in the quality of parent–child interaction that were observed between the groups provide clues as to how the different profiles of competence and adaptation are shaped and maintained in the interactions with parents.

Section snippets

Participants

The participants were part of a sample of 129 children (67 boys, 62 girls) and their parents who participated in a previous study when the children were 15 months of age (Van Bakel & Riksen-Walraven, 2002). The families were recruited on the basis of public health records in the city of Nijmegen, the Netherlands. Of the original sample, a total of 107 children (56 boys, 51 girls) participated in the present study involving the children at the age of five (M = 63.6 months, SD = 1.16). The sample

Descriptive statistics and intercorrelations

In Table 1, the means and standard deviations for the different child characteristics and their intercorrelations are presented. The means for ego-resiliency and ego-control were in line with the findings of earlier studies (Hart et al., 1997, Weir and Gjerde, 2002). Ego-resiliency and ego-control were not significantly interrelated, which is in line with Block and Block’s (1980) theoretical model. In order to obtain robust measures of internalizing and externalizing behavior, composite scores

Discussion

In the present study, a person-centered approach was adopted to identify groups of children with similar profiles of competence and adaptation. The study extends earlier research on child types in two ways. First, a much more comprehensive set of child characteristics was included, together covering the most important aspects of five-year-olds’ development and functioning, with multiple informants (i.e., parent, teacher, and child) and multiple methods of data collection (i.e., Q-sort data,

Acknowledgments

This study was supported by a grant from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO, Grant 425-20-702 to the second author). We are grateful to Esther Albers for her help in collecting the data and to Toon Cillessen for his helpful statistical advice.

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