The impact of parents, child care providers, teachers, and peers on early externalizing trajectories

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Abstract

This study utilized growth mixture modeling to examine the impact of parents, child care providers, teachers, and peers on the prediction of distinct developmental patterns of classroom externalizing behavior in elementary school. Among 241 children, three groups were identified. 84.6% of children exhibited consistently low externalizing behavior. The externalizing behavior of the Chronic High group (5.8%) remained elevated throughout elementary school; it increased over time in the Low Increasing group (9.5%). Negative relationships with teachers and peers in the kindergarten classroom increased the odds of having chronically high externalizing behavior. Teacher–child conflict increased the likelihood of a developmental pattern of escalating externalizing behavior. Boys were overrepresented in the behaviorally risky groups, and no sex differences in trajectory types were found.

Section snippets

Relationship risk and protective factors

The complex transactions between children and their environment have been highlighted in the study of child development in general, and the development of externalizing problems in particular (Bronfenbrenner, 1977, Dodge and Pettit, 2003, Hill, 2002). According to these developmental and ecologically-oriented approaches, children encounter a variety of circumstances or conditions in their environments that either promote maladaptation or promote competence, with children's outcomes determined

Person-centered approaches

The current study took a person-centered approach to understanding which relationships may lead to sustained developmental trajectories and which may play a role in developmental patterns that desist or escalate over time. Person-centered research on externalizing trajectories, which has increasingly used methodologies that empirically derive trajectory groups, such as latent growth curve mixture modeling (Muthén, 2004, Muthén and Muthén, 2000, Muthén and Muthén, 2004, Nagin, 2005), has

The current study: specific aims and hypotheses

This study explored the following specific aims and hypotheses. First, this study sought to examine the unique contributions of parents, child care providers, teachers, and peers to distinct developmental patterns of classroom externalizing behavior after the transition to school. Consistent with the literature reviewed above, it was expected that children who experienced negative relationships would be more likely to have trajectories typified by stable or increased levels of maladjustment. In

Participants

The 241 children (girls = 124) in this study are participants in the Wisconsin Study of Families and Work (WSFW), an ongoing longitudinal study of families and child development (Essex, Klein, Cho, & Kraemer, 2003). At its first assessment wave, the WSFW enrolled 560 families from the Madison and Milwaukee areas during women's second trimester of pregnancy through obstetrics clinics, private and university hospital clinics, and a large health maintenance organization. Overall, participant

Descriptive statistics and relationships among variables

Table 1 presents the means and standard deviations for all preschool, kindergarten, first-grade, third-grade, and fifth-grade variables. These data are presented for the sample as a whole and are not reflective of descriptive statistics for the subgroups of children as described later. Children in this sample had generally positive relationships with parents, child care providers, kindergarten teachers, and peers. In addition, most children exhibited generally low levels of externalizing

Discussion

The purpose of this study was twofold. First, this study sought to understand the contribution of parents, child care providers, kindergarten teachers, and peers on the development of distinct patterns of externalizing behavior from kindergarten through fifth grade. Second, it examined the role of child gender on the identification and prediction of externalizing trajectories. The results are discussed below.

Acknowledgements

This research was supported in part by a Ruth L. Kirschstein Predoctoral National Research Service Award granted to the first author (NIMH grant 1F31 MH68959-01A1), NIMH grants MH44340 and MH52354-Project IV (Marilyn J. Essex, Principal Investigator), and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Psychopathology and Development (David J. Kupfer, Chair).

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    1

    Now at the Early Childhood Clinical Research Center, Bradley/Hasbro Children's Research Center & Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University.

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