Mapping the Growth of Heterogeneous Forms of Externalizing ProblemBehavior between Early Childhood and Adolescence: A Comparison of Parent andTeacher Ratings

摘要

Our main goal was to compare long-term growth patterns in teachers’ and mothers’ ratings of Overt Aggression, Covert Aggression, Oppositional Defiance, Impulsivity/inattention, and Emotion Dysregulation across developmental periods spanning kindergarten through grade 8 (ages 5 to 13 years). We also determined whether three salient background characteristics, family SES, child ethnicity, and child gender, differentially predicted growth in discrete categories of child externalizing symptoms across development. Participants were 549 kindergarten-age children (51% male; 83% European American; 17% African American) whose problem behaviors were rated by teachers and parents each successive year of development through 8^th grade. Latent growth curve analyses were performed for each component scale, contrasting with an overall index of externalizing, in a piecewise fashion encompassing two periods of development: K-1and grades 1–8. Our findings showed that there were salient differences and similarities between informants in their levels of concern about specific forms of externalizing problems, patterns of change in problem behavior reports across development, and in the extent to which their ratings of specific problems wereassociated with children’s gender, ethnicity, and family SESbackgrounds. Thus, these data provided novel information about issues that havereceived scant empirical attention and have important implications forunderstanding the development and prevention of children’s long-termexternalizing problems.