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Child Conduct Problems Across Home and School Contexts: a Person-Centered Approach

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Abstract

To examine patterns of conduct problems across the home and school context, we used latent class analysis to analyze primary caregivers’ and teachers’ ratings on the conduct problems subscale of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (Goodman Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 38, 581–586, 1997) in the Family Life Project (N = 1,292), a prospective study of child development in rural and small town contexts. We found a similar four-class solution at 5 and 7 years of age. In decreasing prevalence, the following classes were identified: (1) low symptoms reported by both informants (low cross-context); (2) high parent-reported symptoms, low teacher-reported symptoms (home context); (3) low parent-reported symptoms, moderate teacher-reported symptoms (school context); and (4) high symptoms reported by both informants (high cross-context). Classes exhibited stability from age five to age seven: children were more likely to remain in the same class than to transition to a different class, and longitudinal stability was especially high for children in the low cross-context class at age 5. A number of child and family characteristics measured in early childhood (executive function, verbal ability, poverty-related risk, sensitive parenting, and parental depressive symptoms) were associated with class membership at age five and age seven, but were generally not associated with longitudinal transitions between classes.

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Notes

  1. In the LTA model that included executive function as a predictor, there were problems with the standard errors for the executive function coefficients. Consequently, we do not report results for that model because they do not seem to be trustworthy.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the many families and research assistants who made this study possible. Support for this research was provided by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Grants R01 HD51502 and P01 HD39667 with co-funding from the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Human Development and Social Change, New York University, 196 Mercer St., Rm. 810, New York, NY, 10012, USA

    Michael J. Sulik

  2. Department of Applied Psychology, New York University, 196 Mercer St., Rm. 811, New York, NY, 10012, USA

    Clancy Blair

  3. Human Development and Family Studies, The Pennsylvania State University, 306 BBH Building, University Park, PA, 16802, USA

    Mark Greenberg

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  1. Michael J. Sulik
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  3. Mark Greenberg
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The Family Life Project Investigators

  • Lynne Vernon-Feagans
  • , Mark T. Greenberg
  • , Clancy B. Blair
  • , Margaret R. Burchinal
  • , Martha Cox
  • , Patricia T. Garrett-Peters
  • , Jennifer L. Frank
  • , W. Roger Mills-Koonce
  •  & Michael T. Willoughby

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Correspondence to Michael J. Sulik.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Conflict of Interest

Michael J. Sulik has no conflicts of interest to declare. Clancy Blair has no conflicts of interest to declare. Mark Greenberg has no conflicts of interest to declare.

Experiment Participants

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Additional information

The Family Life Project Phase II Key investigators include: Lynne Vernon-Feagans, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Mark T. Greenberg, The Pennsylvania State University; Clancy B. Blair, New York University; Margaret R. Burchinal, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Martha Cox, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Patricia T. Garrett-Peters, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Jennifer L. Frank, The Pennsylvania State University; W. Roger Mills-Koonce, University of North Carolina-Greensboro; and Michael T. Willoughby, RTI International.

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Sulik, M.J., Blair, C., Greenberg, M. et al. Child Conduct Problems Across Home and School Contexts: a Person-Centered Approach. J Psychopathol Behav Assess 39, 46–57 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10862-016-9564-8

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