The continuity of behavioral adjustment from preschool through elementary school and junior high school years was examined. 541 children aged 9-15 years from a preschool epidemiological study were relocated and behavior checklist data obtained. Analyses focused on the relationship between internalizing and externalizing behavior dimensions from the preschool to follow-up periods. It was found that preschool externalizing symptoms were positively correlated with later externalizing and internalizing symptoms in the entire sample. Preschool internalizing symptoms, however, were predictive of later internalizing symptoms only for 2-year-old girls and 5- and 6-year-old boys. Similar results were obtained for clinically disturbed preschoolers. Results are consistent with previous findings regarding the longitudinal continuity of externalizing behavior but are at odds with reports of equal or greater stability of internalizing behavior. Given the magnitude of obtained correlations, even when significant, the results support the view that discontinuity rather than continuity in behavioral adjustment from preschool to later ages is the rule. The importance of examining other mediating variables in the prediction of behavioral adjustment and the need for models of development that encompass both stability and change are discussed.

No abstract

This report presents the rationale behind and the initial findings from a research project investigating the competence of children vulnerable to psychopathology. Four target groups were studied: (a) children with schizophrenic mothers, (b) children with internalizing mothers, (c) externalizing children, and (d) internalizing children. Each target child (N -120) was placed in an experimental triad with a matched and randomly selected control. Judgments of social and intellectual competence were made by peers and teachers in 113 classrooms in 37 elementary schools. Results are presented for each sex separately at the triad and target group levels. Overall, externalize rs were judged least competent followed in order of incrasing competence by children of schizophrenic mothers, internalizcrs, children of internalizing mothers, and controls highest of all.

The continuity of behavioral adjustment from preschool through elementary school and junior high school years was examined. 541 children aged 9-15 years from a preschool epidemiological study were relocated and behavior checklist data obtained. Analyses focused on the relationship between internalizing and externalizing behavior dimensions from the preschool to follow-up periods. It was found that preschool externalizing symptoms were positively correlated with later externalizing and internalizing symptoms in the entire sample. Preschool internalizing symptoms, however, were predictive of later internalizing symptoms only for 2-year-old girls and 5- and 6-year-old boys. Similar results were obtained for clinically disturbed preschoolers. Results are consistent with previous findings regarding the longitudinal continuity of externalizing behavior but are at odds with reports of equal or greater stability of internalizing behavior. Given the magnitude of obtained correlations, even when significant, the results support the view that discontinuity rather than continuity in behavioral adjustment from preschool to later ages is the rule. The importance of examining other mediating variables in the prediction of behavioral adjustment and the need for models of development that encompass both stability and change are discussed.

This study examined the incidence, prevalence, and severity of 14 empirically derived externalizing (unsocialized aggressive) and internalizing (socially withdrawn) behaviors among 2- through 5-year-olds attending day care. Teacher ratings were obtained for 558 children in the incidence sample and 709 children in the expanded prevalence sample. Within each age, data were cross-tabulated by sex of child and severity of behavior, and chi-square analyses were computed. Results indicated that a substantial proportion of children in the normal pre-school population exhibit relatively high severities of selected externalizing and internalizing behaviors; this proportion varied with the age of the child and the behavior rated. Preschool-aged boys were consistently rated as demonstrating greater frequencies of externalizing behaviors than preschool-girls. The diagnostic and clinical implications of these findings are discussed.

Cognitive, academic, and behavioral problems have been reported to occur among school-aged children of alcoholics. Many of these reports have obtained data from very mixed samples of high risk subjects. The present study focused instead on a homogeneous non-disadvarttaged sample of SO male and female children of recovering alcoholics and compared them to 48 male and female children of non-alcoholics using a test battery assessing cognitive functioning. Included were measures of intelligence and academic perforrrtance as well as parental ratings and self ratings of perceived cognitive competence. Statistically significant differences between these two groups on Verbal, Performance, and Pull Scale IQ were not found. Similarly, there were no significant differences in academic performance. However, there were significant differences in mother's perceptions and self-perceptions of cognitive competence. The pattern of results suggest evidence that cognitive functioning problems in non-disadvarttaged children of alcoholics are subtle and perhaps less influential with regard to academic problems than maternal performance expectations and self perceptions of cognitive competence.

No abstract

Social competence data from four target groups of vulnerable children-children of schizophrenic mothers; children of neurotic mothers; clinic children with externalizing symptomology; clinic children with internalizing symptomology-and from a large control group of their public school classmates, strongly suggest that peer-rated social incompetence and presence of externalizing behavior disorders are the best predictors of which vulnerable children run the greatest risk of poor adult outcome.ne of the most critical problems for 0 both clinician and researcher working in the area of childhood psychopathology is determining which type of childhood personality, or which deviant behaviors, are precursors of poor outcome in adolescence or adulthood. The clinician must choose the most vul-nerable and responsive child with whom to invest his limited therapeutic time, while the researcher committed to prospective explorations of the etiological roots of behavior disorders in high risk populations of children must be able to identify reliably degrees of risk before the onset of the target disorder. Submitted to rhe Journal in March 1975. The research was supporied in part by grants from USPHS (01-2415241); PHS-NIMH (NH-06170); the Supreme Council 33, A . A . Scottish Rite, Northern Masonic Jurisdiction ( N . Garmezy, principal investigator); and the University of Vermont's Academic Computing Center.