Patterns of early childhood developmental vulnerabilities may provide useful indicators for particular mental disorder outcomes in later life, although their predictive utility in this respect remains to be established in longitudinal follow-up of the cohort.
Aims.Childhood maltreatment and a family history of a schizophrenia spectrum disorder (SSD)
are each associated with social-emotional dysfunction in childhood. Both are also strong
risk factors for adult SSDs, and social-emotional dysfunction in childhood may be an
antecedent of these disorders. We used data from a large Australian population cohort to
determine the independent and moderating effects of maltreatment and parental SSDs on
early childhood social-emotional functioning.Methods.The New South Wales Child Development Study combines intergenerational multi-agency
data using record linkage methods. Multiple measures of social-emotional functioning
(social competency, prosocial/helping behaviour, anxious/fearful behaviour; aggressive
behaviour, and hyperactivity/inattention) on 69 116 kindergarten children (age ~5 years)
were linked with government records of child maltreatment and parental presentations to
health services for SSD. Multivariable analyses investigated the association between
maltreatment and social-emotional functioning, adjusting for demographic variables and
parental SSD history, in the population sample and in sub-cohorts exposed and not
exposed to parental SSD history. We also examined the association of parental SSD
history and social-emotional functioning, adjusting for demographic variables and
maltreatment.Results.Medium-sized associations were identified between maltreatment and poor social
competency, aggressive behaviour and hyperactivity/inattention; small associations were
revealed between maltreatment and poor prosocial/helping and anxious/fearful behaviours.
These associations did not differ greatly when adjusted for parental SSD, and were
greater in magnitude among children with no history of parental SSD.
Small associations between parental SSD and poor social-emotional functioning remained
after adjusting for demographic variables and maltreatment.Conclusions.Childhood maltreatment and history of parental SSD are associated independently with
poor early childhood social-emotional functioning, with the impact of exposure to
maltreatment on social-emotional functioning in early childhood of greater magnitude
than that observed for parental SSDs. The impact of maltreatment was reduced in the
context of parental SSDs. The influence of parental SSDs on later outcomes of maltreated
children may become more apparent during adolescence and young adulthood when overt
symptoms of SSD are likely to emerge. Early intervention to strengthen childhood
social-emotional functioning might mitigate the impact of maltreatment, and potentially
also avert future psychopathology.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.