“…Literature on associations between language skills, problem behavior, and peer interactions guide our assumption that the negative relations between child externalizing problems, centrality, and reciprocity will be magnified for children who also experience challenges with language skills (Chen et al, 2020a). Our gender-based analyses were exploratory given the mixed findings on the relation between gender and child externalizing problem behavior (e.g., Sheaffer et al, 2021). Furthermore, given that age has been previously shown to be predictive of network status (e.g., Locke et al, 2013), we include this exploratory analysis to contribute to this body of literature.…”