Keith A. Crnic

Behavior Problems and Parenting Stress in Families of Three-Year-Old Children With and Without Developmental Delays

Children and adolescents with mental retardation are at heightened risk for mental disorder. We examined early evidence of behavior problems in 225 three-year-old children with or without developmental delays and the relative impact of cognitive delays and problem behaviors on their parents. Staff-completed Bayley Behavior Scales and parent-completed Child Behavior Checklists (CBCLs) showed greater problems in children with delays than in those without delays. Children with delays were 3 to 4 times as likely to have a total CBCL score within the clinical range. Parenting stress was higher in delayed condition families. Regression analyses revealed that the extent of child behavior problems was a much stronger contributor to parenting stress than was the childs cognitive delay.

Infant emotionality, parenting, and 3-year inhibition: exploring stability and lawful discontinuity in a male sample.

In this study, the authors examine temperament (12-13 months) and mothering and fathering (15, 21, 27, 33 months) antecedents of inhibition of children at age 3 years prospectively in a sample of 125 firstborn boys and retrospectively in only the most and least inhibited children. High negativity coupled with low positivity in infancy predicted high inhibition, as did parenting that was supportive (e.g., high sensitivity, low intrusiveness). Parenting appeared more influential in the case of children who were highly negative as infants. The importance of distinguishing positive and negative emotionality in infancy and of studying mothering and fathering are discussed.

Worry in childhood: A developmental perspective

Age-related and developmental differences in the content and process of worry were examined in children 5 to 6, 8 to 9, and 11 to 12 years of age. These ages were chosen to approximate three levels of cognitive development. A measure of self-concept development was also included. Results suggest that worrisome thoughts occur in childrens anxious experiences across the age range studied. However, such thoughts were found to be more prevalent among children age 8 and older. Furthermore, children in the two older groups generated a significantly greater variety of worries than 5- to 6-year-olds. These older children were also significantly more able to elaborate the potentially negative consequences of selected worrisome possiblities. These findings suggest that the worry process may become increasingly complex in middle childhood. Results also supported the view that the content of childrens worries is constrained by social-cognitive limitations reflected by their age and level of self-concept development. Worries related to physical well-being decreased significantly, while concerns about behavioral competence, social evaluation and psychological well-being became more prevalent with increasing age and self-concept complexity. Implications for a definition of worry in childhood and its role in childhood anxiety are discussed.

Earned security, daily stress, and parenting: a comparison of five alternative models.

Research suggests that adults who have developed a coherent perspective on their negative, early attachment relationships (i.e., earned secures) do not reenact poor parenting practices with their own children. However, no studies have addressed whether earned secures maintain positive parenting under the pressures of aversive environmental conditions. This study tested five alternative models that predict how earned secures parent under low and high stress in comparison to adults who had a positive upbringing (i.e., continuous secures) and adults who have an incoherent perspective on a troubled childhood (i.e., insecures). Only if earned secures exhibit effective caregiving under high stress, in comparison to the other security groups, can it be assumed that they have broken the intergenerational cycle of poor parenting. The Adult Attachment Interview was used to classify 97 mothers as earned secure, continuous secure, and insecure. Home observations of parenting and maternal self-reports of daily hassles (our stress measure) were obtained when children were 27 months old. Planned comparisons revealed that the diathesis-stress/incoherent present state of mind model most accurately predicted parenting. Thus, under high stress, the earned secures parented equivalently to the continuous secures and more positively than the insecures; under low stress no group differences were obtained. These findings indicate that in a normative sample earned secures break the intergenerational cycle and exhibit resilient parenting even under high stress conditions.

Attachment and Bookreading Patterns: A Study of Mothers, Fathers, and Their Toddlers

This study, involving 138 families rearing firstborn sons, extends work on bookreading by relating quality of parent-child interactive exchange during bookreading to contemporaneous and antecedent assessments of infant-parent attachment security. One parent and the child were observed when children were 12, 13, 18, and 20 months. At the first and third visit, infant-mother attachment security was assessed, with infant-father attachment security being assessed at the second and fourth visit. Following the assessment of attachment security at 18 and 20 months, parent and child were videotaped in a bookreading session. At 18 and 20 months, children responded to the pictures in a book by pointing and labelling, and their parents tried to initiate these reactions by following predictable routines. In contrast to other mothers, insecure-avoidant mothers were more inclined to read the verbal text and less inclined to initiate interactions around the pictures. Insecure-avoidant children were less inclined to respond to the book and were more distracted. In insecure-resistant dyads, overcontrolling and overstimulating behavior by the mother appeared to covary with ambivalence on the part of the children. The results do not support a similar pattern for the fatherchild dyads. Implications for family literacy programs are discussed.

Prediction of social skills in 6-year-old children with and without developmental delays: contributions of early regulation and maternal scaffolding.

Childrens emotion dysregulation and maternal scaffolding at age 4 were examined as predictors of social skills at age 6, for 66 children with and 106 without early developmental delays. Observed scaffolding and regulation during frustrating laboratory tasks related to later mother, father, and teacher social-skill ratings for children with delays and were stronger predictors of social skills within this group than were developmental level and early behavior problems. In contrast, fewer associations were found for typically developing children, with early behavior problems providing the only unique prediction to social skills. Data support a model in which dysregulation partially mediates the association between developmental status and social-skill outcomes. Implications for research, prevention, and early intervention are discussed.

Mental Disorders in Five-Year-Old Children With or Without Developmental Delay: Focus on ADHD

Epidemiological studies of children and adolescents with intellectual disability have found 30 to 50% exhibiting clinically significant behavior problems. Few studies, however, have assessed young children, included a cognitively typical comparison group, assessed for specific disorders, and/or studied family correlates of diagnosis. We assessed 236 5-year-old children—95 with developmental delay (DD) and 141 with typical development—for clinical diagnoses using a structured interview. Every disorder assessed was more prevalent in the DD group. The percent of children meeting criteria for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) most highly differentiated the two groups (ratio = 3.21:1). There was high stability from externalizing behavior problems at age 3 to ADHD diagnoses at age 5 in both groups. In regression analyses, parenting stress at child age 3 related to later ADHD diagnosis in both groups and maternal scaffolding (sensitive teaching) also predicted ADHD in the DD group.

Emotional competence and aggressive behavior in school-age children.

Examined emotional competence in 87 children, aged 7–10 years, who varied with respect to reports of aggressive behavior to determine whether individual differences in emotional competence characterize children with higher levels of aggressive behavior. Emotional competence was assessed during a 1-hr lab visit that included (a) an observational period consisting of a modified disappointment paradigm, (b) assessment of cognitive and language abilities, and (c) 2 structured emotion interviews. Children with higher levels of aggressive behavior exhibited more intense and frequent expressions of anger, both as reported by mothers and as observed during the disappointment paradigm. Less sophisticated ability to identify the causes of emotion also characterized children with higher levels of aggressive behavior. Gender moderated the relation between aggressive behavior and type of emotion identified such that reports of happiness (in response to receiving a disappointing prize) were associated with lower levels of reported aggressive behavior for boys. The value of assessing childrens emotional competence in the context of an emotionally arousing situation is suggested by these findings.

Troubled family interaction during toddlerhood

To examine the antecedents and consequences of troubled family interaction during the “terrible twos,” 64 of 69 families rearing firstborn sons who were observed in the childs second year of life were observed again in the childs third year. Cluster analysis of parent and child behavior scores was used once more to identify families whose parent-child interactions during parental efforts to control the child looked “troubled” at 27 and/or 33 months so that chronicity of troubled family interaction across the second and third year of life could be appraised. Nine predictor variables suggested by Belskys model of the determinants of parenting, measured at the end of the first year of life, along with social class, were found to powerfully discriminate families that were troubled never or once from those who were troubled twice from those who were troubled three to four times across the four measurement occasions. Child externalizing problem behavior at 3 years of age was found to be almost monotonically related to chronicity of troubled family interaction, irrespective of whether problem behaviors were reported by mothers, fathers, or daycare providers.

Understanding the Emergence of Behavior Problems in Young Children With Developmental Delays

Children with developmental delays have a much higher incidence of behavior problems than do children who are typically developing. This article reviews the current research on the occurrence and nature of behavior problems in these children, with particular attention to issues relevant to young children and the type and severity of problems that have been observed at ages as young as 2 years. Evidence in support of a conceptual framework for understanding how such behavior problems may develop is presented, with a particular focus on early biological or constitutional factors, family stress, and childrens developing self-regulatory capacities. Implications for practice are discussed.