Poster #155 - Transmission of Adversity

• In Event: 3-106 - Poster Session 11
  In Poster Session: PS 11 Section - Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Integrative Statement

This study tests whether parents’ adversity history and current parenting behavior influence child externalizing behavior in the classroom among African American and Hispanic preschoolers. Lifetime adversity in parents’ lives is thought to influence parenting behavior and, thereby, transmit risk to their children, contributing to worse functioning in child self-regulation, cognitive functioning, and socioemotional development. Primary data come from a larger study on school readiness in children ages 3 to 5. A subsample of 41 children had complete data on measures of parent self-reported childhood adversity, parent self-report of positive parenting behavior, and teacher-report of child ADHD and externalizing behaviors in preschool. Children were entirely from racial/ethnic minority backgrounds, including 61.0% African American and 29.3% Hispanic/Latino. There were more males (61.0%) than females (39.0%). See Table 1.
Participants were parents / guardians and their preschool-aged children (3 to 5 years old) recruited from a single preschool in Camden, NJ. Parents completed the Lifetime Life Events Questionnaire (Gest, Reed, & Masten, 1999) to index their own degree of lifetime adversity. The Lifetime Life Events measure consisted of 22 items denoting adverse experiences that each parent may have experienced. Parents also completed the Parenting Style and Dimensions Questionnaire – Authoritative subscale (PSDQ; Olivari, Tagliabue, & Confalonieri, 2013) indexing via 27 items the degree of authoritative positive parenting behaviors that they usually display. Preschool teachers completed the teacher form of the MacArthur Health and Behavior Questionnaire – ADHD/Externalizing subscale (Essex et al., 2002), assessing symptoms of inattention, impulsivity, disruptive behavior and other forms of externalizing behaviors.
Analyses tested for mediation in a manner consistent with Baron and Kenny (1986). All regressions covaried child age, race/ethnicity, and gender. First, ADHD/Externalizing scores were regressed on parent adversity scores, resulting in a significant association (β = 0.39, p = .02). Next, authoritative parenting scores were regressed on parent adversity scores, which were nonsignificant (β = 0.14, p = .42). Nevertheless, we then regressed ADHD/Externalizing scores on both authoritative parenting scores and parent adversity scores. Parenting was not significantly related to ADHD/Externalizing scores (β = 0.24, p = .13) and parent adversity remained significant (β = 0.24, p = .13). See Figure 1. A Sobel test confirmed that the decrease in association between parent adversity and ADHD/Externalizing scores was not significant when parenting scores were added to the model (Sobel: 0.73; p = 0.23). This suggests that mediation did not occur, though parents’ experiences of adversity likely have implications for child ADHD/Externalizing behaviors. We will discuss results with respect to alternative mechanisms through which this transmission may operate.

Authors

• Brittney Twyman, Rutgers University-Camden
  Presenting Author

• Patrick Michael Hanlin, Rutgers University - Camden
  Non-Presenting Author

• Alec Morrow, Rutgers University-Camden
  Non-Presenting Author

• Nitan Shanas, Rutgers University-Camden
  Non-Presenting Author

• J. J. Cutuli, Rutgers University - Camden
  Non-Presenting Author