Associations between Internalizing and Externalizing Trajectories across Early Childhood

• In Event: Poster Session 05
  In Poster Session: PS 05 Topic - Developmental Psychopathology

Abstract

Co-occurrence of internalizing and externalizing behaviors have been demonstrated in early childhood, with higher levels of externalizing being associated with higher levels of internalizing (Gilliom & Shaw, 2004). While studies have shown that internalizing and externalizing influence each other in high-risk samples (Gilliom & Shaw, 2004), less is known of how these trajectories influence each other among a more general population. This study examined effects of early internalizing and externalizing symptoms on the trajectories of these problems during early childhood.

The current study used data from 124 children and families (54% female, 92% Caucasian, 57% total annual income above $60,000) from central Pennsylvania who took part in a larger longitudinal study. Between ages 3 to 6 years, parents completed the MacArthur Health and Behavior Questionnaire (HBQ) documenting their child’s social-emotional development at four timepoints across this period of time (Armstrong et al., 2003). The HBQ includes a scale for internalizing behaviors and a scale for externalizing behaviors.

First, a latent growth analysis was conducted to determine the measurement model for the internalizing and externalizing trajectories. This analysis showed that the best fitting model includes both linear and quadratic growth, with initial increases then followed by decreases in symptoms (RMSEA=0.08; CLI=0.98; TFI=0.92; SRMS=0.04). Next, we regressed the intercepts of externalizing and internalizing to predict the slope and quadratic form of internalizing and externalizing, respectively (RMSEA=0.08; CLI=0.98; TFI=0.94; SRMS=0.06). These results showed that externalizing symptoms at age 3 predicted an overall linear increase in internalizing symptoms (β = 0.29, p = 0.05; Figure 1), but was not associated with quadratic change (β = -0.07, p = 0.10). However, internalizing symptoms at age 3 was associated with both a linear increase in externalizing symptoms (β = 1.66, p = 0.01) as well as less decrease in symptoms over time (β = -0.40, p = 0.02; Figure 2). This suggests that early internalizing behaviors keep children on more of an increasing trajectory of externalizing behaviors.

The results of the current study suggest that while internalizing and externalizing both influence growth in the other across early childhood, the presence of early internalizing problems pose a unique risk for children in their development of externalizing problems. For this group of children, their trajectory of externalizing continues to increase more across early childhood while typically we would begin to see more of a reduction in symptoms as children reach 6 years old. These findings demonstrate the importance of identifying co-occurring behavior problems to help predict which children are most at risk.

Authors

• Meghan Elizabeth McDoniel, Child Trends -Maryland
  Presenting Author

• Anna M Zhou, University of Utah
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kristin A. Buss, Pennsylvania State University, University Park
  Non-Presenting Author