Childhood Resiliency Trajectories: Differential Pathways for Behavioral, Social-emotional, and Academic Outcomes Across Childhood and Adolescence

• In Event: A Developmental Approach to Advancing the Understanding of Self-Regulation and Related Outcomes Across Childhood

Abstract

Studies on childhood resiliency have documented systematic individual differences in the way that children strive, adapt, and thrive in challenging and at-risk environments or contexts (Cicchetti & Rogosch, 2009; Eisenberg et al., 2010). The concept of resiliency has played a prominent role in research on personality and self-regulation development which incorporates three major components as ego-resiliency, agreeableness, and conscientiousness (Block & Block, 1980). This study had three primary aims. First, we aimed to identify subgroups (i.e., classes) of children with heterogeneous developmental trajectories of resiliency in early childhood. Second, we aimed to trace the development (i.e., growth and continuity) of their behavioral problems, socio-emotional functioning, and academic performance for each of the resiliency subgroups across early childhood and adolescence (Grades 1 to 12). The last aim of this study was to investigate whether these associations varied before and after the transition into adolescence.
Analyses were conducted on a longitudinal sample of 784 participants (52.6% male; 34.1% White, 23.2% African American, 37.4% Latino or Hispanic, 3.6% Asian or Pacific Is-lander, and 1.8% other; 6-17 years old). The measure of resiliency consisted of a total of 24 items taken from the Child California Q-Set (CCQ; Block & Block, 1980) and the Big Five Inventory (BFI; John, Donahue & Kentle, 1991). Each year (from Year 1 to 12), behavioral problems and socio-emotional functioning were measured with parent and teacher-reported Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ; Goodman, 2001). Both reading and math achievement were measured using the age-standardized score of WJ-III Broad W score (Woodcock et al., 2001).
All analyses were performed in Mplus version 7.4 (Muthén & Muthén, 2012), using full information maximum likelihood with robust standard error (MLR) estimation. Firstly, we performed the growth mixture models (GMMs) to assign children into distinct classes based on their resiliency trajectories from Years 1 to 3. Secondly, we examined the latent growth models on the development of children's behavior problems, social-emotional functioning, and academic performance trajectories. These growth models were conditioned on children's class identification (i.e., class assignments), controlling for the effects of gender, ethnicity, family socioeconomic adversity, intelligence, and kindergarten literacy skills. Analyses were conducted in Mplus with missing data addressed using full information maximum likelihood (FIML).
Results revealed three distinct trajectories of childhood resiliency (See in Figure 1), including an ego-resilient group (26.8%), an ego-brittle group (21.9%), and an ordinary or common group (49.9%). As shown in Table 1, children in the ego-brittle group were at a greater risk for sustaining higher levels of behavioral problems, lower socio-emotional functioning (based on both parent and teacher report), and poorer academic performance (indexed by standardized test scores) across formal schooling. In contrast, the resilient children outperformed other groups in these domains with characteristics of low behavioral problems, high social-emotional functioning, and good academic performance across formal schooling. The school transition effect was also examined and the protective effect of early childhood resiliency was sustained even after the transition to adolescence.

Authors

• Qinxin Shi, University of Utah
  Presenting Author

• Jeffrey Liew, Texas A&M University - College Station
  Non-Presenting Author

• Idean Ettekal, Texas A&M University - College Station
  Non-Presenting Author

• Steven Woltering, Texas A&M University
  Non-Presenting Author