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Poster #202 - Longitudinal Relations Between Household Chaos and Children’s Behaviors

Sat, March 23, 4:15 to 5:30pm, Baltimore Convention Center, Floor: Level 1, Exhibit Hall B

Integrative Statement

Within the past decade, environmental chaos (sensory overload, physical crowding, and a lack of routine and order; Wachs & Evans, 2010) has increased in environments that immediately and directly impact children’s development (i.e., children’s homes; Lichter & Wethington, 2007). Chaotic homes lack a sense of order, predictability, and safety—environmental characteristics shown to promote the development of healthy child behaviors (Hardaway et al., 2012). Specifically, chaos has been linked to elevated negative mood, aggression, and conduct problems (Deater-Deckard et al. 2009; Dumas et al., 2005; Evans et al., 1998). However, the links between chaos and children’s socio-emotional outcomes are poorly understood. There is sparse longitudinal research investigating the role of chaos in children’s social and emotional development especially during early school age—a time when children are adjusting to new contexts and demands. Although cross-sectional studies provide some evidence that chaos interferes with children's abilities to extract the rules of discourse and social exchanges (Wachs, 1992), as well as the development of regulatory processes (Evans et al., 2015, Vernon-Feagans et al., 2016), measurements of chaos across time are needed to better understand and predict change in these behaviors. The current study is one of the first to examine longitudinal relations between chaos, and children’s negative reactivity, self-regulation, and problem behaviors from kindergarten to second grade.
Three hundred and one kindergartener (52% girls) parents reported on their children’s negative affect, and self-regulation via the Children’s Behavioral Questionnaire during autumn (CBQ; Rothbart, et al. 2001). During the Fall, parents used the MacArthur Health and Behavior Questionnaire (HBQ: Armstrong, et al., 2003) to assess their children’s internalizing and externalizing behaviors and reported on their household chaos with the Confusion, Hubbub, and Order Scale (CHAOS; Matheny et al., 1995). Two years later during autumn, parents completed these same measures.
Table 1 provides descriptive statistics as well as correlations among the study variables. Four cross-lagged models were conducted in MPlus using Full Information Maximum Likelihood to handle missing data and type=complex to handle non-independence of observations with fall classroom as the cluster variable. All analyses controlled for children’s sex, age, and socioeconomic status. Results suggest that greater household chaos in kindergarten predicted greater externalizing behaviors (see Figure 1) and negative affect in second grade after controlling for prior levels of the outcome (all results are similar to Figure 1 and in the expected directions). Additionally, the relation between kindergarten chaos and second grade self-regulation approached conventional levels of significance (p=.097). Although positively correlated within kindergarten (p=.002), chaotic homes in kindergarten did not predict later internalizing behaviors.
The current study presents longitudinal evidence suggesting that early chaotic home environments may increase the risk of children’s later maladjustment. Specifically, early chaos may lead to greater expressions of negativity and antisocial behaviors as well as poorer self-regulation later in development. Given that higher negative emotionality and externalizing behaviors, and lack of self-regulation are related to poorer academic achievement and social competence, more studies are needed to understand the specific mechanism by which chaos affects children’s behaviors.

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