Background/Purpose: ADHD is frequently associated with functional deficits across social, familial, and academic contexts (Pelham, 2005). Children with ADHD and internalizing symptoms typically experience higher levels of functional impairment compared to their counterparts with exclusively ADHD (Bishop et al., 2019). Positive parenting practices and child strengths have been found to play a protective role for children with ADHD (Healy et al., 2011; McCrimmon et al., 2018). This study aims to investigate the influence of internalizing symptoms on functional impairment for children with ADHD. Child strengths and parenting strengths have been examined to identify moderating effects of the aforementioned constructs. Methods: Data were collected in a community mental health centre using the Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths questionnaire (CANS) and the Child Strengths and Difficulties questionnaire (SDQ). Participants included 209 children and their caregivers seeking mental health services between the ages of 5 and 11 with an ADHD diagnosis. To examine the moderating effects of parenting and child strengths, ordinary least squares regression models were tested using the PROCESS macro for SPSS (v3.5; Hayes, 2018). Results: Results suggest that levels of internalizing symptoms influence functional impairment in children with ADHD. Child strengths moderate the relationship between internalizing symptoms and functional impairment when internalizing symptoms are medium to high. Conclusion: Findings from this study demonstrate that facilitating child strengths can help moderate functional impairment for children who experience ADHD and internalizing symptoms.

The goal of this thesis was to determine the influence of genetic and environmental effects on the development of internalizing problems. Internalizing problems affect millions of children and include problems such as depression, anxiety, and somatization. Temperament is a genetically-based factor that has been shown to influence the development of internalizing problems; specifically reactive temperaments. 5-HTTLPR is a serotonin transcription gene that has also been shown to affect internalizing problems. Parenting is an environmental factor that may influence many factors in children’s lives, including internalizing problems. This thesis examined the effects of parenting, reactivity, and 5-HTTLPR, alone and in interactions with one another, on internalizing problems in preschool-aged children. Further, this thesis proposed that the differential susceptibility model might fit the data, in that children with reactive temperaments or the 5-HTTLPR risk allele might show a differential response to parenting. This study was conducted using a sample of 220 twins and triplets who had previously participated in the Southern Illinois Twins/Triplets and Siblings Study (SITSS). The children’s parents completed the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) to determine internalizing symptoms at age 5. Buccal cells were collected at two ages, and a parent-child interaction was conducted at age 5 to assess parenting behaviors. Temperament was also examined via parent-completed questionnaire at age 4, using the Child Behavior Questionnaire (CBQ). One important finding of this study was the significant effect of reactivity on internalizing problems. Further, non-positivity in parenting interacted significantly with 5-HTTLPR risk sum. There was a trend toward significance for the interaction between ineffective parenting and 5-HTTLPR risk allele presence or absence. These interactions indicated that the children without the risk allele actually showed the most differential response to parenting, with fewer internalizing problems when parenting was more positive and more internalizing problems when parenting was less positive. Children with the risk allele had a minimal response to parenting in terms of internalizing behaviors. Overall, the results of this study indicate that reactivity is a significant predictor of internalizing problems, and that the 5-HTTLPR gene may moderate this effect. Further studies should be conducted on this subject to further examine the effects parenting and genes have on the development of internalizing problems.

Children with reading difficulty experience stress in school and may develop negative socio-emotional adjustment. It is unclear what influences some students to experience externalizing patterns and others internalizing patterns. This study investigated the influence of the age of identification of reading difficulties on coping strategies and socio-emotional adjustment. 36 children (ages 9-12) from Winnipeg Schools and Child-Care centres completed measures of coping strategy and socio-emotional adjustment and their parents/guardians reported age of initial reading difficulty. Conditional processing analyses, using percentile bootstrapping, were used to examine mediating effects of coping strategies in the relationship between age-of-identification and socio-emotional adjustment. Results showed children who were identified with reading difficulties in Grade 2 or later were more likely to report using disengagement coping strategies but children identified with reading difficulties before Grade 2 were more likely to report higher internalizing patterns. Evidence for expected mediation by coping strategy was not found. These findings suggest that prolonged experience of reading difficulties is associated with greater risk of developing internalizing problems. Clarifying how age of identification of reading difficulty influences socio-emotional adjustment will help resolve theoretical debates and will help educators/clinicians to better serve students learning to read, and promote struggling readers’ healthy socio-emotional adjustment. / October 2016

Little is known about the association between empathic and prosocial tendencies (caring) and internalizing psychopathology in young children. Associations between caring and internalizing problems (INT) were examined in young children (N = 63). Children’s caring was measured using a developmentally appropriate story narrative task about mothers in distress; narratives were rated for themes of caring. No general associations between caring and INT were found. A marginally significant, negative quadratic relation between themes of empathy and INT was found in boys (low levels of INT were related to both high and low levels of empathy). Children’s concern reactions were marginally, negatively associated with INT in children of nondepressed mothers. Overall, findings indicate that associations between caring and INT in preschool-aged children are present only under specific conditions, highlighting the importance of gender and maternal psychopathology in elucidating the role of caring in complicated risk cascades that may result in INT .

Using the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (Kindergarten Class), this research explored the developmental trajectories of internalizing and externalizing behaviors during the elementary school years, with an emphasis on the connections between these behaviors, how they are embedded in social structural settings defined by broad stratification systems, and what their implications are for the future. Specifically, this study was organized around three aims: (1) To estimate trajectories of internalizing and externalizing behaviors (e.g., co-occurrence and dynamic interplay); (2) To explore variations in those trajectories across segments of the population (e.g., race/ethnicity); and (3) To examine the links between children's internalizing and externalizing pathways in elementary school and their 8th grade academic functioning, as well as possible group variation in those links. Four analytical techniques -- growth curve analysis, latent class growth analysis, cross-lagged modeling and regression analysis -- were used. Results indicated a low incidence of internalizing and externalizing symptoms in the whole sample as well as small incremental changes over time and small differences across groups. More in-depth investigation revealed that children of Black parents and boys were at greater risk for present and future problematic behaviors, and boys and children of immigrants were at greater risk for future academic failure when their earlier overall combined symptom trajectories fell in the risky category. In addition, the general patterns of children's internalizing symptoms serving as protective factors for future externalizing symptoms and of externalizing symptoms serving as risk factors for future internalizing symptoms tended to be most consistent among children of White parents and children of non-immigrants. Moreover, findings revealed that what matters about the symptom trajectories in relation to later school functioning is not just the initial level of symptoms but also the change in levels from kindergarten through fifth grade. Overall, this study suggested that intervention efforts need to take into account both the symptomatic child's initial (and overall) levels of symptoms as well as over-time change of symptoms when putting together a specific intervention plan for the affected individual. Finer prevention and intervention efforts are also needed for boys and for children of immigrants to facilitate positive academic functioning. / text

This study is an exploratory examination of how different forms of child abuse affect adolescent victims. The study examines whether victims of physical abuse, sexual abuse, neglect, emotional abuse, or witnessing domestic violence exhibit negative functioning behaviours such as depression, drug use, or involvement in the Youth Criminal Justice Act. It also measures how abuse chronicity and poly-victimization moderate the relationship between the form of abuse and negative functioning. These relationships were quantitatively tested through three logistic regression models. It was found that there was a relationship between abuse type and negative functioning, and that chronicity and poly-victimization played important roles in determining functioning behaviours. This study contributes to the growing body of child abuse research that is attempting to build a comprehensive understanding of why and how abuse affects victims, and will inform service providers who could use such connections to identify and treat potential functioning problems in victims.

This study is an exploratory examination of how different forms of child abuse affect adolescent victims. The study examines whether victims of physical abuse, sexual abuse, neglect, emotional abuse, or witnessing domestic violence exhibit negative functioning behaviours such as depression, drug use, or involvement in the Youth Criminal Justice Act. It also measures how abuse chronicity and poly-victimization moderate the relationship between the form of abuse and negative functioning. These relationships were quantitatively tested through three logistic regression models. It was found that there was a relationship between abuse type and negative functioning, and that chronicity and poly-victimization played important roles in determining functioning behaviours. This study contributes to the growing body of child abuse research that is attempting to build a comprehensive understanding of why and how abuse affects victims, and will inform service providers who could use such connections to identify and treat potential functioning problems in victims.

No description available.

Students with internalizing behavioral concerns are an overlooked and underserved segment within education. The trend unfortunately results in poor academic and societal outcomes. In response, early prevention and identification through universal screening practices has become an important method for combating internalizing problems in education. However, additional research in the field is needed, including better psychometric understanding of the instruments available and what types of informants provide the best evidence for proper identification. Therefore, the purpose of the following study was to investigate how student and teacher informants of internalizing behaviors influence outcomes in the context of universal screening. Comparison of these two informants were done by analyzing the relationship between a teacher completed screener, the Student Internalizing Behavioral Screener (SIBS) and a student completed behavior rating scale, the Behavioral Assessment System for Children – 2nd edition (BASC-2). In addition to exploration of informant agreement, discrepancies in test score outcomes for different student age groups were investigated along with criterion relatedness of the SIBS when using student self-report as a criterion measure. Results included low agreement between teacher and student informant, as well as poor discriminate ability of the SIBS when using student self-report as a criterion. Findings also revealed a small but significant age discrepancy in the total score for the SIBS when comparing a child vs. adolescent sample. Implications of the findings suggest teachers as a sole informant about internalizing behaviors of students may not be sufficient for desired outcomes of proper identification with internalizing behaviors. Moreover, age may be a factor in monitoring internalizing problems across development and current psychometric evaluation of screeners (e.g., type of validity) should also include other informants. Based on the findings, future directions of research are also proposed. This includes exploration of the impact teachers and teacher training as well as considerations for multi-informant screening procedures.

The current study examined the structural validity of a common universal screening assessment for student emotional and behavioral symptoms, the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ; Goodman, 1997, 2001), with the goal of identifying whether this universal screening assessment was invariant across high and low stress teacher groups. Further, teacher stress was examined as a predictor of ratings on the universal screening assessment and mean group differences were examined between school-related variables, teacher stress and ratings on the universal screening assessment. Data were collected from 1,860 teachers in the state of Pennsylvania, who were sampled online in fall 2019. The baseline model of the SDQ was tested, then the model was tested across configural, metric and scalar levels to determine whether the model was invariant as constraints were applied. Data indicated that the universal screening assessment, the SDQ, demonstrated adequate model fit that improved as measurement invariance testing continued. This suggests that the SDQ identified student internalizing and externalizing risk comparably across high and low stress teachers and may be appropriate to use to assess risk in settings where teachers are highly stressed. Additional analyses found that high stress teachers rated more behavioral and emotional symptoms overall than low stress teachers, with a small effect size. Additionally, high stress teachers rated fewer positive behaviors than low stress teachers in this study. However, this should be studied further in future research which includes nesting to account for district and school variables which may affect teacher stress. Implications regarding using findings to support teachers are discussed. / School Psychology