Most investigators accept that the determination of risk status for child outcome is too complex to be explained by any single causal variable. Despite this recognition, few empirical attempts have been made to simultaneously examine the impact of multiple factors on child problematic behaviour. In the current study, a multivariate theoretical model was proposed to assess the relative and combined effects of various factors in contributing to child socialized aggression and conduct disturbance. Variables were drawn from four domains, including child problematic behaviour, family interaction, parent characteristics, and community factors. Analyses were also undertaken to identify protective factors which discriminated between problematic and nonproblematic children. The proposed theoretical model was tested with a high-risk community sample. Seventy-two families residing in rent-subsidized, high-crime neighbourhoods were recruited to participate in the study on a voluntary basis. All of the families were headed by single-mothers and the majority depended on social assistance as their primary source of income. In addition, children were equally represented on the basis of age, sex, and geographic location. The parent-child dyads were interviewed in the home. Multiple measures and/or modes of assessment (i.e., self-report, collateral reports, and observational techniques) were used to evaluate predictors from each of the major domains. Results of the multivariate analyses provided support for the proposed theoretical model. As expected, the most powerful predictor of socialized aggression and conduct disturbance emerged from the family interaction domain (i.e., ineffective discipline). Variables from the parent characteristics and community factors domain were also important in the prediction of socialized aggression. Combined, these measures accounted for a large percentage of the variance for each of the criterion measures. Path analytic techniques were used to examine the direct and indirect effects of predictor variables on child behavioural outcome. The results of these analyses pointed to the importance of previously neglected variables in this area. For example, parental antisocial attitudes were found to exert a direct impact on parenting behaviour (ineffective discipline, poor monitoring), which in turn increased the likelihood of child socialized aggression. The results also revealed that several protective factors were important in differentiating between problematic and nonproblematic children. Positive temperament, good academic performance, the ability to get along well with others, and the presence of a confidante tended to characterize children scoring low on measures of socialized aggression and conduct disturbance. The implications of these and other findings for theory, research, and clinical practice are discussed.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uottawa.ca/oai:ruor.uottawa.ca:10393/7713 |
| Date | January 1991 |
| Creators | Van Dieten, Marilyn. |
| Publisher | University of Ottawa (Canada) |
| Source Sets | Université d’Ottawa |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | 456 p. |
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