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Objective: Despite the high prevalence rates of harsh parenting, the nature of developmental change in this domain early in life and the factors that contribute to changes in harsh parenting over time are not well understood. The present study examined developmental patterns in maternal harsh parenting behavior from birth to age 3 years and their related longitudinal risk factors (contextual and intrapersonal). Partner aggression was also tested as a time-varying predictor to examine its time-specific influence on maternal harsh parenting. Methods: Longitudinal data from 4 assessments of a community sample of 488 at-risk mothers were analyzed using latent growth curve modeling. Maternal risk factors and harsh parenting behaviors were assessed at birth and at ages 1, 2, and 3 years. Results: There was a significant increase in maternal harsh parenting from birth to age 3, particularly between ages 1 and 2. There was a significant direct effect of maternal alcohol use and abuse history on maternal harsh parenting at age 3, and maternal age was positively associated with change in maternal harsh parenting over time. In addition, partner aggression was significantly and positively associated with maternal harsh parenting at each time point. Conclusions: The findings suggest possible developmental trends in the emergence of maternal harsh parenting during infancy and toddlerhood. Further investigation is needed to elucidate individual differences in the developmental patterns and to differentiate predictive factors that persist across time and factors that are unique to specific developmental stages. Practice implications: The overall high prevalence rates of harsh parenting behavior and growth of such behavior in infancy and toddlerhood support the need for developmentally sensitive early intervention programs. (Contains 1 table and 1 figure.)

This study used longitudinal data from 202 at-risk young men to examine effects of arrests, prior risk factors, and recent life circumstances on job loss across a 7-year period in early adulthood. Repeated failure-time continuous event-history analysis indicated that occurrence of job loss was primarily related to prior mental health problems, recent arrests, recent drug use, and recent being married/cohabitation. It is argued that long-term effects of criminal justice contact on employment outcomes should be understood in the context of (shared) prior risk factors and recent life circumstances. (Contains 2 tables.)

This study uses longitudinal data from the Oregon Youth Study (OYS) to examine prospective effects of juvenile arrests and of early versus late onset of juvenile offending on two labor market outcomes by age 29 or 30 years. It was expected that those with more juvenile arrests and those with an early onset of offending would show poorer outcomes on both measures, controlling for propensity factors. Data were available for 203 men from the OYS, including officially recorded arrests and self-reported information on the men's work history across 9 years. Analyses revealed unexpected specificity in prospective effects: Juvenile arrests and mental health problems predicted the number of months unemployed; in contrast, being fired from work was predicted by poor child inhibitory control and adolescent substance use. Onset age of offending did not significantly predict either outcome. Implications of the findings for applied purposes and for developmental taxonomies of crime are discussed. (Contains 1 figure and 3 tables.)

This study tested associations among observed interaction patterns and relationship satisfaction in a subsample of young at-risk couples (n=47) from the Oregon Youth Study who remained stable over 7 years; each partner's positive engagement, psychological aggression, and withdrawal within a particular conflict structure (his vs. her topic) was used to predict satisfaction over time using multilevel growth curve modeling. Women's positive engagement during both topics predicted higher satisfaction for both partners at within-couple and between-couple levels. Women's psychological aggression showed topic-specific associations with lower satisfaction for each partner, and increases in both men's and women's psychological aggression during their partner's topic related to lower satisfaction over time for women. Both partners' withdrawal during men's topics predicted less decline in satisfaction for men. (Contains 5 tables.)

The present study examined the longitudinal course of men's physical and psychological aggression toward a partner across 10 years, using a community sample of young couples (N = 194) from at-risk backgrounds. Findings indicated that men's aggression decreased over time and that women's antisocial behavior and depressive symptoms predicted changes in men's aggression. This suggests the importance of studying social processes within the dyad to have a better understanding of men's aggression toward a partner.

Objective: Up to 90% of child welfare system cases involve multiple types of maltreatment; however, studies have rarely incorporated multiple dimensions of maltreatment. The present study employed a latent profile analysis to identify naturally occurring subgroups of children who had experienced maltreatment. Methods: Reports of maltreatment incidents for 117 preschool-aged foster children were classified along two dimensions: type (e.g., physical abuse, sexual abuse, physical neglect, supervisory neglect, or emotional maltreatment) and severity within type. Results: The analyses revealed four distinct profiles showing moderate to high levels of maltreatment: (a) supervisory neglect/emotional maltreatment; (b) sexual abuse/emotional maltreatment/neglect (when not otherwise specified neglect refers to both supervisory and physical neglect); (c) physical abuse/emotional maltreatment/neglect; and (d) sexual abuse/physical abuse/emotional maltreatment/neglect. Profile membership was examined with respect to the children's cognitive functioning and externalizing and internalizing problems: lower cognitive functioning was related to profiles with neglect or physical abuse (or both), externalizing was highest in the sexual abuse/physical abuse/emotional maltreatment/neglect profile, and internalizing was highest in the profiles with physical or sexual abuse (or both). Conclusions: There appear to be distinct profiles of maltreatment among preschoolers that have differential associations to measures of adjustment. Policy and practice implications and future research directions are discussed. Practice implications: Using different profiles of maltreatment to understand specific vulnerabilities may guide in tailoring interventions to the needs of maltreated children. (Contains 2 figures and 4 tables.)

Childhood temperament and family environment have been shown to predict internalizing and externalizing behavior; however, less is known about how temperament and family environment interact to predict changes in problem behavior. We conducted latent growth curve modeling on a sample assessed at ages 5, 7, 10, 14, and 17 (N = 337). Externalizing behavior decreased over time for both sexes, and internalizing behavior increased over time for girls only. Two childhood variables (fear/shyness and maternal depression) predicted boys' and girls' age-17 internalizing behavior, harsh discipline uniquely predicted boys' age-17 internalizing behavior, and maternal depression and lower family income uniquely predicted increases in girls' internalizing behavior. For externalizing behavior, an array of temperament, family environment, and Temperament X Family Environment variables predicted age-17 behavior for both sexes. Sex differences were present in the prediction of externalizing slopes, with maternal depression predicting increases in boys' externalizing behavior only when impulsivity was low, and harsh discipline predicting increases in girls' externalizing behavior only when impulsivity was high or when fear/shyness was low.

Exposure to childhood maltreatment is a significant risk factor for the development and persistence of problematic alcohol use. The present study examined the role of risk taking and inhibitory control, key cognitive processes believed to govern behavioral regulation, as mechanisms that underlie the association between childhood maltreatment and the early stages of alcohol use. A sample of 129 maltreated adolescents and 102 socioeconomic status-matched, nonmaltreated adolescents and their parents completed three annual assessments, including computer-administered tasks and adolescent- and parent-report questionnaires, across ages 12-13 through 14-15 years. Childhood maltreatment was not directly associated with alcohol use in middle adolescence but was significantly associated with deficits in inhibitory control in early adolescence, which, in turn, led to significantly increased alcohol use in middle adolescence. Indeed, decreased inhibitory control was significant as a mediator, highlighting the salient role of this cognitive process in the early stages of alcohol use among maltreated adolescents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Official police reports of intimate partner violence (IPV) were examined in a community sample of young, at-risk couples to determine the degree of mutuality and the relation between IPV arrests and aggression toward a partner (self-reported, partner reported, and observed). Arrests were predominantly of the men. Men were more likely to initiate physical contact, use physical force, and inflict injuries than women, although few injuries required medical attention. In the context of nonofficial aggression toward a partner, overall, women had higher levels of physical and psychological aggression compared to men, and levels of severe physical aggression did not differ by gender. Couples with an IPV arrest were more aggressive toward each other than couples with no IPV arrests; however, nonofficial levels of aggression were not higher for men than for women among couples experiencing an IPV incident. Keywords: aggression; arrests; domestic violence; injury; police reports

Early adverse experiences are believed to have a profound effect on inhibitory control and the underlying neural regions. In the current study, behavioral and event-related potential (ERP) data were collected during a go/no-go task from adolescents who were involved with the child welfare system due to child maltreatment (n = 129) and low-income, nonmaltreated adolescents (n = 102). The nonmaltreated adolescents were more accurate than the maltreated adolescents on the go/no-go task, particularly on the no-go trials. Paralleling the results with typically developing populations, the nonmaltreated adolescents displayed a more pronounced amplitude of the N2 during the no-go trials than during the go trials. However, the maltreated adolescents demonstrated a more pronounced amplitude of the N2 during the go trials than during the no-go trials. Furthermore, while the groups did not differ during the go trials, the nonmaltreated adolescents displayed a more negative amplitude of the N2 than the maltreated adolescents during no-go trials. In contrast, there was not a significant group difference in amplitude of the P3. Taken together, these results provide evidence that the early adverse experiences encountered by maltreated populations impact inhibitory control and the underlying neural activity in early adolescence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Co-occurring trajectories of delinquent behavior and depressive symptoms and their correlates were examined in a longitudinal sample of 985 middle-adolescent boys and girls (mean age = 15.54 years at Time 1). Dual trajectory analysis was used to identify the co-occurring trajectories. For boys (n = 472), 4 delinquency and 4 depression trajectory groups were found. For girls (n = 513), 3 delinquency and 3 depression trajectory groups were identified. The linkage between co-occurring trajectories was higher for girls than for boys. Stressful life events and childhood precursors of the outcomes predicted trajectory group membership for both genders fairly consistently. Findings suggest heterogeneity in developmental courses of delinquent behavior and depressive symptoms across adolescent boys and girls. Keywords: adolescence, trajectories, co-occurrence, depression, delinquency

Heterogeneity in the longitudinal course of depressive symptoms was studied through the use of general growth mixture modeling for young men in the Oregon Youth Study (N = 206), who ranged in age from 15 to 24 years. Four trajectory classes were identified: the very-low, the moderate-decreasing, the high-decreasing, and the high-persistent classes. The 3 lowest classes differed primarily quantitatively with the initial level or mean level across time being the major determinant of class differences, whereas the high-persistent class appeared qualitatively different in terms of long-term developmental trends and variation. Findings from univariate and multivariate analyses revealed specific effects of childhood, parental, contextual, and individual risk factors on the class membership as well as on the growth within each trajectory class. Keywords: depressive symptoms, general growth mixture model, developmental trajectories