Children who grow up in socioeconomically disadvantaged families have greater rates of conduct problems compared to their more privileged peers, and growing up in poverty is a major risk factor for poor functional outcomes. Adolescents with conduct problems frequently engage in aggressive and disruptive behaviors. In many cases these behaviors are controlled or managed through interventions and they do not always ensure lasting changes. In the articles below they focused on different risk factors of conduct problems such as community violence exposure, low income households and Oppositional Defiant Disorder. Conduct problems among youth have abnormal intelligence, underachieving in school, and co-occurring ADHD. This research has important implications on how the research was conducted and how it is interpreted. Most importantly, the articles below highlight individualized approaches.
Introduction
Conduct Problems are considered a group of behavioral and emotional problems that usually occurs during childhood and adolescence. Children and Adolescents who have conduct problems have a hard time following rules or behaving acceptably in public settings. For instance, when the child/ adolescent is engaging in age inappropriate actions and attitudes that violate family expectations, societal norms and personal or property rights of others, an evaluation should be done or the parent should seek help for the child. Antisocial behaviors tend to rise and fall during normal development, since these behaviors vary from the severity from minor disobedience to fighting. Conduct Problems are most common in boys during childhood. In fact, children who often display these signs often come from low- income homes, insecure parenting styles, having a family history of conduct problems, or having a history of experiencing traumatic events. Yet, child behavioral problems have been long thought to be a risk factor for future behaviors. Support from this research has important implications on how the research was conducted and how it is interpreted. Most importantly, these articles highlight individualized approaches to treatment and how it recognizes the needs of young children across various pathways.
Summary
1.
Findings from the article “Income and Children’s Behavioral Functioning: A Sequential Mediation Analysis,” focuses on parents who live in economically disadvantaged households, who’s children are at a higher risk for developing conduct disorder. Often these problems are exposed everyday leaving children to develop emotional and behavioral problems. This study used data from Early Steps Multisite (ESM) project asking families (N=731) to investigate the association between family income in early childhood and children’s conduct problems in middle school. It explored whether the association are from income to child conduct problems, to emotional problems through maternal depressive symptoms. Families who agreed to participate in the current study included 731 primary givers recruited from WIC centers. Families with children 0-8 years old were scheduled for annual home visits that lasted for 2/3 hours. These caregivers were asked to participate and screened to ensure they met the criteria. As a result, the study reported that income was found to be linked to child emotional and conduct problems through disturbances that causes economic stress placed on the parents. (Goodman & Gotlib,1999; Lovejoy et al., 2009)
2.
The present data from, Community Violence Exposure and Conduct Disorder Problems in Children and Adolescents with Conduct Disorder and Healthy Controls, looked at how community violence exposure has a negative impact on adolescents, mainly males causing high risks for conduct problems. The aim of the study was to investigate whether the association between community violence exposure and current conduct problems hold healthy controls of adolescents with Conduct Disorder. The researchers did a comprehensive meta- analysis of 114 studies on the effects of community violence exposure on adolescent mental health by Fowler et al. 2009. He found that the effects of CVE were the strongest when dealing with post-traumatic stress followed by externalizing problems. The sample included (N=1178) children and adolescents who were asked questions with permission of parents, on how many times they were threatened because of race or identity, beat up or mugged, shot or shot at with a gun, chased by gangs or individuals, etc. Children and adolescents (62% female; 44% CD) aged between 9 years and 18 years from seven European countries were analyzed. Conduct problems were assessed using Kiddie-Schedule of Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia, while aggression subtypes were obtained using self- report questionnaires. It was reported that the association between witnessing community violence and conduct problems were significant in both adolescents with Conduct Disorder and healthy controls. This present study could show that community violence is a highly prevalent experience for children and adolescents, and is strongly associated with the individual’s level of conduct problems, which is primarily mediated by proactive aggression.
3.
Executive Function Feature in Drug-naïve Children with Oppositional Defiant Disorder aimed to examine the different features of boys aged 6-12years old with oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) since behavior problems are more prevalent during a boy’s childhood. During this cross-sectional design, the children with ODD were compared to children with ADHD, and were tested using different neuropsychological tests, such as the Stroop Color Ward Tests, and the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children. (N=43) individuals with ODD, which included (N=14) children with ODD, (N=29) children with ODD/ADHD. The participants were asked to complete a set of questionnaires about emotional regulation when they were 10 years old or older, testing their long-term memory. According to the findings the inhibition capability and working memory impairment are both important for executive function deficits shared by ODD and ADHD in boys. Inhibition has been regarded as an important executive function facet, which, in Barkley’s theory, is the core executive function impairment in ADHD. Working memory has also been regarded as another core deficit in ADHD. It was suggested that the boys with ODD and the boys with ADHD performed poorly in executive functioning tasks. Overall, The ODD group exhibited significantly lower scores in both Stroop Color-Word Test, but higher scores in spatial working memory.
4.
In the article From Childhood Conduct Problems to Poor Functioning at Age 18: Examining Explanations in a Longitudinal Cohort Study speaks on poor functioning in early adulthood, which may be the result of continuity in psychopathology from child to adult life rather than a developmental outcome of conduct problems during childhood. Children who grow up in socioeconomically disadvantaged families have greater rates of conduct problems compared to their more privileged peers, and growing up in poverty is a major risk factor for poor functional outcomes. Children who displayed conduct problems reported at a high risk of continuing these behaviors as adults which would later cause other psychopathology problems such as depression and anxiety. Data used from the Environmental Risk Longitudinal Twin Study, a 1994-1995 birth cohort of 2,232 twins born in England and Wales, which followed them until age 18 with 93% retention. During the assessment, during the ages 5,7, and 10 severe conduct problems were assessed. At age 18 poor functioning included cautions and convictions, daily cigarette smoking, drinking heavily and psychosocial difficulties were measured through interviews with participants. Closer inspection revealed that most 18-year-olds without a history of conduct problems experienced none or only one poor functional outcomes (61.6%); few experienced two or three (28.7%), and fewer experienced four or more poor outcomes (9.7%). However, the sample found that children with severe conduct problem display poor functioning at age 18 because of concurrent problems.
5.
In this article, Risk Factors for Conduct Disorder and Delinquency: the authors focused on family and social risk factors among young people aged 9 through 17 years old. Mentioned were the effects of changing schools, community influence, and low SES were developing conduct problems over time. The study, which was a cross- sectional survey of (N=1285) adolescents aged 9 to 17 in the US. Within a 6-month timing. According to adolescents, the prevalence of conduct disorder increased for boys 1.3% at age 9 to 11 years to 6% at age 12 to 14 years.
Compare/ Contrast
The findings that were consistent across the articles were that low income and community violence exposure were key factors in developing conduct problems. For example, three articles supported income and community exposure as a major risk factor for children. Income and Children’s Behavioral Functioning, Community Violence Exposure, and From childhood Conduct Problems to Poor Functioning at Age 18 had consistent findings that children growing up in poverty were more likely to rely on structure and organization that is externally provided, given their developmental limitations in self- regulation and or regulation of their environments (e.g., Eisenberg & Spinard, 2004). Taken together participants who grow up in socioeconomic disadvantage has been expose to violence, or had parents with psychopathology were at a greater risk of displaying conduct problems as children. However, the difference between these articles were that children who have parents of low income are more likely to be depressed. For example, unmeasured characteristics such as parental motivation, affected earnings and this also shaped child’s development. (Duncan, Magnuson & Ludwig, 2004). Reactive aggression explained less of the association between low income but it increased in witnessing violence and conduct problems than more proactive aggression. Boys with ODD performed poor in executive functioning task whereas boys with ADHD performed even worst. (Schwab-Stone et al., 1995)
In conclusion, what I learned from each article is that about one in five children have a behavioral or emotional disorder during early childhood development because they are exposed to living in poverty which is correlated with child conduct problems. Witnessing community violence, and the effects of changing schools are unhealthy to a child’s development. These challenges for the future lies in breaking this dangerous cycle of young people especially boys being exposed to this ongoing violence. Also, to help teach the parent to learn how to cope during the stress of economically hardships of stress.