Department of Psychology, Providence College, Providence, RI, USA.
Department of Psychology, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, USA.
Child Psychiatry Hum Dev. 2022 Aug;53(4):611-622. doi: 10.1007/s10578-021-01158-x. Epub 2021 Mar 18.
In clinically referred children, boys and those with disorganized mother-child attachments tend to show the most maladaptive externalizing trajectories; however, additional research is necessary to test whether these findings hold in a community sample. Therefore, 235 community children (106 boys) were followed from ages 6 to 15 years across six time points. Multiple-group linear growth curves with mother-child attachment as a time-invariant covariate were fit to the data to explore externalizing trajectories for boys and girls. Results showed that boys had higher initial externalizing levels than girls, and children generally experienced a decline in symptoms over time. No significant trajectory differences were found for girls, and boys with different attachment classifications did not differ on their initial externalizing levels; however, boys with avoidant attachments (with resistant attachments trending) experienced a steeper decline in externalizing symptoms longitudinally. Implications for intervention and prevention are discussed.
在临床上转诊的儿童中，男孩和那些与母亲关系失调的儿童往往表现出最适应不良的外化轨迹；然而，需要进一步的研究来检验这些发现是否适用于社区样本。因此，235 名来自社区的儿童（106 名男孩）在六个时间点上从 6 岁到 15 岁进行了跟踪。使用多组线性增长曲线，将母子依恋作为时不变协变量，以探索男孩和女孩的外化轨迹。结果表明，男孩的外化水平初始高于女孩，而且儿童的症状通常随着时间的推移而下降。女孩没有发现显著的轨迹差异，不同依恋分类的男孩在初始外化水平上也没有差异；然而，具有回避依恋（抗拒依恋趋势）的男孩在纵向方面经历了更陡峭的外化症状下降。讨论了干预和预防的意义。
