1. Children With Co-Occurring Anxiety and Externalizing Disorders: Family Risks and Implications for Competence.
- Author
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Yoo, Joan P., Brown, Pamela J., and Luthar, Suniya S.
- Subjects
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PSYCHIATRIC diagnosis , *CHILD psychopathology , *ANXIETY in children , *ACADEMIC achievement , *LOGISTIC regression analysis , *PROBLEM children - Abstract
This study used data from 340 mother-child dyads to examine characteristics of children with co-occurring diagnoses of anxiety and externalizing disorders and compared them with children with a sole diagnosis or no diagnosis. Comparisons were made using 4 child-diagnostic groups: anxiety-only, externalizing-only, co-occurrence, and no-problem groups. Most mothers were characterized by low income and histories of psychiatric diagnoses during the child's lifetime. Analyses using multinomial logistic regressions found the incidence of co-occurring childhood disorders to be significantly linked with maternal affective/anxiety disorders during the child's lifetime. In exploring implications for developmental competence, we found the co-occurrence group to have the lowest level of adaptive functioning among the 4 groups, faring significantly worse than the no-problem group on both academic achievement and intelligence as assessed by standardized tests. Findings underscore the importance of considering co-occurring behavior problems as a distinct phenomenon when examining children's developmental outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2009
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