THE IMPACT OF CHILDHOOD ADVERSITY ON EMOTIONAL, BEHAVIORAL AND SCHOOL OUTCOMES

Childhood adversities, including discrimination, maltreatment, violence, poverty and bullying have detrimental impacts on children’s behavioral, cognitive, academic, and social-emotional development, and can increase risk for later psychopathology. The chapters of my dissertation identify the effects of specific adversities, including perceived discrimination and maltreatment, on academic, emotional and behavioral outcomes. Chapter 1 is a meta-analysis with the goal of determining the degree to which maltreatment is associated with deficits in the ability to recognize one’s own emotions – a phenomenon known as alexithymia. Statistically significant, small effect sizes for all types of maltreatment were found, indicating higher levels of maltreatment in childhood or adolescence were associated with higher levels of alexithymia. Chapter 2 utilized longitudinal data to examine which individual characteristics, features of maltreatment, and consequences of a maltreatment investigation were associated with variation in children’s internalizing and externalizing behaviors in the 36 months following a CPS investigation. Latent trajectory models showed that features of maltreatment, especially prior substantiated incident of maltreatment, were associated with higher baseline levels of internalizing, externalizing, and total problem behaviors as well as changes in these behaviors over time. Race, age and gender also had differential impacts on behavioral outcomes with numerous age specific findings for internalizing behaviors. Chapter 3 utilized ecological momentary assessment to examine the daily impacts of perceived discrimination on school-related behaviors, both school engagement and school problem behaviors. School-related behaviors were examined of both the day of the perceived discrimination and the day following the event. Perceived discrimination was not associated with same day or following day school engagement. However, the odds of school problem behaviors increased the day following a perceived experience of discrimination. The association between discrimination and school related outcomes was stronger for adolescents from minority groups compared to their white peers. These studies illustrate the need for continued improvements in preventative initiatives, policies and in interventions for children who experience childhood adversities.