Conduct problems

• Scott (2001) 


  Most of the time, children with conducts problems cause long-term negative outcomes, which cost the tax payer ten times the amount as their 'typically developing' peers.

  Reasons for this include alcohol usage, health problems, poor educational attainment, life stability and social integration as well as adult criminality and ASPD.
• Krueger (1999)


  Typically people with conduct problems have issues with externalising behaviour, which is also common among people with alcohol and drug disorder, and ASPD.

  HOWEVER externalising and internalising problems are often interlinked, which makes people with conduct problems also likely to have internalising problems which are associated with depression, anxiety, phobias and panic disorders (among other conditions).
• Oppositional defiant disorder


  Prevalence of ~3.2%.

  Symptoms include:

  • Angry/ irritable mood.
  • Argumentative/ defiant behaviour.
  • Vindictiveness
• Demmer et al (2016) 


  The sex ratio of oppositional defiant disorder in middle childhood is around 1.6:1, but changes to ~ 1:1 in adolescence.
• Conduct disorder symptoms: 


  Aggression to people and animals, destruction of property, deceitfulness/ theft, serious rule violations e.g., staying out at night frequently before turning 13 yrs old.
• Erskine et al (2013)


  Conduct disorder prevelance is ~ 2.5% and the sex ratio is 2.4-3.1:1
• Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD)


  Symptoms include:

  • Failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviours
  • Deceitfulness
  • Impulsivity
  • Irritability and aggressiveness
  • Reckless disregard for safety of the self or others
  • Constant and consistent irresponsibility
  • Lack of remorse
• Prevalence of ASPD 


  ~0.2-3.3% in general population but in prison ~47% men and 21% women
• Antisocial behaviour (ASB) - Life course persistent perspective 


  Argues that ASB begins in early life and is caused by early neurocognitive and environmental risks e.g., cognitive deficits combined with abusive parenting or poverty. This results in a disordered personality which is characterised by delinquent antisocial behaviour with physical aggression which continues into adulthood.
• Adolescent- limited perspective of antisocial behaviour (ASB): 


  ASB emerges in puberty because of the maturity gap, and argue that ASB should be defined by rule breaking not physical aggression. Due to development, people begin to abstain from ASB.
• The maturity gap: 


  The discrepancy that adolescents feel when they feel biologically mature but not having access to adult roles and privileges.
• Waller et al (2017) 


  There are 3 unique behavioural domains of children who display callous behaviour at age 3: oppositional behaviour, ADHD behaviour and Callous and unemotional behaviour.

  Found that due to callous and unemotional behaviour parents should focus on rewards not punishments when disciplining children with callous and unemotional traits.
• Fairchild et al (2013) 


  
Characteristics correlated with lifelong conduct problems include lower IQ, hyperactivity, psychosocial adversity, emotional reactivity and neurological impairments e.g., brain structure.

  Adolescent limited children did show similar patterns but to a lesser extent.
• Gutman et al (2019)



  In the UK, across ethnic groups there are stable yet consistent problems with antisocial behaviour (~10% for all groups).

  When only considering childhood limited problems it's ~25% for all groups (black, white and asian) but only 16% for mixed ethnicity groups.

  Adolescent onset only found in white participants (13%)
• White et al (2016) 


  Children with callous-unemotional traits have decreased fear recognition compared to children with low callous traits.
• Woolfenden et al (2002) 


  Meta-analysis of 8 RCT intervention studies and found that children with conduct difficulties/ delinquency (aged 10-17) who underwent interventions had less time in institutions, decreased re-arrest risk and subsequent arrests 1-3 years after the interventions.

  Could then be argued that parenting interventions could be cost effective at reducing these too.
• Hyde et al (2016)


  Biological mothers' ASB predicted callous-unemotional traits in their children but the link was reduced by positive parenting by adoptive mothers.
• Repacholi et al (2014) 


  15-month old Children who were rated as impulsive by their parents, showed less restraint to imitate angry previously demonstrated acts done by an experimenter.

  Shows that self-control can be measured and tested in infancy.
• Friedman et al (2011)


  In a prohibited toy study there's bi-modal distribution which means some children can wait the 30 seconds whereas others grab it straight away even after being told not to touch the toy.

  Early individual differences in self-restraint preview common executive functioning measures (to a certain extent). Genetically mediated long-term relationships between early-self restraint and later executive functioning suggests strong-like trait of early self-restraint.
• Devine, Ribner and Hughes (2019) 


  New fathers and mothers study:

  • Poor infant executive functioning predicts externalising problems (= -.128) in toddlerhood- even when prior problems and parenting quality are considered.
  • Executive functioning increases substantially from 14-24 months when measuring using "don't touch the toy" task
  • Infants who succeeded at executive functioning tasks at 14 months showed less negative affect in free play with mothers at 24 months and showed less emotional dysregulation. HOWEVER this effect is not seen in fathers.
• Hughes et al (2010, 2011) 


  Verbal ability and family income predicts executive function intercept at age 4.

  But only verbal ability predicted executive functioning slope following school entry (aka: less able children made greater gains in executive functioning following school entry).

  When concurrent executive functioning and verbal ability were controlled for, executive functioning predicted teacher-rated behaviour.
• Morgan and Lilienfeld (2000) 


  Meta-analysis of executive functioning and antisocial behaviour and found a moderate to large effects.
• Schoemaker et al (2013)


  There is a small effect size between executive functioning and antisocial behaviour in preschoolers.
• Deater and Deckard et al (2005) 


  Tested task persistance (measured by teachers, observers and testers via cognitive performance and academic achievement) in monozygotic and dizygotic twins.

  Found that with age, mean scores increase and variability becomes more closely related to heritable factors.
• Moffitt (2005)


  Fewer than 10% of the families in any given community account for MORE than 50% of the community's criminal offences.

  Suggesting antisocial behaviours are likely heritable but also doesn't imply that those families will have a resistance to intervention or that those interventions must be biological.
• Snyder et al (2019)


  Denver community sample of youth ages 13-22 who self-reported symptoms and stressors. Found that stress and rumination linked with unitary and diversity elements of exectutive functioning and that psychopathology is linked with common executive functioning. Therefore executive functioning measures can be useful for diagnosis of other conditions as well as CP.
• Harden et al (2020)


  Latent factors for executive functioning and general intelligence are highly heritable. Genetic influences on both were strongly correlated with transdiagnostic genetic influences on psychopathology symptoms.
• Valcan et al (2018)


  Meta-analysis. Poor executive functioning is related to "poor parenting"
• Roman et al (2016)


  At age 3 executive functioning mediated between mother's depressive symptoms at age 2 and child problems at age 6.
• Sturge-Apple et al (2017) 


  Socially diverse sample of mothers with 3.5 year olds rated for sensitivity across free-play and discipline contexts. Found that working memory and inhibitory control moderates effect for gain in sensitivity as childcare demands increase.
• Hughes and Devine (2019)


  Assessed for child and adult executive functioning. Found that negative parenting and parental scaffolding were specific predictors of child executive functioning and global predictors oincluded home-learning environment and parental talk.
• Moderator:


  Affects strength and direction of the relationship.
• Mediator:


  Process through which variables are related.
• Hughes and Ensor (2007) 


  At-risk toddlers followed from ages 2-4: found harsh parenting only leads to conduct problems when poor Theory of Mind is present.
• Crick and Dodge (1996): Hostile attribution bias, reactive aggression and conduct problems:


  Neural depositions and socialisation (e.g., attachment, physical abuse, modelling, culture, success and failure) accumulate to cause schemas which if are related to hostile attribution bias can cause aggressive behaviour.
• Arsenio, Adams and Gold (2009)


  Low SES adolescent sample (mostly African American and Latino)

  Found that:

  • Reactive aggression showed unique linked with expected ease in enacting aggression
  • Proactive aggression uniquely related to high VA and expectations of emotional/material outcomes of aggression.
• Sutton et al (2000)


  ToM (Faux pas task) not linked to DBD but poor ToM predicted denial/ lack of remorse.
• Jennings and Reingle (2012)- originally by Moffitt 


  Did a meta-analysis and found that conduct problems in life-course prevalence declines slightly between ages 7 and 26, with the biggest decline between 21-26. Found with adolescent onset conduct problems declined rapidly between 7 and 18 and afterwards plateaued. Thus supporting LCP and AL trajectories. It must be noted that child onset issues often resolve my adolescence, but for many with adolescent onset issues continue into adulthood

  
• Scaffolding: Woods et al (1976)


  "A process that enables a child or novice to solve a problem, carry out a task or achieve a goal which would be beyond his unassisted efforts"
• Werner (2012)


  Father's HAB is significantly associated with children's relational aggression in peer groups.