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.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 532-540 |
Number of pages | 9 |
Journal | American Journal of Orthopsychiatry |
Volume | 79 |
Issue number | 4 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Oct 2009 |
Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- Anxiety disorders
- Co-occurring psychiatric disorders
- Externalizing disorders
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Developmental and Educational Psychology
- Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous)
- Psychology (miscellaneous)
- Psychiatry and Mental health