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Importance of early neglect for childhood aggression
Author(s) -
Reading Richard
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
child: care, health and development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.832
H-Index - 82
eISSN - 1365-2214
pISSN - 0305-1862
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2214.2008.00879_7.x
Subject(s) - neglect , aggression , psychology , child abuse , longitudinal study , early childhood , physical abuse , child neglect , developmental psychology , poison control , injury prevention , psychiatry , medicine , medical emergency , pathology
Importance of early neglect for childhood aggression.
Kotch J. B. , Lewis T. , Hussey J. M. , English D. , Thompson R. , Litrownik A. J. , Runyan D. K.,et al.(2008)Pediatrics,121,725–731.
DOI: 10.1542/peds.2006‐3622.Objective The goal was to examine the association between early childhood neglect (birth to age 2 years) and later childhood aggression at ages 4, 6 and 8 years, compared with aggression's associations with early childhood abuse and later abuse and neglect. Methods A prospective cohort of 1318 predominantly at‐risk children, recruited from four US cities and one southern state, were monitored from birth to 8 years of age. Maltreatment was determined through review of local child protective services records. A hierarchical, linear model approach, a special case of general, linear, mixed modelling, was used to predict aggressive behaviour scores, as reported by the child's primary caregiver at ages 4, 6 and 8 years. Results Only early neglect significantly predicted aggression scores. Early abuse, later abuse and later neglect were not significantly predictive in a controlled model with all four predictors. Conclusion This longitudinal study suggests that child neglect in the first 2 years of life may be a more important precursor of childhood aggression than later neglect or physical abuse at any age.