Early Developmental and Psychosocial Risks and Longitudinal Behavioral Adjustment Outcomes for Preschool-Age Girls Adopted from China

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

7-2010

Keywords

indicators of pre-adoption adversity, adopted girls, Chinese children, longitudinal data, behavioral adjustment

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

http://doi.org/10.1016/j.appdev.2010.04.002

Abstract

The central goal of this longitudinal study was to examine behavioral adjustment outcomes in a sample of preschool-age adopted Chinese girls. Research examining the effects of institutional deprivation on post-adoption behavioral outcomes for internationally adopted children has been constrained by the frequent unavailability of data on the institutional experiences of adopted children. Using child-level measures of the residual effects of pre-adoption deprivation or adversity, the present study of 452 preschool-age girls adopted from China tested the hypothesis that these measures will better predict behavioral adjustment (as measured on the CBCL/1½–5) than age at adoption (AAA), used conventionally as a proxy measure of the magnitude of deprivation effects. Along with AAA (M = 13.1 months, SD = 5.1), our measures were used to predict behavioral adjustment at two time points (Mage = 2.7 years at Time 1 and 4.8 years at Time 2). There was strong stability in behavioral adjustment across time, and the regression results showed that delays in social skills, refusal/avoidance behaviors, and crying/clinging behaviors at the time of adoption, rather than AAA, predicted behavioral adjustment outcomes.

Was this content written or created while at USF?

Yes

Citation / Publisher Attribution

Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, v. 31, issue 4, p. 306-314.

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