Pathways to deviance: developmental trajectories of externalizing problems in dutch youth

Externalizing behaviors are the most common and persistent forms of childhood problem behaviors (Campbell, 1995) and are both concurrently and prospectively related to impaired functioning in many domains (Rutter, Giller, & Hagell, 1998). Studies indicated that children and adolescents with conduct problems are at increased risk for various types of psychopathology in adulthood (Bardone, Moffitt, Caspi, Dickson, & Silva, 1996; Farrington, 1999; Fergusson, Lynskey, & Horwood, 1996; Keenan, Loeber, & Green, 1999; Moffitt, Caspi, Harrington, & Milne, 2002; Zoccolillo, 1993), delinquency (Broidy et al., 2003; Fergusson & Horwood, 2002), and impaired social functioning (Achenbach, Howell, McConaughy, & Stanger, 1998; Chassin, Pitts, & DeLucia, 1999). At the same time externalizing behaviors change so much in expression and frequency over the course of development that studies at any single time-point in development will provide only limited information or misrepresent the phenomenon (Kraemer, Yesavage, Taylor, & Kupfer, 2000). Therefore there is a growing consensus that externalizing behavior must be studied from a developmental perspective (Costello & Angold, 2000).

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