Education Commons^™

Exploring Growth Trajectories Of Problem Behavior In Young Children, Bethany Lynn Mccaffrey

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Given the negative outcomes associated with problem behavior and the heightened risk for children with disabilities to display problematic behavior, the current study implemented hierarchical linear modeling to explore the growth trajectories of problem behavior in a nationally representative sample of preschool children with disabilities. Results indicated child and contextual risk factors were associated with varying levels of problem behavior at 5.5-years-old. Further, cross-level interactions between age and disability classification and age and gender were found to be significant, indicating variations in the trajectories of problem behavior from 3- to 8-years-old can partially be explained by child disability and gender.