Abstract
BackgroundLittle is known about the stability of behavioural and developmental problems as children develop from infants to toddlers in the general population. Therefore, we investigated behavioural profiles at two time points and determined whether behaviours are stable during early development.MethodsParents of 4,237 children completed questionnaires with 62 items about externalizing, internalizing, and social-communicative behaviour when the children were 14–15 and 36–37 months old. Factor mixture modelling identified five homogeneous profiles at both time points: three with relatively normal behaviour or with mild/moderate problems, one with clear communication and interaction problems, and another with pronounced negative and demanding behaviour.ResultsMore than 85% of infants with normal behaviour or mild problems at 14–15 months were reported to behave relatively typically as toddlers at 36–37 months. A similar percentage of infants with moderate communication problems outgrew their problems by the time they were toddlers. However, infants with severe problems had mild to severe problems as toddlers, and did not show completely normal behaviour. Improvement over time occurred more often in children with negative and demanding behaviour than in children with communication and interaction problems. The former showed less homotypic continuity than the latter.ConclusionsNegative and demanding behaviour is more often transient and a less specific predictor of problems in toddlerhood than communication and interaction problems.
Highlights
Little is known about the stability of behavioural and developmental problems as children develop from infants to toddlers in the general population
Information regarding factor solution, class division, and profiles for the sample with 4,237 children for whom data were available at T2 are presented in Tables 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, and Figure 1
Results of Factor mixture modelling (FMM) are presented in a line chart with continuous weighted factor scores for each class separately (Figure 2)
Summary
Little is known about the stability of behavioural and developmental problems as children develop from infants to toddlers in the general population. Severe social-communication problems, which are characteristic for autism spectrum disorder (ASD), may be apparent and lead to a reliable diagnosis before 2 years of age, whereas less pronounced problems are only recognized later [9] This hinders the investigation of the continuity of psychiatric dysfunctioning over time. FMM gives insight in both the clustering of items into factors and the grouping of individuals into classes representing all possible dimensions Application of this method at several time points makes it possible to distinguish groups of children with different developmental patterns [12]: stable without problems, transitory problems, late-onset problems, and stable with problems, either the same problems (homotypic continuity) or different problems (heterotypic continuity) [13,14]
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