Predicting children's differential trajectories of emotion dysregulation: A study on the intergenerational transmission of child and caregiver maltreatment

Abstract

Background: Child maltreatment and caregiver history of abuse is negatively associated with the development of emotion regulation, and maltreatment in early childhood may be particularly disruptive.

Objective: We examined patterns of emotion dysregulation and the contribution of caregiver victimization and early maltreatment history on the development of distinct emotion dysregulation trajectories.

Participants: The current study sample (n = 1354) came from the Longitudinal Studies of Child Abuse and Neglect (LONGSCAN), a longitudinal study of the antecedents and consequences of child maltreatment. Children had a varied risk of maltreatment from high risk but not referred to child protective services to children who were removed from parental care.

Method: We employed a growth mixture modeling approach to model differential trajectories of children's emotion dysregulation from age four to age ten and assessed whether children's experiences of maltreatment prior to age four and caregiver histories of abuse were associated with children's probable class membership in the identified trajectories.

Results: We identified three classes of emotion dysregulation trajectories: Well-Regulated, Increasingly Dysregulated, and Highly Dysregulated. Early experiences of multiple maltreatment types and caregiver history of abuse were associated with higher odds that children would be in the Increasingly Dysregulated and Highly Dysregulated classes compared to the Well-Regulated class.

Conclusion: The current study extends the literature on the negative associations of caregiver histories of abuse and child experiences of multiple maltreatment types to children's emotion dysregulation, which may be long-lasting. Furthermore, our findings highlight the need for intervening early as a crucial component of breaking the intergenerational impact of maltreatment.

Keywords: Caregiver abuse history; Emotion dysregulation; Growth mixture modeling; Longitudinal trajectories; Maltreatment; Multiple maltreatment types.