A life course investigation of childhood risk patterns and the development of trajectories of competence in early adolescence

Background. Extant research strongly supports that exposure to childhood disadvantages can have a detrimental impact on normative developmental trajectories, placing children at-risk for an array of adverse outcomes later in the life course. The cumulative risk index model is a predominant variable-centered approach used to investigate the influence of multiple risk exposures on developmental outcomes. An assumption of this model is that it is the total number of risk variables, rather than any specific type of childhood risk per se, that is most predictive of maladaptive outcomes. Longitudinal risk studies consistently show, however, that not all children exposed to early disadvantage are destined to exhibit poor developmental outcomes. As many as one-third to two-thirds of at-risk children have actually been shown to experience normal development in terms of meeting age-salient task demands---a phenomenon that has been termed resilience or social adaptation. Recent methodological advances are now facilitating pattern-based and person-centered approaches to investigating the influence of multiple risk exposures on developmental outcomes. The motivation of a pattern-based approach is the idea that the patterning of risks holds additional information beyond what a simply tally of the number of risk exposures can reveal, while the motivation of a person-centered approach is the idea that it is individuals, not variables, that develop over time.;Aims/Methods. Taking advantage of recent methodological advances for the analysis of longitudinal data, this study combines latent class analysis with growth curve modeling to investigate whether the patterning of risks during the first eight years of life has distinct consequences for the developmental growth trajectories of academic and behavioral competence. Also examined, is the influence of gender and race/ethnicity on the patterning of risks and on the trajectories of competence, and the influence of latent risk class membership and trajectories of competence on adolescent psychological well-being.;Results. The patterning of risk exposures from birth to age 8 was found to predict the initial level of average academic achievement and antisocial behavior at age 8, and the rate of change in average academic achievement and antisocial behavior over time between ages 8 to 14. Gender and race/ethnicity were found to influence both the patterning of childhood risks and the growth parameters of the development trajectories of academic and behavioral competence in early adolescence. Results for the influence of latent risk class membership and trajectories of competence on adolescent psychological well-being were inconclusive.;Conclusions. Findings from this study support that the patterning of childhood risks holds additional information beyond that revealed by the simply tally of the number of risk exposures. The patterning of childhood risks also has distinct consequences for the developmental trajectories of academic and behavioral competence in early adolescence.