Aggression and co-occurring behaviors in the school setting: a multi-site population-based investigation

Teachers represent an important resource in ascertaining the breadth and depth of a child’s behavioral and emotional problems. A child may exhibit aggressive behavior at school but not at home, for example, or vice versa.... [ view full abstract ]

Teachers represent an important resource in ascertaining the breadth and depth of a child’s behavioral and emotional problems. A child may exhibit aggressive behavior at school but not at home, for example, or vice versa. Additionally, aggression’s associated co-occurring behaviors (e.g., attention problems, anxiety) may be differentially expressed in one setting or another. The interplay between these factors is less well known in the school setting compared to the home setting. Here, we used teacher ratings to investigate associations between aggression and co-occurring behaviors. Cooperating through the ACTION consortium (Aggression in Children: Unraveling gene-environment interplay to inform Treatment and InterventiON strategies; http://www.action-euproject.eu/), we bring together four population-based cohorts (NTR, GEN-R, TEDS, FT12) from three European countries (the Netherlands, UK, and Finland). Teacher-rated data from children at ages 7, 9, 10, 12, 14 (n=18,367, 49.4% boys; n=2300, 45.9% boys; n=8592, 49.9% boys; n=12,656, 48.9% boys; n=1441, 48.4% boys, respectively) were available based on the following instruments: Teacher Report Form (NTR, GEN-R), Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (TEDS), Multidimensional Peer Nomination Inventory (FT12). Associations were examined between aggression and other externalizing problems (hyperactivity/impulsivity and inattention), as well as internalizing problems (anxiety, depression) and prosocial behavior. As expected, correlations of aggression with other externalizing behaviors were moderate to high (0.46–0.79). Correlations of aggression with depressive/withdrawn symptoms were low (0.13–0.29), while aggression–anxiety correlations had the broadest range ((-0.10)–0.38). Prosocial behavior was negatively correlated with aggression ((-0.33)–(-0.54)). These population-based multi-country associations help to clarify the complexity of the problems surrounding aggressive children at school. Twin analyses are in progress to investigate the genetic and environmental underpinnings of these phenotypic associations.