Background: Verbal difficulties have been shown to be related to externalizing behavior in children. The present study aims to investigate the relationship between externalizing behavior and...Show moreBackground: Verbal difficulties have been shown to be related to externalizing behavior in children. The present study aims to investigate the relationship between externalizing behavior and difficulties in verbal memory, receptive language ability and verbal mentalizing ability. This helps us to uncover whether this combination of verbal difficulties forms a meaningful profile in predicting externalizing behavior and its treatment. Methods: The sample is derived of the Preventive Intervention Trajectory (PIT) and consists of 215 children aged 6 to 14. Within PIT, children with (sub)clinical levels of externalizing behavior receive a prolonged, preventive intervention tailored to their cognitive strengths and difficulties. Assessment of cognitive abilities includes measures of verbal memory (15-Words test), receptive language ability (CELF-4 subtest Concepts and Following Directions), and verbal mentalizing ability (Social Cognitive Abilities test (SCVT)). Results: Findings showed that verbal memory, receptive language ability and verbal mentalizing ability were not consistently positively correlated among each other. The combination of verbal abilities was modestly predictive of externalizing behavior. This predictive relationship was not significant when children were divided by verbal profile. Children with verbally weak profiles did not exhibit significantly more externalizing behavior than children with verbally strong profiles and both groups showed the same significant decrease in externalizing behavior after six months of treatment for their behavioral problems. Conclusions: Findings suggest that the combination of children’s verbal memory, receptive language ability and verbal mentalizing ability cannot be considered a meaningful profile in relation to externalizing behavior, as no differences emerged in externalizing behavior between children with weak verbal abilities and children with strong verbal abilities. The PIT intervention proved to be effective in reducing externalizing behavior, irrespective of verbal ability.Show less
The present study investigates the effect that the level of cognitive empathy and moral development have on the effectiveness of an intervention to reduce externalising behaviour among at-risk...Show moreThe present study investigates the effect that the level of cognitive empathy and moral development have on the effectiveness of an intervention to reduce externalising behaviour among at-risk youth. All subjects (N = 135, 7;8–12;10 years old) engaged in pre-intervention diagnostic screening, measuring their level of moral development, cognitive empathy and externalising behaviour. Six months after the start of the intervention, each subject’s level of externalising behaviour was measured once again. No significant relationship was found between moral development and cognitive empathy, nor did the results show a significant relationship between moral development and cognitive empathy in relation to the reduction of externalising behaviour. Alternative explanations for this unexpected outcome include that moral development merely has a too small effect on externalising behaviour to detect with the current sample, that there are shortcomings in the validity and reliability of the used questionnaires, and that the intervention is already properly addressing the issues coming from low moral development and cognitive empathyShow less
Background: Externalizing behaviour occurs in a significant proportion of Dutch children and can have negative consequences in the short and long term. It is therefore important to investigate the...Show moreBackground: Externalizing behaviour occurs in a significant proportion of Dutch children and can have negative consequences in the short and long term. It is therefore important to investigate the underlying factors of externalizing problem behaviour. Externalizing problem behaviour appears to be related to empathy and moral development according to previous research conducted among adults, the current study investigated whether a similar association occurs in children at high risk of developing criminal behaviour. When there is a link between externalizing behaviour, moral development, and empathy, preventive interventions can respond to this and potentially reduce the risk of criminal behaviour later on. Method: Participants were 8- to 13-year-old children with a high risk of developing criminal behaviour (N = 128, 75.8% boys). The at-risk children were recruited through an ongoing early identification and intervention project of the Municipality of Amsterdam, called the Preventive Intervention Team (PIT). To assess the degree of externalizing behaviour in children the Teacher Report Form (TRF) was administered to the teachers. Two self-report questionnaires, the Turiel-test and Empathy Index for Children and Adolescents (IECA), were used to assess moral development and empathy in children. Results: The results indicate that there is no association between a higher moral development and more externalizing behaviour in children at risk for developing criminal behaviour. Also, when it comes to empathy, no mediation effect was detected. Conclusion: In the present study, no significant association was established between externalizing behaviour, moral development or empathy in children at increased risk of developing criminal behaviour. The implications for early identification and intervention studies are discussed. Keywords: Externalizing behaviour; empathy; moral development.Show less
Externalizing behavior in childhood is considered an important predictor for behavioral disorders and antisocial behavior in adolescence and early adulthood. Knowledge of which factors are related...Show moreExternalizing behavior in childhood is considered an important predictor for behavioral disorders and antisocial behavior in adolescence and early adulthood. Knowledge of which factors are related to the presence of externalizing behavior could help create effective interventions for reducing externalizing behavior. Previous research indicated that there is a negative relation between emotion recognition, empathy with externalizing behavior, but the results are inconsistent. The present study aimed to examine whether externalizing behavior could be predicted by emotion recognition and empathy within a sample of children showing externalizing behavior (n = 130). Externalizing behavior was measured with the TRF, nonverbal emotion recognition with the FER, verbal emotion recognition with the ANT prosody task, and cognitive empathy with questions about different emotional video clips. Results showed that non-verbal and verbal recognition of emotions did not correlate significantly with externalizing behavior, except when there was less non-verbal emotion recognition of happy feelings there was slightly more externalizing behavior. Externalizing behavior was not predicted by verbal-, and non-verbal emotion recognition, and cognitive empathy. There also was no partial mediation from verbal- and non-verbal emotion recognition on the relationship between cognitive empathy and externalizing behavior. It seems that children that show less cognitive empathy and correct verbal and non-verbal emotion recognition do not show more externalizing behavior. It is possible that this is different for certain emotions, because children who were slightly better at recognizing the non-verbal emotion happy showed slightly less externalizing behavior. Future research should include the possible effect of age on the relationship between emotion recognition and cognitive empathy with externalizing behavior and the possible difference of externalizing behavior reported by teachers and parents should be taken into account.Show less
Children with externalising behavior problems often show difficulty in their social communication towards others (Verhulst et al., 2014). However, little studies have yet examined the relationship...Show moreChildren with externalising behavior problems often show difficulty in their social communication towards others (Verhulst et al., 2014). However, little studies have yet examined the relationship between social communication and externalizing problem behavior. The present study therefore explored the role of social communication in externalizing behavior problems among children at high risk of developing future criminal behavior. Participants were 130 (pre)adolescent children (5 to 16 years old) at high risk of developing criminal behavior in the future (74.6% boys). The children were recruited through the “PIT-project”, an ongoing intervention in the city of Amsterdam aimed at reducing externalizing behavior problems among children. Social communication skills were operationalized as receptive vocabulary, facial emotion recognition and affective prosody recognition. Receptive vocabulary was measured using the task Begrippen en aanwijzingen volgen (BAV) of the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals (CELF-4NL; Semel et al., 2010). Facial emotion recognition was measured with the Facial Emotion Recognition (FER) test (Bowen et al., 2014), and affective prosody with the prosody task from the Amsterdam Neuropsychological Tasks (ANT; De Sonneville, 1999). The results suggest a significant small positive correlation between each of the different social communication variables. In contrast to the hypothesis, receptive vocabulary, facial emotion recognition and affective prosody recognition were no significant predictors of externalizing behavior problems. 12 months after receiving the PIT-intervention, externalizing behavior problems were significantly reduced among the children. Children with social communication difficulties showed a greater decline in externalizing problem behaviors after following the PIT-intervention, compared to children without social communication difficulties. However, this effect was only near significant. These results add to the growing literature on possible underlying mechanisms of externalizing problem behavior that could provide directions for future interventions.Show less
