CohortJournal of autism and developmental disorders2022

Change in Behavior Problems from Childhood Through Adolescence for Children with Fragile X Syndrome.

Leann Smith DaWalt, Heather Fielding-Gebhardt, Kandace K Fleming and 2 others

PMID 34536164

WHAT IT FOUND

Attention problems and aggression declined from childhood through adolescence in children with fragile X syndrome, while anxious or depressed problems stayed relatively stable.

Children with co-occurring autism had higher behavior problem levels.

Key findings

01At age 18, attention problems and aggressive behavior were declining significantly, while anxious/depressed scores were stable.

02At age 18, children with autism had predicted attention scores of 9.59 and aggression scores of 7.06, while children without autism had predicted scores of 6.44 and 3.29.

03Higher maternal flexibility was linked to greater declines in attention problems, especially for children with autism, but also to higher anxious/depressed scores at age 18.

STILL TO COME

How it was doneWhat they found

Read the rest of this summary

You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.

Already have one?

What it does not show

The sample was small and had too few females to test sex differences. The sample was primarily White, so results may not apply broadly. Child behavior problems were based on maternal report only. Parenting was measured only in early childhood, not during adolescence. The study did not test reverse models or concurrent adolescent parenting. The Child Behavior Checklist was designed for general population psychological difficulties, not specifically fragile X syndrome.

The easy way to misread this

Do not conclude that flexible parenting causes fewer behavior problems. The study was observational, and child behavior was measured only by maternal report.

Read it on PubMed →


The study

Participants
55 mother-child dyads
Certainty of evidence
Low

Browse

    Cite

    Leann Smith DaWalt, Heather Fielding-Gebhardt, Kandace K Fleming, et al. Change in Behavior Problems from Childhood Through Adolescence for Children with Fragile X Syndrome. Journal of autism and developmental disorders. 2022.

    Read the original