Correlates of the CBCL-dysregulation profile in preschool-aged children

Background: A growing literature indicates that the Child Behavior Checklist-Dysregulation Profile (CBCL-DP) identifies youths with heightened risk for severe psychopathology, comorbidity, and impairment. However, this work has focused on school-age children and adolescents; no studies have examined whether preschool-aged children with the CBCL-DP exhibit a similar constellation of problems. Method: Using a community sample of preschoolers, we compared children with (N = 61) and without (N = 488) the CBCL-DP on a broad range of variables assessed using multiple methods. Results: Univariate analyses revealed numerous differences between children with the CBCL-DP and their peers on psychiatric symptomatology, temperament, parenting behavior, and parental personality, psychopathology, and marital functioning. In multivariate analyses, children with the CBCL-DP exhibited greater temperamental negative affectivity and lower effortful control. They also had more depressive and oppositional defiant symptoms, as well as greater functional impairment. Parents of CBCL-DP children reported engaging in more punitive, controlling parenting behavior than parents of non-profile children. Conclusions: In a non-clinical sample of preschoolers, the CBCL-DP is associated with extensive emotional and behavioral dysregulation and maladaptive parenting.