No abstract

Elementary school students (n = 330) and their parents (n = 228) participated in a 3-year longitudinal study of the temporal relation between anxiety and depressive symptoms in children. Every 6 months, children and parents completed depression and anxiety questionnaires for a total of 6 waves. Structural equation modeling revealed that individual differences on all measures were remarkably stable over time. Nevertheless, high levels of anxiety symptoms at 1 point in time predicted high levels of depressive symptoms at subsequent points in time even after controlling for prior levels of depression symptoms. These findings were consistent across self- and parent reports. Results support the temporal hypothesis that anxiety leads to depression in children and adolescents.

The development of child and adolescent self-concept was examined as a function of the self-concept domain, social/developmental/educational transitions, and gender. In two overlapping age cohorts of public school students (Ns = 936 and 984), five dimensions of self-concept were evaluated every 6 months in a manner that spanned grades 3 through 11 (representing the elementary, middle, and high school years). Domains of self-concept included academic competence, physical appearance, behavioral conduct, social acceptance, and sports competence. Structural equation modeling addressed questions about the stability of individual differences over time. Multilevel modeling addressed questions about mean-level changes in self-concept over time. Significant effects emerged with regard to gender, age, dimension of self-concept, and educational transition.

The authors obtained self-reports, peer nominations, teacher ratings, and parent reports of depression and social and academic competence on 490 3rd graders and 455 6th graders near the beginning and end of the school year. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling revealed that (a) measures showed significant convergent and discriminant validity; (b) within-wave correlations between constructs were large and significant, although the depression-social competence correlation was larger than the depression-academic competence correlation; (c) the cross-wave stability of all constructs was remarkably high; and (d) social competence at Wave 1 predicted depression at Wave 2 for 6th graders after controlling for depression at Wave 1. Depression did not predict change in either academic or social competence over time. Implications for competence-based and failure-based models of child depression are discussed.

A total of 807 third and sixth graders completed questionnaires about their academic competence, feelings of depression, and symptoms of anxiety, every 6 months for 3 years. Teachers provided objective measures of academic competence. Compared to teachers' ratings, boys overestimated and girls underestimated their academic competence. Gender differences first emerged in fourth or fifth grade and increased through eighth grade. Symptoms of depression and anxiety were negatively associated with academic overestimation. Furthermore, controlling for depression and anxiety eliminated most of the gender differences in academic over- and underestimation. Finally, self-reported depression and anxiety predicted changes in the tendency to overestimate academic competence over time. Evidence of the reverse relation was much weaker.