Patterns of Adjustment among Children Exposed to Intimate Partner Violence: a Person-Centered Approach

Children exposed to intimate partner violence: Identifying differential effects of family environment on children's trauma and psychopathology symptoms through regression mixture models

“…Specifically, Latino children were significantly less likely to be in the maladjusted and highly maladjusted groups. This finding is not surprising given evidence that children from Latino families, even when faced with cumulative risks such as low socioeconomic, low maternal education, and IPV, experience fewer socioemotional and behavioral problems than their White European American peers (Ansari & Winsler, 2012; Crosnoe, 2006; De Feyter & Winsler, 2009; McDonald et al, in press). Lastly, our results also indicated that children with mothers who had higher levels of education were more likely to be in the maladjusted/moderate sensitivity class than the asymptomatic/low sensitivity group.…”

“…To address these limitations, a recent study employed latent profile analysis, a more flexible model-based clustering approach that derives clusters, or latent profiles, using a probabilistic model based on relationships between observed class indicator variables. Specifically, McDonald, Graham-Bermann, Maternick, Ascione, and Williams (in press) identified three distinct latent profiles of psychosocial adjustment among school age children recruited from community-based IPV services. The majority of children demonstrated “resilient” profiles of functioning (66% of children) with normative levels of psychosocial symptomology; 28% percent of children demonstrated borderline clinical levels of externalizing and internalizing symptomology only; and a small portion of the sample (6% of children) were characterized by clinically significant levels of internalizing, externalizing, attention, and social problems, as well as high levels of callous/unemotional traits (McDonald et al, in press).…”

“…Specifically, McDonald, Graham-Bermann, Maternick, Ascione, and Williams (in press) identified three distinct latent profiles of psychosocial adjustment among school age children recruited from community-based IPV services. The majority of children demonstrated “resilient” profiles of functioning (66% of children) with normative levels of psychosocial symptomology; 28% percent of children demonstrated borderline clinical levels of externalizing and internalizing symptomology only; and a small portion of the sample (6% of children) were characterized by clinically significant levels of internalizing, externalizing, attention, and social problems, as well as high levels of callous/unemotional traits (McDonald et al, in press). Therefore, both cluster analysis and latent profile analysis suggest heterogeneity of psychosocial adjustment among children exposed to IPV.…”

Intimate Partner Violence Survivors’ Reports of Their Children’s Exposure to Companion Animal Maltreatment: A Qualitative Study

“…McDonald and colleagues expanded on prior studies in this area (Ascione et al, 2007; Volant et al, 2008) by examining the relationship between animal maltreatment exposure and patterns of socioemotional adjustment among 291 children recruited from community-based DV agencies (McDonald, Graham-Bermann, Maternick, Ascione, & Williams, 2016). This study found that children who were exposed to animals being hurt or killed in the home were 3.26 times more likely to have moderately compromised patterns of socioemotional functioning (i.e., borderline clinical levels of internalizing and externalizing behaviors) and 5.72 times more likely to have severely compromised patterns of adjustment (i.e., clinical levels of attention problems, social problems, internalizing and externalizing behaviors, and callous/unemotional traits) compared with children who were not exposed to concomitant animal maltreatment.…”

Knowledge Translation Plan to Diffuse, Disseminate and Apply Evidence on Children Exposed to Intimate Partner Violence

“…Several studies using a person-centered approach have identified different profiles of adjustment among children and adolescents exposed to IPV, showing that between 15% and 60% of these population present profiles of resilience in absence of adjustment problems [33][34][35][36][37][38][39]. Across studies, the most significant and consistent factors discriminating between profiles of resilience and psychopathology in children exposed to IPV are maternal mental health, the quality of the mother-child relationship, and maternal parenting skills, together with socioeconomic status (SES) and maternal level of education [32,33,[40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48].…”