Teacher-rated aggression and co-occurring behaviors and problems among schoolchildren: A comparison of four population-based European cohorts

Abstract

Aggressive behavior in school is an ongoing concern, with the current focus mostly on specific manifestations such as bullying and extreme violence. Children spend a substantial amount of time in school, but their behaviors in the school setting tend to be less well characterized than in the home setting. Since aggression may index multiple behavioral problems, we assessed associations of teacher-rated aggressive behavior with co-occurring externalizing/internalizing problems and social behavior in 39,936 schoolchildren from 4 population-based cohorts from Finland, the Netherlands, and the UK. Mean levels of aggressive behavior differed significantly by gender. Correlations of aggressive behavior were high with all other externalizing problems (0.47-0.80) and lower with internalizing problems (0.02-0.39). A negative association was seen with prosocial behavior (-0.33 to -0.54). Despite the higher mean levels of aggressive behavior in boys, the correlations were notably similar for boys and girls (e.g., aggressive-hyperactivity correlations: 0.51-0.75 boys, 0.47-0.70 girls) and did not vary greatly with respect to age, instrument or cohort. Thus, aggressive behavior at school rarely occurs in isolation and children with problems of aggressive behavior likely require help with other behavioral and emotional problems. It is important to note that greater aggressive behavior is not only associated with greater amount of other externalizing and internalizing problems but also with lower levels of prosocial behavior.

Urinary Amine and Organic Acid Metabolites Evaluated as Markers for Childhood Aggression: The ACTION Biomarker Study

“…Decreases in specific types of aggression can reflect actual cessation from aggression, while sometimes a transition is made to types of aggression which are more cognitively demanding, for example, from physical aggression into relational aggression (13). Aggression rarely occurs in isolation, and aggressive children often experience co-occurring behavioral and social problems (14,15).…”

Genetic Association Study of Childhood Aggression across raters, instruments and age

“…In general population studies, AGG is commonly treated as a quantitative trait, and pathological AGG has been argued to be best seen as the extreme end of such a continuum [12–14]. Childhood AGG co-occurs with many other behavioral, emotional, and social problems [15, 16] and is associated with increased risk of developing negative outcomes later in life, including cannabis abuse [17], criminal convictions [18], anxiety disorder [19], or antisocial personality disorder [20]. Not all associated outcomes are harmful [21].…”

FinnTwin12 Cohort: An Updated Review

“…Correlations were high between aggression and both externalizing (∼.5) and internalizing behaviors (∼.4) and generally stable across both age and gender. Co-occurrence patterns were largely similar across countries, instruments and raters; teacher ratings of aggression were studied to investigate aggression and co-occurring behaviors in the school setting using FT12 data and three other ACTION cohorts ( N = 43,356 observations from ages 7 to 14) and other ACTION consortium analyses utilizing FT12’s genetic, epigenetic and biomarker data are underway (Whipp, Vuoksimaa et al, 2019). Additionally, using only FT12 data, another study has examined the ability of ratings of aggression from different informants (parents, teachers, twins themselves and their cotwins) at ages 12 and 14 to predict antisocial personality disorder in young adulthood (Whipp, Korhonen et al, 2019).…”