Abstract
Reciprocal relationships between child characteristics and such familial factors as parental psychopathology and interaction style with the child characterize the development and maintenance of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) as well as its comorbidity with antisocial behavior. Our goal was to ascertain the ability of negative maternal behavior exhibited during mothers-on interactions to predict independently observed overt and covert externalizing behavior in the child, controlling for current maternal symptomatology and the boy's acting out behavior during the interaction. Participants were 49 boys with ADHD and 37 comparison boys, aged 6 to 12 years. Hierarchical multiple-regression analyses revealed that, even with maternal psychopathology and child negativity with the mother partialed, maternal negative behaviors predicted both observed noncompliance exhibited in class and play settings and laboratory stealing. Stealing was predicted from maternal negativity even with child interactional compliance controlled. Differential predictions of noncompliance were revealed in ADHD versus comparison families, yet similar patterns emerged for stealing within each group. Results are discussed in light of the high risk for antisocial behavior in ADHD children.
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This article is based, in part, on a doctoral dissertation written by Carolyn A. Anderson at the University of California, Los Angeles. The research received primary support from National Institute of Mental Health Grant 45064, awarded to Stephen P. Hinshaw. Partial support was received from the Fernald Child Study Center of the University of California, Los Angeles, where the 1990 summer research program was housed, and from a Faculty Research Grant to Stephen P. Hinshaw from the University of California, Berkeley. We express our deep appreciation to the many behavior observers and research staff, too numerous to mention individually, who were essential in collecting and coding the primary data for the study, and to the children and families who participated in the family assessments and summer research programs.
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Anderson, C.A., Hinshaw, S.P. & Simmel, C. Mother-child interactions in ADHD and comparison boys: Relationships with overt and covert externalizing behavior. J Abnorm Child Psychol 22, 247–265 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02167903
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02167903