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.