Longitudinal Pathways to Resilience in Maltreated Children

The objectives of this study were as follows: (1) To investigate stability and change in the longitudinal course of adaptation and maladaptation in maltreated and nonmaltreated low-income youth. (2) To differentiate subgroups of maltreated children who evidence divergence in their longitudinal developmental course, including resilient children as well as children who show continuity of negative adaptation. (3) To examine child characteristics, maltreatment experiences, family features, and aspects of the social ecology as mediators and moderators of individual differences in the developmental pathways exhibited longitudinally by maltreated and nonmaltreated youth. (4) To identify factors that may promote resilient adaptation in maltreated children. To address these critical concerns, this investigation built upon a prior one-year longitudinal study funded by NCCAN (Cicchetti, Manly, Lynch, 1994). Prospective follow-up assessments of 300 six- to twelve-year-old low income, maltreated and nonmaltreated children were targeted at years three and four beyond the initial baseline assessments. A total of 300 school-aged children were included in the original study (Dataset #096). Of these, 263 were obtained at year three and 249 at year four. Data regarding children's adaptation and current symptomatology was collected in the context of a summer camp program that the children attended. In addition, home visits were conducted concurrently with the third year child camp assessments, during which time the parent or primary caregiver of each child in the study was interviewed. Finally, information regarding children's history of maltreatment was scored from updated DSS records according to our maltreatment classification system.