Relation of Age of Onset to the Type and Severity of Child and Adolescent Conduct Problems

Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology,  August, 1999  by Benjamin B. Lahey,  Sherryl H. Goodman,  Irwin D. Waldman,  Hector Bird,  Glorisa Canino,  Peter Jensen,  Darrel Regier,  Philip J. Leaf,  Rachel Gordon,  Brooks Applegate

• E-mail
• Print
• Link

Benjamin B. Lahey [1,8]

Sherryl H. Goodman [2]

Irwin D. Waldman [2]

Hector Bird [3]

Glorisa Canino [4]

Peter Jensen [5]

Darrel Regier [5]

Philip J. Leaf [6]

Rachel Gordon [1]

Brooks Applegate [7]

Received August 7, 1998; revision received March 22, 1999; accepted March 22, 1999

In a cross-sectional household sample of 9-through 17-year-old youths from 4 U.S. communities, youths with earlier ages of onset of conduct problems engaged in more conduct problems than youths with later ages of onset when current age and gender were controlled. Specifically, youths with earlier ages of onset were more likely to engage in several types of physical aggression, frequent lying, theft, and vandalism and were less likely to engage in only truancy. There also was an inverse relation between age of onset and level of functional impairment, mental health service use, and meeting diagnostic criteria for conduct disorder, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, and oppositional defiant disorder. Within the limits of cross-sectional data, these results support the hypothesis that key aspects of the heterogeneity of conduct problems among youths are related to the age of onset of conduct problems.

KEY WORDS: Conduct problems; age of onset; conduct disorder; attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder; oppositional defiant disorder.

Numerous researchers have reported a robust inverse relation between the age of a youth's first conviction and his or her total number of convictions through early adulthood (Blumstein, Farrington, & Moitra, 1985; Glueck & Glueck, 1959; Loeber, 1982; Wadsworth, 1979; Wolfgang, Figlio, & Stellin, 1972). Youths who are first convicted earlier are convicted more times not only because they began their "criminal careers" earlier but also because they are convicted at higher rates at all ages into early adulthood. It is important to note that the same inverse association has been found between age of onset and self-reported delinquent behavior in several community samples. This is important, as self-reports of delinquency avoid the biases in detection, prosecution, and conviction that are inherent in official statistics (Loeber, 1987). Among 11- through 18-year-old boys who had engaged in any delinquent behavior, Tolan (1987) found that the half of the sample with younger ages of onset ([less than]12 years) reported higher levels of almost all types of delinquent behaviors during adolescence than the half of the sample with later ages of onset. Similarly, in a subset of female and male youths from the longitudinal National Youth Survey (Elliott, Huizinga, & Menard, 1988), Tolan and Thomas (1995) found that youths who reported first engaging in delinquent acts before age 12 were more likely to engage in serious offenses and to continue to engage in delinquent behavior during the 3 years following the onset of delinquent behavior. These differences were somewhat stronger for girls than boys, but were similar across genders.

These findings of an inverse relation between age of onset and the frequency, seriousness, and persistence of delinquency have led several theorists to distinguish two or more distinct "developmental pathways" of delinquent behavior (Hinshaw, Lahey, & Hart, 1993; Loeber, 1988; Moffitt, 1993). According to these developmental models, youths who engage in the most frequent, aggressive, and persistent delinquent behavior begin doing so during childhood. In contrast, youths who do not engage in delinquent behavior until adolescence are less likely to be aggressive, engage in fewer delinquent behaviors, and tend to desist prior to adulthood. Moffitt (1993) coined the terms "adolescent-limited" and "life-course persistent" delinquency for these two groups of youths. She hypothesized that youths who first engage in antisocial behavior during childhood do so for different reasons than youths who first engage in antisocial behavior during adolescence. Specifically, childhood-onset conduct problems result from early n europsychological deficits that cause cognitive delays, impulsivity, and difficult temperament. In the presence of adverse childrearing environments, these characteristics contribute to the origins of conduct problems. In contrast, the adolescent-onset group does not have predisposing neuropsychological dysfunction. Their delinquent behavior arises through the imitation of some of the nonaggressive antisocial behaviors of youths with childhood onsets. They do so during adolescence because it is a period of heightened peer influence and conflict regarding adult privileges.

Moffitt's (1993) developmental model is based in part on her analysis of prospective data on boys from the Dunedin Study (McGee, Feehan, Williams, & Anderson, 1992). Boys who engaged in delinquent behavior at age 15 and who also met diagnostic criteria for DSM-III attention-deficit disorder (ADD; n = 19) showed relatively persistent conduct problems from the preschool period to the time of the final assessment. In contrast, boys who were delinquent at age 15, but who did not meet criteria for childhood ADD (n = 52), were relatively free of behavior problems until age 13. Delinquent boys with ADD had lower verbal intelligence and achievement scores and higher family adversity scores than other groups (Moffitt, 1990). The neuropsychological diathesis for delinquency in the early-onset group is seen in their ADD and cognitive deficits, and their unfavorable environments are seen in the their higher family adversity scores.