Childhood predictors differentiate life-course persistent and adolescence-limited antisocial pathways among males and females

“…(Sparrow et al., 1984) and relatively high stability has been reported for both externalizing and internalizing behavior problems in samples from the general population (Hofstra et al., 2002; Koot, 1995; Moffitt & Caspi, 2001; Sanson, Pedlow, Cann, Prior, & Oberklaid, 1996; Verhulst & Koot, 1992).”

“Several researchers have documented that compared to late starters, who begin delinquent activity in mid- to late adolescence, early starters show a more persistent and chronic trajectory of antisocial behavior extending from middle childhood to adulthood (Moffitt, 1993; Moffitt & Caspi, 2001).”

“…cortical synaptic pruning, antisocial peer pressure, family conflict and difficulties in school, particularly male adolescents have an increased risk for aggressive behavior and some develop lifelong antisocial and violent behavior patterns (Moffitt and Caspi, 2001; Kirsh, 2003; Blakemore, 2008).”

“Studying the role of self-control in this association is important as self-control has been proposed to be an important characteristic to train to help prevent engagement in externalizing behavior during adolescence (Moffitt and Caspi 2001; Piquero et al. 2010).”

“…research demonstrating marked instability from adolescence to early adulthood in antisocial behavior and substance use disorders (Loeber et al., 2012; Moffitt, 1993; Moffitt & Caspi, 2001), including marked increases substance use disorders in early adulthood relative to adolescence (SAMHSA, 2014).”

“It was suggested that life-course persistent offenders or those individuals who start their criminal careers early in life and keep on offending during adulthood are more likely to have experienced ACEs which lead to a maladaptive neurobiological development resulting in neurocognitive problems [32, 33].”

“Numerous studies have found strong associations between parent antisocial traits, marital conflict and negative parenting (Cadoret, Yates, Ed, Woodworth, & Stewart, 1995; Connell & Goodman, 2002; Moffitt & Caspi, 2001; Nagin & Tremblay, 2001).”

“To control for possible confounds, we also test a model including contextual factors previously shown to be related to both externalizing behavior problems and romantic relationship involvement: the impact of quality of early parenting (e.g., Patterson et al. 1989), early adolescent peer competence/ peer rejection (e.…”

“Several factors known to distinguish individuals with conduct disorder who go on to become criminal offenders characterized the offenders among the first-episode patients, such as a broken family, low level of education, low IQ and drug use.(38,39) Consistent with results of studies of patients with SMI and a history…”

“These offenders are furthermore characterized by problems in their childhood, such as poor family functioning and neuro-cognitive impairment [42].”

“…antisocials and transitory delinquents has been recognized for a long time (Robins, 1966; Robins et al. 1991), and a developmental typology has been proposed by Moffitt to explain the differences between these two subtypes of delinquency (Moffitt, 1993; Taylor et al. 2000; Moffitt & Caspi, 2001).”

“Child and family factors such as age [4,5],gender [5],socio-economic status [4–7], ethnic background [8–10] and family composition [4, 7, 11] have frequently been shown to be associated with their occurrence.”

“In contrast, in the longitudinal sample of Moffitt and Caspi (2001), female adolescents in the adolescent-limited antisocial group (18% of all female participants) actually exhibited an elevated RHR (z score .”

“The LCP pathway is significantly heritable, frequently comorbid with ADHD, and correlated with physical aggression, neuropsychological deficits, and parent psychopathology (Aguilar et al. 2000; Moffitt and Caspi 2001).”

“…appraising delinquency severity from multiple informants may in fact disproportionately reflect covert ASB and status offenses given that adolescent delinquency is largely driven by a substantial increase in the number of status offenders (truancy; violation of curfews; Moffitt & Caspi, 2001).”

“Previous studies suggest that childhood-onset girls can be differentiated from adolescence-onset girls (see also Moffitt and Caspi 2001).”

“Child, compared to adolescent, onset of offending is associated with significantly greater childhood adversity and neuropsychological impairment ( Moffitt and Caspi, 2001”

“…in delinquent behavior and crime in different periods and settings as well as have other negative characteristics such as inadequate parenting, neurocognitive problems, and weak attachment to school and family (Loeber, 1982; Moffitt, 1993a, 1993b; Moffitt & Caspi, 2001; Moffitt et al., 1996).”

“…of children’s school readiness skills, as socioemotional adjustment shows strong continuity from preschool through adolescence (Broidy et al., 2003; Moffitt & Caspi, 2001) and behavior in the classroom at school entry influences their later academic achievement (Ladd et al., 1999; Spira &…”

“These sex differences in neurobiology may be relevant to certain neurodevelopmental pathologies, which frequently indicate that there are marked sex differences in risk, phenotypic expression, and treatment response (Szatmari et al., 1989; Moffitt, 1990; Gur et al., 1996; Häfner et al., 1998; Chakrabarti and Fombonne,…”

“Although it remains unclear whether the age of onset of conduct problems differs by gender (e.g. Moffitt & Caspi, 2001; Keenan, Wroblewski, Hipwell, Loeber, & Stouthamer-Loeber, 2010b), girls appear to show less developmental continuity than boys (Tremblay et al., 1992).”

“Although selfreports of offending have been used in previous research testing Moffitt’s theory (see Moffitt & Caspi, 2001; Piquero et al., 2002), they have generally been used in conjunction with official data.”

“This is both in accordance with Moffitt’s taxonomy (Moffitt, 1994; Moffitt and Caspi, 2001) and earlier empirical findings (Kratzer & Hodgins, 1999; Moffitt & Caspi, 2001).”

“It was hypothesized that risk factors associated with persistent antisocial behavior (Elkins et al., 1997; Loeber & Stouthamer-Loeber, 1998; Lynam, 1996; Moffitt, 1993; Moffitt & Caspi, 2001 ) would predict the persistence of male-to-female violence.”

“There are apparently several pathways like this one that lead to an aggressive outcome in children’s development (Moffitt & Caspi, 2001).”

“Consistent with this perspective, family problems, such as harsh parenting, negative family relations, substance abuse, and criminality have been associated with both the initiation of delinquency and recidivism (Cottle et al. 2001; Farrington 1995; Farrington and Painter 2004; Fergusson and Horwood 2002; Moffitt and…”

“An examination of the typology within this group of adolescent sexual offenders (i.e., specialists vs. generalists) produced several noteworthy differences and raises some clinical concerns about the identification and management of those who display criminally versatile offending patterns.”

“Moffitt and Caspi (2001) demonstrated that relatively few girls show a life-coursepersistent pattern of externalizing behavior problems (ratio ¼ 10 males:1 female) in comparison to girls with an adolescence-limited pattern (ratio ¼ 1.5 males:1 female).”

“, 2002; Baron-Cohen, 2003), and in many cases they persist into adulthood in similar or modified forms (Rasmussen and Gillberg, 2000; Moffitt and Caspi, 2001; Beadle-Brown et al., 2002;Willoughby, 2003).”

“…high levels of externalizing behavior are varied and long ranging (e.g., Moffitt, Caspi, Harrington, & Milne, 2002), which is a fact that has given rise to an enormous amount of research aiming to understand its antecedents (e.g., Aguilar, Sroufe, Egeland, & Carlson, 2000; Moffitt & Caspi, 2001).”

“These studies showed that life-course persistent antisocial behavior is predicted by individual neurodevelopmental risk characteristics from early childhood, that is, cognitive deficits, neuromotor problems, and hyperactivity (Jeglum-Bartusch et al., 1997; Moffitt, 1990; Moffitt and Caspi, 2001; Moffitt et al., 1994).”

“Thus, female antisocial behavior is extremely rare in the childhood years, but it becomes increasingly common in adolescence~Moffitt & Caspi, 2001; Silverthorn et al., 2001!.”

“Furthermore, no differences between responders and nonresponders were found regarding associations between sociodemographic variables and mental health outcomes [ 51 ].”

“, 2003) and less antisocial behaviour in early childhood (Moffitt and Caspi, 2001) than males who engage in aggressive behaviours in adulthood.”

“Although antisocial behavior has adolescent onset and male preponderance, the male to female ratio is much higher when onset is during childhood (Moffitt & Caspi, 2001; Moffitt, Caspi, Rutter, & Silva, 2001).”

“…(of which BDNF is just one), may initiate children’s membership in a life course persistent pattern of antisocial behavior (Aguilar, Sroufe, Egeland, & Carlson, 2000; Loeber et al., 1993; Moffitt & Caspi, 2001), which may be best characterized by the joint co-occurrence of CP and CU behaviors.”

“Prominent theories suggest that early-onset-persistent conduct problems have different origins to more transient or less serious problem behaviours, and highlight the role of neurodevelopmental factors in foetal development and early childhood (Moffitt, 1993; Moffitt & Caspi, 2001; Raine, 2002).”

“This pattern of age-graded criminal behavior is consistent with previous studies reporting a similar age-crime curve (Hirschi and Gottfredson, 1983; Laub and Sampson, 2003; Moffitt, 1993; Moffitt and Caspi, 2001), lending further credence to the robustness of this phenomena.”

“Across disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences, it is understood that the earlier the antisocial career emerges, the more negative its developmental course and severity (Le Blanc, 2012; Moffitt, 1993; Moffitt & Caspi, 2001; Patterson, 1986).”

“For example, two of the studies (Brennan et al. 2003; Moffitt and Caspi 2001) that failed to identify a desisting group classified children based upon whether their CP scores fell over a standard deviation above the mean during childhood and/or adolescence.”

“Dysfunctional family environments have long been recognized as powerful influences in resulting adult criminal behavior, and Moffitt and Caspi (2001) noted that neuropsychologically impaired children are the least likely to be in environments that would help them adapt to their handicaps.”

“Previous studies found that antisocial youth can be distinguished on risk factors during childhoods (Moffitt & Caspi, 2001; Moffitt, Caspi, Harrington, & Milne, 2002; Moffitt, Caspi, Dickson, Silva & Stanton, 1996).”

“Consistent with previous research (Moffitt & Caspi, 2001), we found that boys were more involved in risk behaviors than girls were.”

“Moffitt and Caspi (2001) reported that in the Dunedin Study a single model described the antisocial development of both males and females.”

“…that early childhood onset of EBD, as opposed to later childhood or adolescent onset, is more likely to result in a persistent disorder that is more severe, less responsive to standard interventions, and more likely to result in long-term negative outcomes (Moffitt, 2008; Moffitt & Caspi, 2001).”

“Moffitt’s theory about life-course persistent (LCP, early onset) versus adolescent-limited (AL, late onset) antisocial behaviour is a well-known theory of age onset (3, 26 28, 32).”

“As noted earlier, some studies have identified an adolescent-onset pattern of externalizing problems (Moffitt & Caspi, 2001; Monahan et al., 2009; Odgers et al., 2008; Reef et al., 2011), while others have not (Brame et al., 2001; Broidy et al., 2003; Cote et al., 2001; Fanti & Henrich, 2010; Shaw…”

“Specifically, relative to girls, boys who displayed antisocial behaviors were ten times more likely to be childhood-onset; by contrast, there were only trivial gender differences in the rates of adolescent-limited antisocial behaviors (Moffitt and Caspi 2001).”

“…deciders’ altruistic behavior was predicted by their trait levels of harm sensitivity also fits with research illustrating that not only do males exhibit greater heterogeneity in delinquency involvement, but that they also engage in more antisocial behavior than females (Moffitt & Caspi, 2001).”

“Adolescents who engage in antisocial behavior are at risk for myriad adjustment problems during their adolescent years and as they enter adulthood (Dishion and Patterson 2006; Moffitt and Caspi 2001).”

“Several researchers have documented that compared to late starters (who begin delinquent activity in mid-to late adolescence), early starters (who typically initiate antisocial activities before age 10) show a more persistent and chronic trajectory of antisocial behavior extending from middle childhood to adulthood (M…”

“This is especially true for youth with early-onset of problem behaviors (Egeland et al. 2002; Moffitt and Caspi 2001).”

“Children who experience harsh discipline at ages 7 to 9 years are more likely to begin exhibiting antisocial behaviors in childhood and to persist in such behaviors past adolescence (Moffitt & Caspi, 2001).”

“These children are also at heightened risk for a severe and stable course of antisocial and aggressive behavior compared with their adolescent-onset counterparts (Moffitt & Caspi, 2001).”

“A uthor M anuscript A uthor M anuscript antisocial behavior beginning in early childhood (Moffitt & Caspi, 2001; Shaw, Hyde, & Brennan, 2012), these studies typically combine violent and nonviolent antisocial acts instead of examining severe violent antisocial behavior specifically.”

“Temperament and neurocognitive abilities measured as early as two years of age, as well as characteristics of the parents and their parenting practices, distinguished those who displayed this stable pattern of behavior problems that escalated over the life-span (Moffitt & Caspi, 2001).”

“Prevalence estimates of ASB support this perspective; approximately 88% of youth report some level of ASB during adolescence (Moffitt 1993; Moffitt and Caspi 2001).”

“…significant variation between sex subgroups, other studies demonstrate more similarity among males and females at the extreme end of antisocial and criminal behaviors (Baskin-Sommers, Baskin, Sommers, & Newman, 2013; Baskin & Sommers, 1998; Moffitt & Caspi, 2001; Nicholls, Odgers, & Cooke, 2007).”