Background

Children adopted from foster care are at heightened risk for emotional and behavioral challenges, potentially due to early trauma exposure and related risk factors. Research has demonstrated that adoptees with greater pre-adoptive risk exhibit higher rates of internalizing and externalizing problems across childhood and into adulthood. However, these studies have been limited by their use of individual risk factors or sum scores of cumulative risk and their measurement of internalizing and externalizing behaviors separately.

Objective

The current study aimed to examine effects of pre-adoptive risk on long-term functioning in children adopted from foster care.

Method

In a longitudinally-followed sample of 82 adoptees, we utilized latent growth curve modeling to examine effects of two latent indices of pre-adoptive risk, postnatal (i.e., trauma-related) risk and prenatal risk (not including prenatal substance exposure, since it was nearly ubiquitous in this sample), on adoptee internalizing, externalizing, and latent scores of dysregulation across childhood. Additionally, in three separate models, we tested whether baseline levels and change across childhood in internalizing, externalizing, and dysregulation mediated effects of prenatal and postnatal risk on adolescent/young-adult functioning.

Results

Greater postnatal risk, but not prenatal risk, predicted higher levels of internalizing and dysregulation across childhood. However, only dysregulation mediated the effect of postnatal risk on adolescent/young-adult functioning.

Conclusions

These results are consistent with prior research evidencing long-term effects of postnatal pre-adoptive risk, but not prenatal risk, in adoptees. Furthermore, they suggest that trauma exposure in this population may result in a profile of broad dysregulation that increases risk for maladjustment into adulthood.

中文翻译：

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收养前风险对收养儿童情绪和行为功能的长期影响

背景

从寄养所收养的儿童面临情绪和行为挑战的风险更高，这可能是由于早期的创伤暴露和相关风险因素。研究表明，具有较大收养前风险的被收养者在整个童年和成年期间表现出更高的内化和外化问题发生率。然而，这些研究受限于它们使用个体风险因素或累积风险的总分以及它们分别测量内化和外化行为。

客观的

目前的研究旨在检查收养前风险对从寄养中收养的儿童长期功能的影响。

方法

在一个纵向跟踪的 82 名被收养者样本中，我们利用潜在生长曲线模型来检查收养前风险的两个潜在指标的影响，即产后（即与创伤相关的）风险和产前风险（不包括产前物质暴露，因为它在这个样本中几乎无处不在），关于被收养者在整个童年时期内化、外化和潜在的失调评分。此外，在三个独立的模型中，我们测试了基线水平和整个童年时期内化、外化和失调的变化是否介导了产前和产后风险对青少年/年轻人功能的影响。

结果

更大的产后风险，但不是产前风险，预示着整个儿童时期内化和失调的水平更高。然而，只有失调介导了产后风险对青少年/年轻人功能的影响。

结论

这些结果与先前的研究一致，这些研究证明了被收养者产后收养前风险的长期影响，而不是产前风险。此外，他们认为，该人群的创伤暴露可能导致广泛失调的情况，从而增加成年后适应不良的风险。