title: Typologies of family functioning and children's adjustment during the early school years.
abstract: Guided by family systems theory, the present study sought to identify patterns of family functioning from observational assessments of interparental, parent-child, and triadic contexts. In addition, it charted the implications for patterns of family functioning for children's developmental trajectories of adjustment in the school context across the early school years. Two-hundred thirty-four kindergarten children (129 girls and 105 boys; mean age = 6.0 years, SD = 0.50 at Wave 1) and their parents participated in this multimethod, 3-year longitudinal investigation. As expected, latent class analyses extracted 3 primary typologies of functioning including: (a) cohesive, (b) enmeshed, and (c) disengaged families. Furthermore, family patterns were differentially associated with children's maladaptive adjustment trajectories in the school context. The findings highlight the developmental utility of incorporating pattern-based approaches to family functioning.
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical and Social Sciences in Psychology, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14627, USA. mapple@psych.rochester.edu
authors.forename: Melissa L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Sturge-Apple
authors.forename: Patrick T
authors.initials: PT
authors.lastname: Davies
authors.forename: E Mark
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Cummings
mesh_terms: D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D002648:Child; D005195:Family Relations; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007389:Internal-External Control; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D015233:Models, Statistical; D010287:Parent-Child Relations; D016487:Parenting / Q000523:psychology; D012574:Schools; D012917:Social Adjustment; D012931:Social Environment; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology