Change in Adverse Childhood Experience and Aggressiveness over Time Among Adolescents

Background: Despite the fact that research has established a link between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and their negative outcomes (e.g., serious emotional, behavioral, health problems), little research has assessed whether both early exposure to ACEs and accumulative ACEs predict aggressiveness. The purpose of the current study was to examine the early exposure to ACEs and change in ACEs directly and indirectly predict early levels of aggressiveness and change in aggressiveness over time with covariates of youth’s impulsivity and school connectedness, which are well-known factors for aggressiveness and delinquency.

Method: This study examined nationally representative data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, which is a longitudinal study on children and primary caregivers in 20 cities in the US from 1998 and 2016. The current study examined the waves 3 to 6 at youth age 3 to 15 with a total of 4686 (m=15.59; sd=.89). Youth were ethnically diverse with Blacks (49.0%), and Latinos (24.9%), Whites (18.1%), multiracial (5.4%), and others (2.6%). Males and females were approximately split in half (48.7% for females). Two Longitudinal Growth Curve Modeling (LGM) tests were conducted to identify direct and indirect effects of change in ACEs (α=.72) on change in aggressiveness (α=.75) over time after controlling for primary caregivers’ poverty and education levels, youth’s sex and race, and covariates of youth’s impulsivity (α=.99), and school connectedness (α=.73).

Results: The mean numbers of ACEs from wave 3 to wave 6 decreased over time with a slight increase at wave 4 (m = 0.96, sd = 1.1; m = 1.09, sd = 1.2; m = 0.93, sd = 1.1; & m = 0.77, sd = 1.0, respectively). While relatively few of individuals experience 4 or more ACEs (12.5% by CDC-Kaiser ACE study, Felitti et al., 1998), youth in this study who experienced 4 or more ACEs for 12 years were 47.7%. Whites and Hispanics experienced ACEs less than Blacks. The LGM with youth’s impulsivity and school connectedness was fit to data (CFI=0.96, RMSEA=0.07). The model showed that the ACEs intercept and slope significantly affect the aggressiveness slope (β = 1.84, p < 0.001; & β = 5.29, p < 0.001, respectively). It also revealed that ACEs intercept and slope significantly affect impulsivity (β = 0.35, p < 0.001; β = 1.07, p < 0.001) and school connectedness (β = -0.38, p < 0.001; β = -1.07, p < 0.001), which significantly affect aggressiveness slope.

Conclusion: Findings suggest that the initial level and change rate of ACEs over time significantly affect the initial level and change rate of aggressiveness. ACEs not only directly increase aggressiveness over time, but also indirectly affect aggressiveness by affecting youth’s impulsivity and school connectedness. In addition, the initial level of ACEs affects the change rate of aggressiveness, and later youth’s impulsivity and school connectedness. This finding indicates that the effect of ACEs at an early stage may last to late adolescence and adulthood. Thus, early intervention to prevent ACEs is called for.