The focus of this research has been the identification of personal and environmental characteristics associated with competence and resilience under a variety of facilitative and disadvantaging circumstances. Such knowledge is fundamental to a basic science of mental health and developmental psychopathology. The purpose of the research is to conduct a follow-up study (T2) of a core sample of young people, ages 16-20, who originally participated in an extensive set of procedures when they were in elementary school (T1). Over 92% of the sample of 205 children have been located; 87% have responded positively to initial contacts. The central objectives of this final follow-up stage are: a) to identify patterns and correlates of continuity and discontinuity in competence, resilience, and maladjustment over time, b) to evaluate the predictive validity of risk and protective factors suggested by T1; and c) to conduct causal analyses of the relations at two points in time among the attributes of competence, maladjustment, cognitive and social abilities, and environmental/familial advantages and risk factors. To meet these objectives, data would be collected on the children's outcome (at T2) both with regard to competence and maladjustment, and a carefully selected set of personal and environmental assets most relevant for linking earlier to later adaptive status. The young people would complete questionnaires on perceived competence, life events, current status, and activities, a behavior checklist, a personality scale, cumulative school records, laboratory assessments of IQ and social comprehension, and a single interview designed to complete and qualitatively supplement the other data. Mothers would be interviewed about the status of their children, complete parallel questionnaires on their children's competence, status, behavior, and life events, and be given an IQ test.
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