We are following 178 individuals from birth and now to age 29. These children were born at risk due to poverty and associated factors, such as teenage motherhood and low parent education. The overriding goal of this project has been to trace the course of individual development from infancy to adulthood and to understand factors that guide it toward positive adaptation or mal-adaptation. Assessments have been detailed, comprehensive, and age-by-age. We carried out 7 assessments in infancy alone, and 15 more from early childhood into adulthood. Our emphasis has been on parenting (attachment, support, guidance) but we also studied temperament, language development, IQ, and peer relationships. Thus, when family factors predict development we can WI. out alternative explanations and we can see how various influences (e.g., parents and peers) combine to predict outcomes. We also study child expectations and representations of early experience, and family life stress and support, which help account for change in parenting and change in individual development Activities for the proposed grant period (ages 24-29) include assessments of atta aboutnments in education, work, and personal life goals, adult representation of attachment, and psychopathology. 'i addition, for paTti :ipants in romantic relationships andlor having children, detailed assesments will be conducted. Each of aboutiese outcomes about 14 Ii aboute'i to earlier assessment' prom infancy forward. Such a study uniquely allows us to now ar aboutswer questions such as (1) to what extent is the way a person parents about child directly (or indirectly) influenced by the way they were o aboutserveo to be parented?; (2)how do cumulative peer experiences and family experiences (beginning in infancy)combine to predict quality of adult relationships?; and (3)what are the various pathways to disorder beginning in the early years? The study is relevant to the early identification and prevention of disorder as well as to understanding factors that promote health and growth
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