Identifying classes and correlates of anti-social behaviour in early adolescence

Despite evidence that early anti-social behaviours can persist and escalate into adulthood, understanding of how these behaviours present in early adolescence and the associated factors, is limited. Using secondary data from 11,868 9-to-10-year-olds recruited to the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development study, we applied latent class analysis (LCA) to 20 items from the parent-rated Child Behaviour Checklist. Three classes were identified: Ruleabiding (66.52%), Infrequent-disobedient (27.85%) and Frequent- delinquent (5.63%). The socio-demographic composition of these classes varied based on sex, ethnicity and household income. A multinomial regression demonstrated that, while the classes were mostly associated with independent sets of factors, there was some commonality in factors associated with increased anti-social behaviour, including the presence of parental mental disorders, increased parental transgressive behaviour and family conflict. Generally, environmental factors were more strongly associated with class membership than psychological factors. These findings can be used to inform the development of targeted preventative policies and interventions.