The aim of the present study was to investigate the associations between social-emotional and language development in a sample of 3-5-year-old children in community-based early childhood education and care (N = 90). Children's theory of mind understanding, affect recognition and language abilities were tested with neuropsychological measurements,…

This study investigated the cross-lagged associations between teacher-student relationships and problem behaviors in a sample of 440 Finnish students (half of them identified as being at risk of reading difficulties). The degree to which these associations were moderated by a child's gender, academic performance, risk for reading difficulties,…

The current study examined the over-time association between externalizing behaviour problems and academic performance during school transition in a cross-lagged design. The main focus was to reveal whether the externalizing behaviour composite and its components separately, including symptoms of CD and ADHD, differ in their relationship with…

Group-based modeling techniques are increasingly used in developmental studies to explore the patterns and co-occurrence of internalizing and externalizing problems. Social competence has been found to reciprocally influence internalizing and externalizing problems, but studies on its associations with different patterns of these problems are…

This longitudinal study, conducted among a sample of Finnish primary-school children, examined the proposition that a single high-quality relationship (either with a teacher or a parent) can buffer against adjustment problems. Teachers rated the externalizing problems and prosocial behaviors of 378 children in Grade 1 and again in Grade 2.…

Schools are among the most important setting for preventive interventions among adolescents. There are evidence-based intervention programs for adolescents at risk for and with early signs of mental health problems but one demanding task is to detect the ones who are in need of an intervention. The aim of the present study was to analyze…

This study investigated the cross-informant agreement among student self-report, teacher report, and parent report on the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire translated into Finnish (SDQ-Fin) and estimated mean convergent and divergent correlations with a sample of fifth-grade Finnish students (N = 588) and the cross-informant agreement among…