Het mediërende effect van sociale informatieverwerking in de relatie tussen opvoedgedrag en externaliserend probleemgedrag van kinderen met een lichte verstandelijke beperking

Abstract

Background Children with mild intellectual disabilities tend to have high rates of externalizing behavior problems. Research has indicated that different steps in social information processing are related to these externalizing behavior problems. Few studies, however, have assessed whether parental behavior might cause these different steps in social information processing. This study aimed to examine whether hostile intent attribution and/or aggressive response generation would mediate the relation between authoritarian parental behavior (high control, corporal punishment, low warmth/responsiveness) and externalizing behavior in children with mild intellectual disabilities. Method Authoritarian parental behavior, social information processing (including hostile intent attribution and aggressive response generation) and externalizing behavior problems of 40 10-to 16-year old children with mild intellectual disabilities and externalizing behavior problems were assessed. Bivariate correlations were executed to test the associations between the different variables. Results Low monitoring was found to be related to externalizing behavior problems and also to aggressive response generation. Consistent discipline was found to be related to hostile intent attributions. No result was found for the social information processing steps as mediating variables. Conclusions Limitations as well as implications for further study are discussed.