Youth Exposed to Violence: Stability, Co-occurrence, and Context

With considerable literature establishing how separate types of violence disrupt the lives of children, there is emerging interest in examining violence across multiple interpersonal domains. This article examines four commonly occurring and frequently researched domains of violence exposure: marital physical aggression, mother-to-youth aggression, father-to-youth aggression, and community violence. A community-based sample of 103 parents and youth provided three waves of data at annual intervals beginning when the youth were aged 9–10. We explored stability of exposure, co-occurrence across different types of violence exposure, and associations with co-occurring risk factors. Approximately 30–45% of youth reported intermittent exposure over the 3 years. In addition to overlap among types of violence exposure within the family, we found overlap between parent-to-youth aggression and community violence, an association that was exacerbated in families where fathers reported high levels of global distress symptoms. Mother-to-youth, father-to-youth, and community violence related to youth behavior problems beyond the contextual risk factors of low income, stressful life events, and parents’ global distress symptoms. These results highlight the importance of examining violence longitudinally, across multiple types, and with attention to contextual factors.     

The Nuts and Bolts of Behavioral Observation of Marital and Family Interaction

Despite considerable discussion in the literature about the advantages of observational research and the relative benefits of different coding systems and strategies, little is written about the actual implementation of this assessment strategy. This paper presents an overall framework as well as the essential components involved in collecting (selection of task, setting, unit of analysis, and coding system) and coding (transcribing, selecting and training coders, transforming data, and analyzing reliability) of observational data. To achieve success with observational methods, we emphasize several issues, including (a) the research question as the motivator for all decisions, (b) the interrelatedness of tasks, and (c) the implications of decisions early in the process for later stages of analysis and interpretation. Investigators are encouraged to communicate the details of their observational and coding procedures so that these methods are readily accessible for purposes of replication and comparison.