Can we identify a group of children at age 2 who are at high risk for the development of behavior or emotional problems in kindergarten and first grade?

A group of 198 children were followed from age 2 through first grade to see how consistent their behavior was across time and across settings. Measures of child behavior in the home were obtained when the children were ages 2, 4, and 5. Classroom behavior was ascertained when the children were in nursery school, kindergarten, and first grade. Correlations between early home and school behavior patterns were all quite low. Only when home and school measures were made close to the same point in time did relationships reach even a moderate level. Behavior within the same setting was more consistent over time than behavior across settings but even here relationships were not strong enough to be clinically useful for making predictions about individual children. It is concluded that early behavior in the home, as measured by these methods and for this population, is not be itself sufficiently predictive of later home or school behavior to warrant identifying the child or his family as being at "high risk" for future problems. Pediatrics 59.971-981, 1977, SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT, SCREENING, BEHAVIOR, CHILD DEVELOPMENT, HIGH RISK.