The purpose of the propsed study is to use children's receptive nonverbal skill and locus of control orientation at 8 years of age to predict their personal and social adjustment when they are older. It is predicted (1) that children who are deficient in reading emotion in facial expression and tones of voice will develop problems in personal and social adjustment at 10, 13/14 and 15/16 and (2) that the type of problem children develop will depend on their locus of control orientation. If they are poor at reading emotion in faces and voices and internally controlled they will develop internalizing types of problems like anxiety, depression, and low self esteem; if they are externally controlled then they will develop externalizing difficulties such as acting out behaviors, conduct disorders and antisocial problems.

To evaluate these possiblities we would require the following data from the ALSPAC data set.

CONCEPT SPECIFIC MEASURE PERSON SOURCE TIME POINTS

Nonverbal information DANVA (faces/voices) CF CF 8 years

Locus of control PPNSIE CF Ques. 8 years

Separation anxiety DAWBA K Ques. 10 to 15/16

Phobias K Ques. 10 to 15/16

PTSD K Ques. 10 to 15/16

Obsessions/Compul. K Ques. 10 to 15/16

General anxiety K Ques. 10 to 15/16

Depression K Ques. 10 to 15/16

Atten/Activ K Ques. 10 to 15/16

Oppositional beh. K Ques. 10 to 15/16

Conduct problems K Ques. 10 to 15/16

Hyperactivity SDQ K&S Ques 10 to 15/16

Emotional Symptoms SDQ K &S Ques. 10 to 15/16

Conduct problems SDQ K &S Ques. 10 to 15/16

Prosocial behaviours SDQ K & S Ques 10 to 15/16

Antisocial behaviour Antisocial behaviour CF Ques. 10 to 12

Friendships CHAMP CF Ques. 10 to 14

Bullying Wolke et al(2000) CF Ques. 10 to 15/16

Romatic relations SexualActivity Index CF Ques. 10 to 15/16

Self esteem SPPC (Harter) CF Ques. 8 years

Self Image Self Image Profile CF Ques. 14

The above proposed study is based on research that has shown that the inability to read emotion in facial expressions and tones of voice has been found to be related to a wide variety of social difficulties such as lower popularity, lower teacher rated social competence, attention deficit disorder, nonverbal and verbal learning disabilities, externalizing problems and conduct disorder, emotional problems, depression, social anxiety, speech and language impairment, and aggression.The purpose of the present project is to see if children's locus of control orientation will help identify which children develop internalizing and which develop externalizing adjustment difficulties.

Locus of control was chosen because it plays a significant role in children's behavior. Locus of control refers to the connection individuals perceive between their behavior and what happens to them (Rotter, 1966). When they perceive a connection between their efforts and what happens to them, they are called internally controlled. When individuals do not see a connection between what they do and what happens to them, but rather they view what happens to them as the result of luck, fate, chance, or powerful others, they are seen as externally controlled. Whether events are perceived from more internal or external perspectives has been found in literally thousands of studies to be related to an extensive number of important personal, social and academic outcomes (Kalechstein & Nowicki, 1998; Rotter, 1990).

In the present study, we assume that children who are experiencing relationship failures with peers (and perhaps with adults, especially teachers) because of an inability to read emotional cues in facial expressions and tones of voice can view their failures one of two ways through the prism of locus of control. If children are internally controlled (so they believe that what happens to them is due to their efforts and how they behave), then they would be more likely to attribute their interpersonal failures to some aspect of themselves or their own behavior. And if children blame themselves for their interpersonal failures they would be more likely to develop feelings of depression and anxiety and low self-esteem; characteristics usually used to describe internalizing problems.

In contrast, children who are externally controlled (and believe that luck, fate or chance or powerful others determines what happens to them), would be more likely to blame others and not themselves for their interpersonal failures. Consistent with this kind of attribution, externally controlled children would be more likely to become angry and "act out" at those whom they believe are preventing them from attaining social success; characteristics of what have been used to describe externalizing problems.

Thus we are proposing that locus of control will act as a moderator between receptive nonverbal ability and personal and social outcomes gathered by ASLPAC after 8 years of age when nonverbal and locus of control measures were obtained.

We will examine boys and girls separately. Because there is some evidence especially from the preschool period that mothers talk more about sadness and with girls and anger with boys, it is predicted that girls will be better at identifying sadness and boys at identifying anger at age 8 (Adams, Kuebli, Boyle, & Fivush, 1991; Fivush 1991) and may lead girls to develop internalizing and boys externalizing problems.