Consistent with Masten and Burt and their colleagues’ findings, we found support for continuity of behavior problems, both internalizing and externalizing symptomatology, across the four developmental waves of assessment, from the earlier school-age years to later adolescence. These findings support the concept of rank-order stability in these two broadband forms of psychopathology across development and indicate that early occurring behavior problems are not transient concerns. Moreover, earlier social competence was related to late childhood social competence, and early adolescent cannabis use problems portended continuity of these problems later in adolescence.
