With these patterns of continuity established, a more interesting picture emerged when child maltreatment occurring earlier in development was added to the cascades model. Child maltreatment prior to age 8 significantly predicted the three early school-age domains, externalizing and internalizing problems, as well as low social competence. These findings are consistent with prior work that has demonstrated the risk for heightened behavioral disturbance occurring among maltreated children, as well as compromises in the development of social competence, an important overarching stage salient issue of childhood (Cicchetti & Valentino, 2006; Masten et al., 1999; Sroufe, 1989). It is important that we also found evidence for a direct effect of early child maltreatment on higher levels of CAD symptoms in the early adolescent period. Moreover, early maltreatment continued to contribute independently to increases in problem cannabis use in late adolescence. Thus, our expectation of higher risk for substance use problems among youth with a history of maltreatment was confirmed.
