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BACKGROUND: Childhood antisocial behaviour has been associated with poorer teacher-student relationship (TSR) quality. It is also well-established that youth with antisocial behaviour have a range of emotion-related deficits, yet the impact of these students' emotion-related abilities on the TSR is not understood. Furthermore, the addition of the Limited Prosocial Emotions Specifier in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) indicates that understanding the role of callous-unemotional (CU) traits for youth with antisocial behaviour problems is of particular importance. AIMS: The aim of this study was to investigate the association between antisocial behaviour difficulties and the TSR by examining the influence of emotion-related abilities and CU traits. SAMPLE: Twelve teachers from 10 primary schools provided anonymized information on 108 children aged 6-11 years. RESULTS: Antisocial behaviour was associated with higher teacher-student conflict (but not closeness) as well as higher emotion lability/negativity and lower emotion understanding/empathy. Emotion lability/negativity was associated with higher teacher-student conflict (but not closeness), and emotion understanding/empathy was associated with lower teacher-student conflict and higher closeness. CU traits were associated with higher teacher-student conflict and lower teacher-student closeness (controlling for antisocial behaviour more broadly). We found no evidence of a moderating effect of CU traits or emotion-related abilities on the association between antisocial behaviour and TSR quality. CONCLUSIONS: Interventions for behaviour difficulties should consider teacher-student relationships in the classroom. Strategies which aim to improve teacher-student closeness as well as reduce teacher-student conflict may be of particular value to students with high CU traits.
Wilkinson et al. (Mon,) studied this question.