A study in the journal Pediatrics finds children who are spanked when they are three are more likely to be aggressive when they're five. (iStock)

Children who are spanked when they are three years old are more likely to have screaming tantrums, get into fights, hurt animals and refuse to share by the time they are five, a new study in the medical journal Pediatrics suggests.

The seven-year study followed nearly 2,500 parents. More than half reported spanking their children, and 26.5 per cent spanked their children more than twice a month.

Those who used corporal punishment more than doubled the risk their children would become aggressive, according to social work and public health researchers at Tulane University in New Orleans, the State University of New York at Albany and Wayne State University in Detroit.

Even children who were spanked fewer than two times a month had a 40 per cent chance of becoming aggressive by the time they turned five.

Previous studies have also found a link between spanking and aggression later in life, but the latest study was the first to take into account other factors in children's lives, the researchers said.

These factors included the children's level of aggression at age three, and family issues, including parental neglect, violence, drug and alcohol use, or depression.

"This finding seems to support a social learning approach to understanding the cycle of violence, whereby the child learns to be aggressive by being treated directly with aggression," the article says.

The research backs the position taken by the American Academy of Pediatrics against corporal punishment.

"This evidence base suggests that primary prevention of violence can start with efforts to prevent the use of corporal punishment against children," the study concludes.