Maternal behavior, child behavior, and their intercorrelations from infancy through adolescence.
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This study examined the relationship of reported maternal depression to prior and current life stressors, and to mother perceptions of child adjustment, parenting behaviors, and child conduct problems. Forty-six depressed mothers and 49 nondepressed mothers and their clinic-referred children (aged 3-8 years) participated. Depressed mothers were more critical than nondepressed mothers, but the behavior of children of depressed and nondepressed mothers showed no significant differences. Depressed mothers were more likely to have experience child abuse, spouse abuse, or more negative life events than nondepressed mothers. Maternal reports of stress related to mother characteristics and to negative life events were the most potent variables discriminating depressed from nondepressed mother families.
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Relationships among maternal characteristics, ratings of child behavior, and observed mother-child interactions were examined in a sample of 40 4- to 12-year-old children with externalizing disorders. Mothers and children were observed in a task interaction and mothers provided self-reports of depressed mood, parenting self-esteem, marital satisfaction, social support, and life stress. Child behavior was rated by both mothers and teachers. Several significant correlations were found among observed mother and child behaviors and among maternal self-report measures. However, few significant relationships were found between maternal characteristics and observed mother or child behavior. Although life stress predicted increased child negativity, maternal depressed mood was related to more appropriate child behavior. Mother and teacher ratings of child behavior demonstrated few significant relationships with other measures. These results suggest that, in samples comprised primarily of children with attention deficit disorder from socially advantaged families, few relationships exist between maternal characteristics, parenting behavior, and child behavior.
OBJECTIVE: Taking into account the high prevalence of behavioral problems in the pediatric outpatient clinic, a need for a useful and easy to administer tool for the evaluation of this problem arises. The psychometric characteristics of the Spanish version of the Eyberg Behavioral Child Inventory (EBCI), [in Spanish Inventario de Eyberg para el Comportamiento de Niño (IECN)], a 36-item questionnaire were established. PATIENTS AND METHODS: The ECBI inventory/questionnaire was translated into Spanish. The basis of the ECBI is the evaluation of the child's behavior through the parents' answers to the questionnaire. Healthy children between 2 and 12 years of age were included and were taken from pediatric outpatient clinics from urban and suburban areas of Barcelona and from our hospital's own ambulatory clinic. RESULTS: The final sample included 518 subjects. The mean score on the intensity scale was 96.8 and on the problem scale 3.9. Internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha) was 0.73 and the test-retest had an r of 0.89 (p < 0.001) for the intensity scale and r = 0.93 (p < 0.001) for the problem scale. Interrater reliability for the intensity scale was r = 0.58 (p < 0.001) and r = 0.32 (p < 0.001) for the problem scale. Concurrent validity between both scales was r = 0.343 (p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: The IECN is a useful and easy tool to apply in the pediatrician's office as a method for early detection of behavior problems.
OBJECTIVE: Child and adolescent psychiatric inpatient facilities are in need of standardized behavior rating scales to assess continuous change in patient behaviors. This study used daily staff ratings to examine the factor structure and psychometric properties of an abbreviated version of the Child Behavior Rating Form (CBRF-A). METHOD: Three hundred eighty-seven inpatients, aged 3 to 17 years, were rated daily by unit staff. Subsamples of patients and/or their parents completed additional measures of behavior problems (Child Behavior Checklist, Functional Impairment Scale for Children and Adolescents) to assess the instrument's validity. RESULTS: Confirmatory factor analyses identified 5 behavior problem dimensions (Oppositionalism, Attention Problems, Overactivity, Withdrawal/Depression, and Anxiety), a second-order Externalizing dimension, and 2 positive behavior dimensions (Positive/Adaptive Social and Compliance/Self-Control). The scales were found to be internally consistent and showed expected age differences, and the scale factor structures were relatively stable over 1- and 2-week intervals. The scales correlated meaningfully with parent ratings of child behavior problems and functional impairment and were predictive of total hospital days. CONCLUSIONS: The psychometric properties of the CBRF-A appear adequate for daily inpatient rating; additional research is needed to determine the usefulness of the CBRF-A in assessing treatment and medication effects over the hospital stay.
Examined whether marital discord over childrearing contributes to child behavior problems after taking into account general marital adjustment, and if child age moderates associations between child behavior problems and either general marital adjustment or marital discord over childrearing. Participants were 146 two-parent families seeking services for their child's (4 to 9 years of age) conduct problems. Data on marital functioning and child behavior problems were collected from both parents. Mothers' and fathers' reports of marital discord over childrearing related positively to child externalizing problems after accounting for general marital adjustment. Child age moderated associations between fathers' reports of general marital adjustment and both internalizing and externalizing child problems, with associations being stronger in families with younger children. The discussion highlights the role that developmental factors may play in understanding the link between marital and child behavior problems in clinic-referred families.
Relations between marital discord, parental behavior, and child behavior were investigated in a sample of 37 battered women and 37 comparison mothers and their children, aged 2-8 years. It was hypothesized that violent fathers would be more irritable but less involved, battered women more stressed and inconsistent in discipline, and both parents would reportedly use fewer positive and more negative child-rearing responses than comparison families. Based on maternal self-reports and mother-child observations, the only robust self-report difference between the groups of mothers were the level of stress and reports of inconsistency in parenting; in contrast, all of the expected differences were found between the mothers' reports of the 2 groups of fathers. Group effects on child behavior problems were also found. Children from violent families were reported to have more internalizing behavior problems, more difficult temperaments, and to be more aggressive than the comparison children. In the violent families, maternal stress and paternal irritability were the 2 significant predictors of child behavior problems, whereas in the comparison families only maternal stress was a reliable predictor.
This study describes the use of a computer-assisted interview to administer the Child Behavior Checklist to the parents of children referred to a child psychiatry service. The scores from the computer-assisted interview varied little from the scores obtained using the standard written checklist. Information collected by means of computer-assisted interviews with parents and children has the potential to facilitate the diagnostic assessment of individual children with emotional and behavioral problems, to provide a more comprehensive description of the work of child psychiatry services, and to encourage new clinical research by mental health professionals working in child psychiatry services.
The relationship between risk factors and the severity and type of childhood disorder, as measured by parent-completed Child Behavior Checklists, was examined for 768 children, ages 4-16, seen at a child mental health center. Regression analyses revealed no significant relationships between any combination of risk factors and the total number of behavior problems, internalizing, or externalizing scores for the entire group, males and females separately, or for the age and sex groupings of 6- to 11- and 12- to 16-year-olds. Chi-square tests revealed no relationship of profile type with any risk factor or with total number of risk factors. Implications for broad-based child assessment and risk factor research within a clinical population are discussed.
PURPOSE: We evaluated the hypothesis that abusive parents' reports may exaggerate rates of child behavior problems in a clinical sample. METHOD: The association between parental ratings of behavior problems and independent observations of child behaviors was examined in a sample of 205 clinic-referred families, 58 of which had a reported history of physical abuse. RESULTS: Relative to the comparison group, parents in the abuse group reported more externalizing problems in their children after controlling for parental psychopathology, and displayed more emotionally controlling and less supportive behavior during parent-child interactions. However, there was no association between abuse history and observed child behaviors during the interaction tasks. Abuse status significantly moderated the association between parent-reported externalizing behaviors and observed demanding behavior by the child; the association was significant among comparison families, but not in the abuse group families. CONCLUSIONS: Results indicate that abusive parents may over-report externalizing behavior problems in their children.
Thirty-six families with a preteenage behavior problem child were assessed on measures of marital discord, parental psychopathology, and three parental cognitive factors: knowledge of behavioral principles, tolerance for child deviancy, and expectations regarding their child's behavior. Nine nonproblem families with demographic characteristics similar to the problem families were also assessed. Correlational analyses across all families revealed a strong association between marital discord and the parental index of child behavior problems. While a number of significant associations were discovered between the various measures of marital discord, parental psychopathology, and parental cognitive factors, no other measure besides marital discord was associated with parental perception of child behavior problems. The nonproblem families and 15 of the problem families also participated in home observations obtained through random audio recordings during high interaction periods. These observational data indicated a significant relationship between parental perception of child behavior problems and parental negative behavior toward the child, but no significant relationship between parental perception of child behavior problems and child behavior, even when child behavior was weighted by parents' reactions to that behavior. Through sequential analysis, several contingent relations between parent and child behavior were discovered. Findings are discussed in relation to family systems theory.
The Child Behavior Checklist's (CBCL) applicability to a sample of 105 Russian 9- and 10-year-old children was evaluated by examining the internal consistency of Russian adaptations of parent and teacher report forms. In addition, child behavior scores were correlated with child report of internalizing symptoms and maternal reports of their own internalizing symptoms and general family functioning. Finally, rates of child behavior problems and patterns of interrater agreement were compared with U.S. normative data. The psychometric properties of the adaptations demonstrate the adequacy of these instruments for use in Russia. Internal consistency and interrater agreement were generally comparable to estimates obtained in U.S. normative samples. Further, an exploration of the construct validity of the Russian versions of the CBCL and Teacher Report Form (TRF) lends additional support to the adequacy of these instrument.
The Child Behavior Checklist's applicability to a Hispanic sample was assessed by an examination of the instrument's internal consistency and concurrent validity. The CBCL and TRF were administered to a community sample representative of children of Puerto Rico aged 4 to 16. Cronbach's alpha was used to assess the internal consistency of empirically derived scales. The relation of CBCL and TRF scores to clinical diagnosis, adaptive functioning, and need for services served as indicators of the concurrent validity of the instrument's Spanish version. The results indicate that the total behavior problem scores on the instruments are good continuous measures of maladjustment for children in Puerto Rico. A child with high values on the scales has a high probability of being classified as a case by a psychiatrist. High levels of internal consistency were found in most subscales. Only scales comprising low prevalence problems showed poor internal consistency.
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Previous research suggests an association between partner violence and child behavior problems. However, methodological shortcomings have precluded the formation of directional conclusions. These limitations include failure to control for the effects of child physical abuse and general life stress, employment of nonrepresentative samples from battered women's shelters, and reliance on a single contemporaneous reporter, usually the mother, for information on both independent and dependent measures. This study used prospective, longitudinal data (N = 155) and multiple informants to examine the relation between maternal reports of partner violence in the homeand teacher- and youth-report ratings of concurrent and prospective child behavior problems. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses were used to control for the effects of child physical abuse, child physical neglect, socioeconomic status, child cognitive ability, and life stress. The contribution of partner violence to child behavior problems was confirmed for boys' (n = 81) externalizing problems and girls' (n = 74) internalizing problems. Child developmental status at the time of exposure further influenced these relations. For boys, behavior problems in middle childhood were most strongly related to contemporaneous partner violence, whereas behavior problems among both boys and girls at age 16 were most strongly related to partner violence exposure during the preschool years.
Achenbach Child Behavior Checklist ratings were collected on boys aged 6 to 11 years screened as not having significant behavior problems, as clinic-referred boys, and as boys diagnosed as having Attention Deficit-Hyperactivity Disorder alone or together with Oppositional-Defiant Disorder or Conduct Disorder. Cluster analysis resulted in a classification system related to DSM-III-R classification of the boys and parent self-report of mildly antisocial acts. Clusters also enhanced the ability of the instrument to detect Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and disruptive behavior disorders.
Prevalence rates of disruptive child behaviors, based on structured psychiatric interviews, are presented for samples of clinic-referred prepubertal boys at two sites to investigate differences and similarities among reports of the behaviors from children, parents, and teachers. Children reported significantly less hyperactive/inattentive and oppositional behaviors than either parents or teachers. In contrast, children did not differ from parents or teachers in their report on the prevalence of more serious conduct problems. These results were well replicated across two sites, despite the fact that there were significant differences between the sites in the level of hyperactive/inattentive child behaviors and conduct problems. The ranking of parents' and teachers' reported prevalence of specific child behavior problems in each of the three domains of disruptive behavior was strikingly similar. With one exception, the concordance between the prevalence ranking based on the children's reports was lower than that based on adults' reports, Children's reports on their own behavior did not predict various child handicaps 1 year later as well as did adults' reports. The results are discussed in relation to the usefulness of certain child behaviors in symptom lists for diagnostic purposes; the reliability of children's reports on their own behavior; and the possible reasons why prevalence rankings, as perceived by adults, are so similar.