Differences and similarities between children,mothers, and teachers as informants on disruptive child behavior

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.     

Chronicity, severity, and timing of maternal depressive symptoms: relationships with child outcomes at age 5

The relationships between severity, chronicity, and timing of maternal depressive symptoms and child outcomes were examined in a cohort of 4,953 children. Mothers provided self-reports of depressive symptoms during pregnancy, immediately postpartum, and when the child was 6 months old and 5 years old. At the age 5 follow-up, mothers reported on children's behavior and children completed a receptive vocabulary test. Results suggest that both the severity and the chronicity of maternal depressive symptoms are related to more behavior problems and lower vocabulary scores in children. The interaction of severity and chronicity of maternal depressive symptoms was significantly related to higher levels of child behavior problems. Timing of maternal symptoms was not significantly related to child vocabulary scores, but more recent reports of maternal depressive symptoms were associated with higher rates of child behavior problems.     

Can children provide coherent, stable, and valid self-reports on the big five dimensions? A longitudinal study from ages 5 to 7

Research on early childhood personality has been scarce. Self-reports of Big Five personality traits were measured longitudinally with the Berkeley Puppet Interview when children were 5, 6, and 7 years of age. For comparative purposes, Big Five self-reports were collected in a sample of college students. The children's self-reports showed levels of consistency and differentiation that approached those of the college age sample. Children's personality self-reports demonstrated significant correlations across the 1- and 2-year longitudinal intervals. Substantial and increasing convergence was found between children's self-reports of Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness and conceptually relevant behavior ratings provided by mothers, fathers, and teachers. Children's self-reports of Neuroticism were unrelated to adults' reports but did predict sadness and anxious behavior observed in the laboratory. The results provide the beginnings of an account of how the Big Five dimensions begin to be salient and emerge as coherent, stable, and valid self-perceptions in childhood.     

Assessing the interpersonal circumplex model in late childhood: the interpersonal behavior questionnaire for children

The authors developed the Interpersonal Behavior Questionnaire for Children with the aim of assessing the constructs of the interpersonal circumplex model, that is, Dominance and Love and their possible combinations, via third- to fifth-grade children's self- and peer reports. In the three studies presented herein, the authors examined several psychometric properties of the questionnaire. Results demonstrated that children's ratings along the questionnaire yielded the hypothesized circumplex structure of the interpersonal variables; that they reached significant association levels with external criteria; and that they were reliable. Specifically, interrater correlations were shown to reach substantive levels when inspected in older children, when scores were aggregated over raters, and when dominant behaviors were evaluated. Overall, the findings demonstrated the tenability of the circumplex model in young ages via children's ratings. The authors suggest that both personality assessment and personality development research may take advantage from using children's evaluations, in addition to adults' ratings of their children's personality.     

An Initial Look at Sibling Reports on Children's Behavior: Comparisons with Children's Self-Reports and Relations with Siblings' Self-Reports and Sibling Relationships

The authors examined siblings' reports of children's depression, anxiety, and aggression, and their reports of the sibling relationship, and compared them with children's self-reports. In two samples, including 169 sibling pairs (age M = 9.98 years, SD = 1.51), no significant differences emerged in the levels of depression and anxiety found in siblings' reports of children's behavior and children's self-reports, although siblings reported children to have significantly higher levels of aggression than the children self-reported. Age, the difference in ages between siblings, sex, and sibling sex were not related to siblings' reports of children's behavior. The relations between children's and siblings' reports of children's behavior were significant, yet moderate (average r = .22). Both siblings' self-reports of internalizing behavior and their perceptions of aspects of the sibling relationship (affection, rivalry, hostility, and satisfaction with the sibling relationship) explained significant, and unique, variance in siblings' reports of children's internalizing behavior. The findings for aggressive behavior were similar, although siblings' perceptions of affection in the sibling relationship were not significantly related to their reports of children's aggression. The potential uses and benefits of sibling reports of children's behavior, and sibling and family relationships, are discussed.     

British and American children's preferences for teleo-functional explanations of the natural world

Teleological-functional explanations account for objects by reference to their purpose. They are a fundamental aspect of adults' explanatory repertoire. They also play a significant role in children's reasoning although prior findings indicate that, in contrast to adults, young children broadly extend teleological explanation beyond artifacts (e.g. chairs) and biological properties (e.g. eyes) to the properties of non-living natural phenomena (e.g. clouds, rocks). The present study extends earlier work with American children to explore British children's application of teleological explanation. The motivation is that while Britain and America are, culturally, as close to a minimal pair as the global context affords, there are differences in the religiosity of the two nations such that British children might be less inclined to endorse purpose-based explanation. Results reveal that young British children also possess a promiscuous teleology although they differ in the kinds of purposes that they attribute. Additional findings include a replication of earlier effects using a modified task with young American children.     

Social competence and conduct problems in young children: issues in assessment

Examined the differences in various facets of social competence in 2 groups of young children (ages 4-7 years)--a clinic-referred group of aggressive children (N = 60) diagnosed with oppositional defiant disorder or conduct problems and a matched comparison group of typically developing children (N = 60). Four aspects of social competence were assessed: social information processing, actual observations of conflict management skills and social play interactions during peer interactions, positive social interactions with mothers and fathers at home, and teacher reports of social competence. The social information processing assessed included problem-solving skills (hypothetical skills as demonstrated on a social problem-solving test), self-perceptions (child's awareness of his or her own social self and feelings of loneliness), perceptions of others (attributions), and perceptions of others' attitudes toward oneself. To determine the construct validity of various means of assessing child social competence, we correlated children's social information processing measures with parent and teacher reports of social adjustment and with actual observations of interactions during peer play and at home with parents. Results comparing the 2 groups suggest that young children with conduct problems have deficits in their social information processing awareness or interpretation of social cues--they overestimate their own social competence and misattribute hostile intent to others. Tests of cognitive problem solving and observations of peer play interactions indicated that the children with conduct problems had significantly fewer positive problem-solving strategies and positive social skills, more negative conflict management strategies, and delayed play skills with peers than the comparison children. Correlation analyses indicated significant correlations between children's negative attributions and the ratio of positive to negative problem-solving strategies with observations of peer play interactions.     

Perceived social support mediates between prior attachment and subsequent adjustment: a study of urban African American children.

The processes whereby attachment and other social and cognitive factors contribute to social and emotional adjustment were examined. Participants were 56 African American children from low-income urban families. Attachment and sociability were assessed in the strange situation when children were 4.5 years old. Two years later, children were interviewed regarding their perceptions of social support and their attributions about others' intentions. Also assessed at Time 2 were child verbal intelligence, defensive response style, children's self-reports, and parent reports of child adjustment. As expected, attachment uniquely predicted perceived social support. Insecure attachment predicted self-reports of behavior problems and parental report of internalizing problems. Perceived social support was associated positively and significantly with viewing ambiguously depicted actions as prosocial rather than aggressive. Perceived social support was found to mediate the relation between attachment and adjustment. Results suggest that behaviorally mediated strategies for relating to caregivers in early childhood predict generalized social perception, thought, and emotion at later ages.     

The impact of parental multiple sclerosis on the adjustment of children and adolescents

Thirty-one parents with multiple sclerosis (MS) participated in a study to investigate the adjustment of their children, 24 boys and 24 girls aged 4 to 16 years. The majority of parents believed that their illness had an effect on their children. The perception of parents regarding their children's problems in the areas of emotions, concentration, behavior, or social interactions indicated that the children were at three times greater risk than the general community of developing psychological problems. In contrast, actual symptom scores reported by parents revealed that, although these children were at greater risk than the general community of developing peer problems, little difference was found on hyperactivity, emotional symptoms, conduct problems, or total difficulties. Parental negative affect predicted both parental reports of peer problems and perceptions that the parents' illness had an effect on their children. Parental relationship satisfaction and family income did not predict parental reports of children's level of adjustment. These results indicate that children of parents with MS demonstrate more difficulties in how they relate to others, the distress they experience, and how they manage their lives, rather than revealing higher levels of symptoms. Since the data were based on parental reports of their children's problems, the results may also be due to negative affect among the parents.     

Children's and parents' daily stressful events and psychological symptoms

Associations of children's daily stressful events and their parents' daily hassles and psychological symptoms with children's emotional/behavioral problems were examined in a sample of fourth- and fifth-grade children and their parents. Correlational analyses indicated that children's self-reports of depressive symptoms were associated with children's daily stressors and mothers' daily hassles, and children's self-reports of anxiety symptoms were associated with children's daily stressors and both mothers' and fathers' daily hassles. Mothers' and fathers' reports of their children's internalizing emotional/behavioral problems were correlated with mothers' and fathers' daily stressors and symptoms. Hierarchical multiple-regression analyses revealed that (a) children's self-reports of depressive symptoms were associated with children's daily stressors, (b) children's self-reports of anxiety symptoms were associated with their parents' daily hassles, (c) mothers' reports of their children's internalizing emotional/behavioral problems were marginally associated with parents' symptoms, and (d) fathers' reports of their children's internalizing emotional/behavioral problems were associated with parents' symptoms and children's self-reports of daily stressors.     

Coparenting and early conscience development in the family

In the current research, the authors examined children's observed compliance in a family clean-up paradigm and parents' reports of coparenting to predict young children's conscience (e.g., affective discomfort and moral regulation) in a sample of 58 families with two parents and at least two children. The authors found relations between parents' reports of children's conscience development and observer-rated compliance in a family clean-up session, and significant correlations between coparenting and conscience development. There were a greater number of significant results for younger, 2-year-old siblings than for older siblings, which may reflect the importance of the period between 2 and 3 years for the emergence of conscience. Multiple regressions revealed that younger siblings' age, observed compliance/noncompliance, and parents' reports of coparenting were all significant in predicting parents' reports of affective discomfort and moral regulation. Findings underscore the importance of continuing research on whole-family dynamics when studying young children's early conscience and moral regulation.     

Depressive implicit associations and adults' reports of childhood abuse

Theory and research suggest that negative events in childhood (e.g., childhood abuse) may contribute to the development of a cognitive vulnerability to depression. A limitation of past research, however, is that the majority has focused on explicit cognitions (e.g., attributional style) and it remains unclear whether similar relations would be observed for more implicit measures of depressive cognitions. This study investigated the relation between young adults' reports of childhood abuse and their implicit depressive cognitions, as measured by the Implicit Association Test. As hypothesised, young adults reporting a history of childhood abuse exhibited stronger implicit associations for depression-relevant stimuli than did individuals with no abuse history. These results were maintained even after statistically controlling for the influence of current depressive symptom levels.     

The curse of knowledge in reasoning about false beliefs

Assessing what other people know and believe is critical for accurately understanding human action. Young children find it difficult to reason about false beliefs (i.e., beliefs that conflict with reality). The source of this difficulty is a matter of considerable debate. Here we show that if sensitive-enough measures are used, adults show deficits in a false-belief task similar to one used with young children. In particular, we show a curse-of-knowledge bias in false-belief reasoning. That is, adults' own knowledge of an event's outcome can compromise their ability to reason about another person's beliefs about that event. We also found that adults' perception of the plausibility of an event mediates the extent of this bias. These findings shed light on the factors involved in false-belief reasoning and are discussed in light of their implications for both adults' and children's social cognition.     

Thematic relations in adults' concepts

Concepts can be organized by their members' similarities, forming a kind (e.g., animal), or by their external relations within scenes or events (e.g., cake and candles). This latter type of relation, known as the thematic relation, is frequently found to be the basis of children's but not adults' classification. However, 10 experiments found that when thematic relations are meaningful and salient, they have significant influence on adults' category construction (sorting), inductive reasoning, and verification of category membership. The authors conclude that concepts function closely with knowledge of scenes and events and that this knowledge has a role in adults' conceptual representations.     

Agreement of informants on emotional and behavioral problems from childhood to adulthood

Agreement among informants' ratings of children's and adults' internalizing and externalizing problems is moderate. Each informant contributes unique information about an individual's problems. Thus, it has been advocated to obtain ratings from multiple sources in child psychiatry, whereas adult psychiatry relies mostly on self-reports. Longitudinal studies repeatedly assessing children's psychiatric problems from childhood into adulthood and including reports from multiple informants could serve as benchmarks for studies including only selected time points or informants. We examined the development of agreement among informants' ratings of internalizing and externalizing problems using self-, parent, teacher, and partner reports in a longitudinal study with 7 assessment waves spanning an interval of 24 years and covering an age range of 4 to 40 years. The number of informant pairs is 12,059, who rated 1,875 individuals. The results revealed that correlations among informant ratings of internalizing and externalizing problems depend more on the informant pair than on problem type or age group. Second, differences among informants rating internalizing problems typically become larger when individuals get older. Third, when rating themselves, individuals typically report higher scores than do parents, teachers, or partners. These results were consistent for internalizing and externalizing problems and across age groups. The findings indicate that like in child psychiatry, assessment in adult psychiatry may benefit from a shift to multiple informant reports, as different informants' ratings may contain more information than if informants completely agree.     

Mother and Child Perceptions of Child Functioning: Relationship to Maternal Distress

The relationship between maternal distress and mother's reports of psychosocial problems in their children has been well-documented. However, relatively little research has investigated the relationship between maternal and family distress and young children's perception of their own functioning. Using a brief questionnaire designed for use with children, data were collected from 166 mothers and their children aged 5-12 years. Children provided information about their own daily functioning, and mothers provided information about their own, their child's, and their family's psychosocial functioning. Findings indicated that while children generally agreed with the reports of their mothers, children of distressed mothers self-reported better daily functioning than their mothers did. Distressed mothers tended globally to report negatively about themselves, their child, and their family. The present findings suggest that when assessing mothers or children, the reports of children should be considered as well as the reports of mothers.     

Influence of subject and interviewer characteristics on the reliability of young adults' self-reports of drinking

The influence of subject and interviewer characteristics on the reliability of self-reports of alcohol consumption among young adults was investigated. Data were gathered from black and white college students of both sexes (N's=24) using a time-line procedure. The results snowed that these young adults provided highly reliable self-reports regarding their use of alcohol. Test-retest correlations for a criterion interval of 90 days were .96, .93, and .97 for the numbers of abstinent, moderate-drinking, and heavy-drinking days, respectively. Analyses also showed that white female subjects generally provided more reliable reports of abstinent and heavy-drinking days and that white female interviewers gathered more reliable reports across the three drinking disposition categories. These findings suggest that nonalcoholic young adults' retrospective reports of their drinking behavior can be reliably assessed using the time-line methodology. Future research is required to determine the validity of these self-reports and to understand the differential influence of subject and interviewer characteristics on the levels of reliability found.     

Screening for developmental and behavioral problems

Early detection of developmental and behavioral/mental health problems is greatly facilitated when quality instruments are deployed. This article describes how to identify accurate measures and presents standards for screening tests. Included is a table delineating accurate tools for primary care: typically those relying on information from parents (e.g., PEDS, ASQ, PSC, etc.) as well as measures useful in settings where providers have more time and skill at eliciting behaviors from children (e.g., Brigance screens). Screening measures should be used in the context of developmental surveillance; the longitudinal process of incorporating professional observations into decision-making about children's developmental needs.     

2～11岁儿童问题行为的稳定性与变化

本研究采用追踪研究方法,考察了儿童2岁、4岁、7岁、11岁时内隐问题行为和外显问题行为的稳定性和变化。结果发现,各个年龄阶段,父母报告的问题行为都具有中等程度的相关。儿童的问题行为2岁时最多,此后开始下降,11岁时问题行为最少。儿童的问题行为具有中等程度的连续性,2岁、4岁、7岁、11岁的问题行为之间的相关均非常显著。     

TV guide: two-year-old children learn to use video as a source of information

Learning to use symbols is a challenge for young children even when the symbol in question (e.g., a live video image) is iconic and seems transparent to adults. This research examined the effect of experience on children's use of video-presented information. Two-year-old children saw themselves "live" on their family television for 2 weeks and then participated in an object-retrieval task. The children reliably used a live video presentation of an adult hiding a toy in an adjoining room to find the toy. Most also transferred what they learned to a task involving another symbol (pictures) that typically is very difficult for this age group. The results reveal flexibility in 2-year-olds' symbol use that follows from successful representation of a symbolic relation.