Child behavior disorders by age and sex based on item factoring of the revised Bristol Guides

Standardized teacher observations of 2,527 schoolchildren, selected at random for the revised Bristol Social Adjustment Guides were partitioned into four subsamples consisting of 797 5- to 10-year-old boys, 758 5- to 10-year-old-girls; 508 11- to 15-year-old boys, and 464 11- to 15-year-old girls, respectively. The children were observed by over 900 teachers and rated on 104 indicators of maladaptive behavior. Item scores for each age/ sex sample were subjected to first- and second-order factor analysis, with varimax rotation yielding identical second-order models of behavior disorder across age and sex samples and somewhat different first-order models for each sample. Comparison of derived dimensions with dimensions emergent in other behavior problem research indicated considerable consistency. Moreover, the similarity of the factorially derived dimensions confirmed the cross-age and -sex generality of the syndromes known as unforthcomingness, hostility, and depression, and provided reasonable support for the utility of the syndrome of inconsequence, although it was apparent that inconsequence stands as more a composite of underlying factor dimensions reflecting hyperactive and attention-seeking behaviors. While the withdrawal syndrome found factorial support, its integrity was clearly specific to child age and sex.