This study examined the relationship of self-reported marital distress to parental descriptions of emotional or behavioral disturbance of their children using two multidimensional measures of relationship satisfaction and personality functioning in children and adolescents. Data were collected from three independent samples of couples in marital therapy, parents of psychiatrically hospitalized children or adolescents, and nonclinic couples from the general population. Using a split-half cross-validation procedure, parents' reports of their children's emotional or behavioral difficulties were consistently and positively related to their descriptions of dissatisfaction with the parent-child relationship and with reports of spousal conflict over childrearing, but not with measures of global marital distress or spousal conflict in areas not related to childrearing. Discrepancies in spouses' descriptions of their marriage or child were unrelated to individual measures of relationship functioning or child/adolescent psychopathology. Implications for clinical assessment and future research are discussed.

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This study investigated the utility of a multidimensional instrument, the Personality Inventory for Children (PIC), to serve as the data base for an empirically derived typology of child and adolescent psychopathology. A cluster-analytic technique was applied to T-score ranges of the 12 PIC full-length substantive profile scales for two independent samples of emotionally and behaviorally disturbed children and adolescents that included six criterion marker samples (hyperactive, psychotic, retarded, cerebral dysfunction, somatic, delinquent), for a total sample of N = 1,782. Eleven profile clusters replicated across samples and classified 82% of these profiles. Further analyses indicated that these replicated clusters differed in age, sex, and criterion marker sample composition, as well as on 18 of the 19 ratings of pathology dimensions obtained from parents, teachers, and clinicians. These results support the conclusion that the PIC may be valuable in the development of an empirically based classification system.

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