Children with special health care needs may be at higher risk for bullying, victimization, and ostracism. Further research is needed to explore this relationship, especially as it relates to child adjustment. Children with special health care needs should be asked about bullying and ostracism experiences and potential effects as part of mental health screening.

Normative data for the Children's Depression Inventory were collected on 1,463 public school children in Grades 2 through 8. Significant sex and grade differences were obtained, but the absolute magnitude of these differences was small. Scores were very consistent with those previously reported.

Introduced the Pediatric Emotional Distress Scale (PEDS), which was developed to quickly assess behaviors identified in empirical and theoretical literature as significantly elevated in children after experiencing traumatic events. The 21-item parent-report rating scale includes 17 general behavior items and 4 trauma-specific items. Factor analyses on the 17 items, with 475 two- to ten-year-olds (traumatic event exposure and nontraumatic event exposure), yielded 3 reliable factors labeled Anxious/Withdrawn, Fearful, and Acting Out. Factor and total scores were shown to have good internal consistency, and both test-retest and interrater reliability were at acceptable levels. Discriminant analyses demonstrated the PEDS could distinguish traumatic event exposure and nonexposure groups, although maternal education should be a significant consideration in interpretation. Future research with diverse populations who have documented trauma is needed to enhance the utility of the full PEDS scale.

The present study investigated the use of the broad-band construct, negative affectivity, with children's self-report measures of depression, anxiety, and anger. A multitrait-multimethod analysis was conducted to intercorrelate scores from self-report measures with scale and subscale scores of the Child Behavior Checklist-Teacher Report Form (CBCL-TRF). The resulting matrix revealed significant correlations among the self-report measures of anxiety and depression and revealed that these measures correlated significantly with the Internalizing scale scores of the CBCL-TRF. However, correlations between the individual self-report measures and their corresponding CBCL-TRF scale scores were not significant. Regression analyses indicated that both depression and anxiety self-report measures were predictors of the CBCL-TRF Internalizing scale, but no self-report measures were predictive of the CBCL-TRF Externalizing scale. Findings suggest that the child self-report measures of anxiety and depression used in this study can best be conceptualized as measures of a broad-band construct rather than of the narrow-band dimensions of anxiety and depression.Over the past several decades, a considerable amount of literature has been developed around self-report measures of personality characteristics of both adults and children. In a recent article, Watson and Clark (1984) integrated the findings of a number of adult-oriented self-report measures purported to assess such constructs as anxiety, depression, and neuroticism. They concluded that despite their separate authors, the measures intercorrelated so highly that they were actually measures of the same construct. Watson and Clark proposed that this construct be termed negative affectivity. Because many of the self-report measures used with children were developed as counterparts to adult self-report measures (e.g., the Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale was developed as a counterpart to the adult-oriented Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale, and the Children's Depression Inventory was modeled after the Beck Depression Inventory), similarly high intercorrelations may exist.Accordingly, the broad-band construct of negative aflectivity might be useful for conceptualizing personality dimensions of children.In accordance with the findings of Watson and Clark (1984),We would like to express our gratitude to David A. Wolfe for his editorial assistance in the preparation of this article and to Jean M. Griffin for her help in preparing the data for analysis. The preparation of this article was partially supported by the Ontario Ministry of Health.

This article presents the results of two studies designed to investigate the measurement of childhood depression through self-report and reports from others. The preliminary study employed emotionally disturbed children and found that self-report of depression on the Children's Depression Inventory (CDI) was related to self-report of depression on two of three other measures but was not related to any of the measures of depression obtained from other sources. The second study investigated the convergent and discriminant validity of several measures of depression and anger in a multimethod-multitrait matrix (Campbell & Fiske, 1959) with normal children. Measures of depression and anger were obtained from self-report (CDI), peers, and teachers. The results of this second study indicated a method effect twice as large as the trait effect. Results were discussed in terms of the need to consider self-report in the discussion of depression with its covert components, in terms of the need for improved measurement instruments, and in terms of the need for additional research into the nature of depression in children.