Three alternative models concerning the causal links between early disruptive behavior, poor school achievement, and delinquent behavior or antisocial personality were tested with linear structural equation modeling. Subjects were boys and girls followed from first grade to age 14. Disruptive behavior was assessed in Grade 1; school achievement was assessed in Grades 1 and 4; delinquent behavior and antisocial personality were assessed at age 14. With regard to self-reported delinquent behavior at age 14, results indicate that the best model for boys was a direct causal link between Grade 1 disruptive behavior and delinquent behavior. Poor school achievement was not a necessary causal factor. For girls, none of the tested models were a good fit to the delinquent behavior data. As for delinquent personality, results indicate that, for both boys and girls, poor school achievement was a necessary component of the causal path between Grade 1 disruptive behavior and age 14 delinquent personality.
This study examined the relationship among teacher, peer, and self-ratings of children's social behavior. The Pupil Evaluation Inventory was completed by 172 first-graders, 346 fourth-graders, 283 seventh-graders, and 30 teachers. Groups of deviant responders and controls were also selected from the total sample on the basis of peer-rated aggression and withdrawal scores. Interrater agreement was consistently greater between peer and teacher ratings than between self-ratings and either peer or teacher ratings. Discrepancies between raters were greatest for children with more deviant scores, with peer ratings providing the highest estimates of deviant behavior, and self-ratings yielding the lowest. Self ratings were lower than teacher or peer ratings on aggression and withdrawal, and higher on likability. Aggression produced greatest agreement between raters. Agreement was uninfluenced by the cognitive maturity of peer evaluators. The results suggest that the selection of raters should be influenced by the class of behaviors to be evaluated and the context in which they occur.
The generality of results from high-risk studies of the children of schizophrenics may be limited. Studies of preschizophrenics suggest that an alternative approach to the identification of populations at risk involves the selection of children high on aggression and withdrawal. Aggressive children, withdrawn children, aggressive-withdrawn children, and nondeviant controls were identified by peer ratings of 4,110 children in grades 1, 4, and 7. The probability of identifying aggressive withdrawn subjects decreased as grade level increased, while the probability of identifying aggressive subjects and withdrawn subjects increased with age. Peer-rated likability of the aggressive-withdrawn group decreased systematically as grade level increased, in contrast to likability scores for other groups. Teachers rated the aggressive-withdrawn group as more deviant on scales of external reliance, inattention-withdrawal, unable to change tasks easily, and slow to complete work. Mothers described this group as more deviant on scales of distractibility, pathological use of senses, and need for adult contact. These results suggest that especially at older ages, children who are both aggressive and withdrawn represent a less mature, less socially skilled group that is potentially at risk for poor adjustment later in life.
This study examined age-related changes in the organization underlying children's ratings of social deviance in their peers. Peer ratings of aggression, withdrawal, and likeability using the Pupil Evaluation Inventory (PEI) were collected from 326 first graders, 356 fourth graders, and 298 seventh graders. Measures of the . perceived similarity of all possible pairs of PEI items were derived by computing the frequency with which children at each grade level were concurrently nominated by their peers for both items comprising each pair of items. Multidimensional scaling was then employed to elucidate the structure underlying these indexes of interitem similarity. Structure ratios denoting the cohesiveness of the clusters of aggression, withdrawal, and likeability items were computed from the results of these analyses. For children of all ages aggression items and likeability items were found to comprise highly cohesive categories of behaviors that were distinct from each other. Withdrawal items, in contrast, clustered poorly at the first grade but became an increasingly cohesive category of behaviors and increasingly distinct from aggression as grade level increased.Aggression and social withdrawal represent fundamental dimensions of adult-rated deviant behavior in children (Achenbach & Edelbrock, 1978;Quay, 1979). Comparatively few studies, however, have examined children's perceptions of aggression and withdrawal in their peers. The need for research in this area is compelling because of the increasing use of peers as assessors of childhood deviance (e.g., Ledingham, 1981;Weintraub, Prinz, & Neale, 1978). Existing peer assessment instruments have largely tended to parallel adult-rating measures in their focus An earlier version of this article was presented at the annual meeting of the Canadian Psychological Association, Montreal, Quebec, June 1982. This research was supported by grants from the Quebec Ministry of Education, and Health and Welfare Canada.The authors wish to thank Claude Senneville and Denise Morin for their help in the data collection. Geoff Selig's valuable computer assistance is also greatly appreciated. We extend special thanks to la Commission des ecoles catholiques de Montreal for their continued cooperation with our research.
Previous research has revealed grade-related changes in organization underlying children's ratings of aggression and withdrawal in their peers (\ounger, Schwartzman, & Ledingham, 1985). The present investigation examined the contributions to such changes of age-related differences in the perspective of the raters (age of rater) and in the behavior of the children rated (age of children rated). Study 1 examined teacher ratings of aggression and withdrawal in first-, fourth-, and seventh-grade children in order to assess effects attributable to age of children rated. In contrast to earlier findings with peer raters, no differences were found across grade level in the organization of teacher ratings. Study 2 examined age of rater differences in the organization of first-, fourth-, and seventh-grade children's beliefs about behavior that might be displayed by hypothetical peers. Differences were found that paralleled those observed earlier in children's actual peer ratings. Study 3 examined first-and seventh-grade children's ratings of peers who were older or younger than the raters, to assess the influence of age of rater on children's ratings. Age of rater effects emerged even when children rated peers who were not their age mates. These findings suggest that differences across grade level reported in children's peer ratings largely reflect differences in the child raters' view of behavior. Implications of these findings for the use of peer evaluations are discussed.Childhood peer relations have assumed a role of central importance in the assessment and classification of childhood psychopathology (Achenbach & Edelbrock, 1978;Quay, 1979;Ross, 1980). How children relate to their peers has not only served as a means for classifying childhood behavior problems but has also been found to provide a valuable predictive index of later functioning in adolescence and adulthood (Kohlberg, LaCrosse, & Ricks, 1972;Roff, Sells, & Golden, 1972). Because children represent actual participant-observers of the social behavior of their peers and may consequently view such behavior from a unique perspective, investigators have also increasingly chosen children to serve as assessors of the social functioning of their peers. Indeed, it has been argued that the assessment of peer opinion provides the investigator with unique information
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