The Application of the Preschool Child Behavior Checklist and the Caregiver–Teacher Report Form to Mainland Chinese Children: Syndrome Structure, Gender Differences, Country Effects, and Inter-Informant Agreement

Abstract

Preschool children have long been a neglected population in the study of psychopathology. The Achenbach System of Empirically Based Assessment (ASEBA), which includes the Child Behavior Checklist/1.5-5 (CBCL/1.5-5) and the Caregiver-Teacher Report Form (C-TRF), constitutes the few available measures to assess preschoolers with an empirically derived taxonomy of preschool psychopathology. However, the utility of the measures and their taxonomy of preschool psychopathology to the Chinese is largely unknown and has not been studied. The present study aimed at testing the cross-cultural factorial validity of the CBCL/1.5-5 and C-TRF, as well as the applicability of the taxonomy of preschool psychopathology they embody, to Mainland Chinese preschoolers. Country effects between our Chinese sample and the original U.S. sample, gender differences, and cross-informant agreement between teachers and parents were also to be examined. A Chinese version of the CBCL/1.5-5 and C-TRF was completed by parents and teachers respectively on 876 preschoolers in Mainland China. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) confirmed the original, U.S.-derived second order, multi-factor model best fit the Chinese preschool data of the CBCL/1.5-5 and C-TRF. Rates of total behavior problems in Chinese preschoolers were largely similar to those in American preschoolers. Specifically, Chinese preschoolers scored higher on internalizing problems while American preschoolers scored higher on externalizing problems. Chinese preschool boys had significantly higher rates of externalizing problems than Chinese preschool girls. Cross-informant agreement between Chinese teachers and parents was relatively low compared to agreement in the original U.S. sample. Results support the generalizability of the taxonomic structure of preschool psychopathology derived in the U.S. to the Chinese, as well as the applicability of the Chinese version of the CBCL/1.5-5 and C-TRF. KeywordsCBCL; Externalizing; Internalizing; Preschool; Cross-cultural; Chinese children; CFA; Confirmatory factor analysis; Validation Correspondence to: Jianghong Liu, jhliu@nursing.upenn.edu; Patrick W. L. Leung, pleung@cuhk.edu.hk. The development of the preschool versions of the CBCL and C-TRF offers several notable merits. First, it fills in the gaps in our knowledge on preschool psychopathology and constructs a taxonomy of preschool behavior problems by identifying syndromes and higher-order broad-band problems. Second, the preschool versions explicitly address the developmental concerns of children during this age period. While it shares some items with the school-age version, there are specific items written for the preschool period, which consequently form different syndromes, including aggression, defiance, hyperactivity, fears, and social anxiety. These emotions and behaviors are all common in preschoolers (e.g., Tremblay 2004). NIH Public AccessFactor analysis performed on the CBCL/1.5-5 and C-TRF has separately produced six syndromes for each measure: Emotionally Reactive, Anx...

Gender differences in behavioral regulation in four societies: The United States, Taiwan, South Korea, and China

“…First, research by Matthews and colleagues (2009) documented girls' advantage in individual and classroom behavioral regulation in the United States. Second, in Asia, a study of Chinese children was recently published showing that boys had significantly higher externalizing problems than girls (Liu, Cheng, & Leung, 2011). Because externalizing problems have been related to earlier problems with behavioral regulation (Eisenberg et al, 2003), there is a need to examine the role of gender in behavioral regulation.…”

Respuesta a Carta al Editor

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Preschool and Kindergarten Behavior Scales - Second Edition (PKBS-2): adaptação e estudos psicométricos da versão portuguesa

“…E-mail: smajor@fpce.uc.pt O presente artigo foi elaborado a partir da tese de doutorado da primeira autora, "Avaliação de aptidões sociais e Durante muitos anos, as crianças pré-escolares representaram uma população negligenciada dos estudos de psicopatologia (Liu, Cheng, & Leung, 2011), sendo a abordagem prevalecente para a identifi cação e intervenção de problemas de comportamento em crianças desta faixa Briggs-Gowan, & Davis, 2004;Caselman & Self, 2008;Epstein, Synhorst, Cress, & Allen, 2009;Merrell, 1996), com a identifi cação e intervenção precoces nas perturbações emocionais ou comportamentais a representarem, hoje em dia, áreas em franca ascensão com forte potencial de intervenção escolar/clínica e de investigação (Bagner, Rodríguez, Black, Linares, & Carter, 2012;Briggs-Gowan & Carter, 2008).…”