The assessment of the situational specificity of children's problems behaviour in peer-peer context.

In both theory and research the general issue of the extent to which children's problem behaviour is generalised across situations, and to what extent it is situation specific, has been neglected. In the clinical assessment of disordered children, too, little attention has been paid to the specific situations in which these children display their inappropriate behaviour. In this study the Taxonomy of Problematic Social Situations (TOPS) (Dodge, McClaskey, & Feldman, 1985) was employed. This is a questionnaire in which the child's teacher is asked to rate the likelihood of a child responding in an inappropriate manner in a specific situation. Characteristics of TOPS were investigated both in randomly selected normal school children and in boys with a conduct disorder. Four factors appeared to underlie the TOPS scores from 652 randomly selected boys and girls from grades 1 to 6, these being: teachers' scores for the types of problem situation Being Disadvantaged, Coping with Competition, Social Expectations of Peers, and Teacher Expectations. Because of the high internal consistency of the four factors, TOPS was abbreviated to a TOPS-Short Form (18 instead of 44 items). The four-factor model was cross-validated by means of a second sample of 326 boys and girls. A model with only one general problem behaviour factor did not fit the data of both samples. When the four specific factors were added a satisfactory fit resulted. Moreover, it was found that in the first sample 52% of the variance was explained by the general factor, whereas 18% of the variance was explained by the four specific factors together. Thus, the extent to which problem behaviour is situation specific should not be disregarded. In all four types of problem situation, boys showed more inappropriate behaviour than girls. With increasing age, children were rated as being more competent in dealing with the problem situation Being Disadvantaged. Teachers rated the four types of problem situation as more problematic for boys with a conduct disorder (N = 42) than for normal control boys (N = 67). Conduct disordered boys also differed individually in the number of situational types that were problematic for them. With respect to clinical implications, the identification of the particular social context in which a conduct disordered child displays his or her inappropriate behaviour may help refine treatment goals: more adequate social functioning should be aimed at specifically in those situations that are problematic.

Deficient social problem-solving in boys with ODD/CD, with ADHD, and with both disorders.

OBJECTIVE: To study social problem-solving skills in psychiatrically defined aggressive boys, starting from Dodge's social information-processing model. METHOD: Videotaped stimuli of problematic social situations and questions were presented to elicit responses that indicate boys' social problem-solving skills (encoding and interpretation of social cues, generation of possible responses, evaluation of responses, self-efficacy evaluation, and response selection). Boys aged 7 to 12 years with oppositional defiant or conduct disorder (ODD/CD) (n = 48), attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) (n = 27), and both disorders (ODD/CD + ADHD) (n = 29) were involved as well as a normal control group (n = 37) and a psychiatric control group with internalizing disorders (n = 23). RESULTS: When compared with normal controls, boys with ADHD, with ODD/CD, and with ODD/CD + ADHD encoded fewer social cues and generated fewer responses. Boys with ODD/CD and with ODD/CD + ADHD moreover were more confident in their ability to enact an aggressive response than normal controls. When ODD/CD boys and ODD/CD + ADHD boys were given the opportunity to select a response from various types of responses shown, they selected an aggressive response more often than normal controls. Thus, in ADHD boys social problem-solving was affected only in encoding and in the generation of responses, whereas in ODD/CD and ODD/CD + ADHD boys social problem-solving was affected throughout the process. CONCLUSION: For the further study of social problem-solving in aggressive children, it is essential to differentiate between children with ADHD and children with ODD/CD and ODD/CD + ADHD.

Abnormal saccadic eye movements in autistic children.

The saccadic eye movements, generated during a visual oddball task, of autistic children, normal children, children with attention deficit disorder and hyperactivity (ADDH), and dyslexic children were examined to determine whether autistic children differed from these other groups in saccadic frequency. Autistic children made more saccades during the presentation of frequent stimuli (than normals and ADDH children), and between stimulus presentations. Also, unlike the normal and dyslexic groups, their saccadic frequency did not depend on stimulus type. This abnormal pattern of saccades may negatively influence the ability to attend to stimuli, and thereby learning processes. Suggestions are made with respect to possible abnormalities in subcortical mechanisms involved in saccade generation.

[Little recognition of mental problems in children by parents and family physicians]. / Weinig herkenning van psychische problemen bij kinderen door ouders en huisartsen.

OBJECTIVE: To determine the prevalence of psychic problems in children in the Dutch GP-practice and to determine how often parents and general practitioners (GPs) recognize psychic problems in children. DESIGN: Descriptive. SETTING: World Health Organisation Collaborating Centre for Primary Health Care (NIVEL) and Academic Hospital, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Utrecht, the Netherlands. METHOD: In 810 children presence or absence of emotional and behavioural problems was studied by means of the Child Behaviour Checklist (CBCL) filled out by a parent at the moment of contact with a GP. The GPs findings in these were also recorded. RESULTS: 7.7% of all children obtained a total CBCL score indicating presence of emotional and behavioural problems (> P90). These children had problems at school, had repeated a school year, and followed special education more often. Nevertheless most of their parents (86%) did not experience problems with their children and 40% of the parents did not report any psychic problem in the preceding 2 weeks. Only 15% of these children were completely free of signs and symptoms, however, as against 40% of children with low scores. The percentages of children with high scores consulting a GP, social work or mental health care agency were somewhat higher than the percentages of children without these problems, but only the last-mentioned difference was significant. Children saw the GP rarely because of psychosocial problems (n = 7; less than 1%; 1 had a high CBCL score). Regardless of the presence of emotional and behavioural problems, as assessed by the CBCL, the GP seldom diagnosed psychological or social problems in children (n = 11; 1.4%; 2 had a high CBCL score) and rarely suspected the complaints had a psychosocial background. CONCLUSION: Children with a high CBCL score did not visit their GPs more often. The perception by the parent appears to be crucial in the help-seeking process. In many children in whom the screening instrument indicated the presence of emotional and behavioural problems, parents did not consider their children as problematic and did not seek the help of a GP.

Auditory event-related brain potentials in autistic children and three different control groups.

ERPs to auditory stimuli, generated during an oddball task, were obtained in a group of autistic children and three control groups (normal, ADDH, and dyslectic children, respectively). The task included the presentation of standards, deviants, and novels and had a (between-group) passive vs. active (counting) condition. It was examined whether 1) it was possible to replicate several earlier findings, 2) autistics manifest an abnormal lateralization pattern of ERPs, 3) autistics have an abnormal mismatch negativity (MMN), and 4) differences between autistics and normals are really specific to the autistic group. The only finding that could be replicated was that autistics have a smaller A/Pcz/300. There was no evidence for abnormal lateralization or abnormal MMN; however, there was an unexpected effect of the task manipulation on the amplitude of the P3: in autistics, the occipital P3 to deviant stimuli was significantly larger in the active than in the passive condition, a finding, like the replication of the smaller A/Pcz/300, specific to the autistic group. It was suggested that the auditory occipital task effect is related to understimulation of the occipital lobe by visual stimuli in autistic children.

Visual and somatosensory event-related brain potentials in autistic children and three different control groups.

Event-related potentials (ERPs) to visual and somatosensory stimuli, generated during an oddball task, were obtained in a group of autistic children and 3 control groups (normal, attention-deficit, and dyslectic children, respectively). The task included the presentation of standard, deviant, and novel stimuli and had a (between-group) passive vs. active (counting) condition. Research questions were whether (a) autistic children differ from other children with respect to the processing of visual and/or somatosensory stimuli, as measured in the amplitude of the N1, mismatch activity, and P3, (b) autistic children specifically have problems in the processing of distal (visual) stimuli, compared to the processing of proximal (somatosensory) stimuli, and (c) autistic children have an atypical lateralization pattern of ERP activity. Only in the autistic group a task effect on the visual P2N2 (mismatch activity) and larger P3s to novels than to deviants were found, in both the visual and the somatosensory modality. There also was a smaller occipital P3 to visual standard stimuli in the passive condition in the autistic group than in 2 control groups. We concluded that autistics (a) differ from several other groups of children with respect to the visual P2N2 and the visual and somatosensory P3, (b) show abnormalities in the processing of both proximal and distal stimuli, and (c) show no indication of abnormal lateralization of ERPs.