A cluster-analytically derived typology: feasible alternative to clinical diagnostic classification of children?

Despite numerous studies of the relationships among symptoms manifested by children and adolescents, there have been few systematic attempts to group individuals on the basis of the syndromes identified. In the course of a treatment evaluation project requiring classification of both child patients and untreated controls, the present study was conducted to determine whether replicable types of children and adolescents could be identified by the cluster analysis of their IJR Behavior Checklist profiles. One clinical sample (N = 185) and two mixed clinical and normal subsamples (Ns of 358 and 373) were cluster-analyzed separately. Seven types that replicated across at least two subsamples were identified: (1) High Assets, Flat Symptom Profile; (2) Sociopathic, Academic Problems; (3) Moderate Assets, Egocentric, Incontinent; (4) Insecure, Somaticizing, Underachieving; (5) Aggressive, Overreactive; (6) Schizoid, Withdrawn, Anxious, Bizarre; and (7) Diffuse, Mixed Pathology. The issue posed by the title of the article was explored in the light of the findings.

Reliability and validity of IJR Behavior Checklist scores: number versus pathology level of symptoms.

The parent, teacher, and clinician forms of the IJR Behavior Checklist yield four summary scores (checklist total score, pathology-weighted total score, mean pathology score, and highest 5 items' mean pathology score). The checklist total score is essentially a symptom count with a double-weighting for frequent/intense occurrence; the other three scores incorporate item pathology weights. All four summary scores were shown to have moderately high validity as measures of the construct child/adolescent psychopathology: They differentiated between well-adjusted and clinical subsamples at the .001 level. The two scores based entirely on the pathology weights manifested less satisfactory reliability than the two scores reflecting primarily number of symptoms, but surpassed the latter in power to discriminate between psychotic and nonpsychotic patients.

Scaling clinical judgments of symptom pathology by means of the psychophysiological method of magnitude estimation.

Summing scores across heterogeneous symptom items without consideration of their differing psychopathological significance has been criticized as producing an inadequate picture of an individual's clinical status. The purpose of this study was to derive symptom item weights representing clinically judged seriousness of each symptom through the application of Steven's psychophysical method of magnitude estimation. A nationwide sample of 129 clinicians rated the pathological significance of 221 symptom items in a design such that every rater rated 121 items, 21 of which were rated by all raters and 100 of which were rated only by the A or B subgroup to which each rater was randomly assigned. Each item was rated as to the seriousness of the pathology it would represent if manifested by either a boy child, girl child, boy adolescent, or girl adolescent, with one-fourth of the raters assigned to each condition. The results of 211 two-way analyses of variance revealed that age and age and sex in interaction, but not sex alone, significantly influenced the clinical ratings. The resulting magnitude estimation ratings of symptom pathology ranged from 1.0 to 9.9. They were demonstrated to have satisfactoy reliability and convergent validity and to have the psychophysical characteristics of a prothetic continuum.

Dimensions of adolescent psychopathology and their prognostic significance for treatment outcome.

The mothers of 87 male and female adolescents accepted at a counseling agency described their offspring by completing the Institute of Juvenile Research Behavior Checklist. A factor analysis of the initial data yielded nine symptom factors. These were used in combination with selected demographic variables, to compare the 54 continuers in treatment with the 22 early defectors and the 18 cases improved after a year of a full course of treatment with the 16 unimproved cases. Both discriminant function analyses indicated that the groups could be successfully differentiated; however, variables most predictive of continuance in treatment were not most predictive of a successful outcome.

Teaching nuns' perceptions of white and black pupils as a function of authoritarianism and other factors.

A sample of 283 teching nuns described the White Pupil, the Black Pupil, and the Ideal Pupil on an adjective description form. A Prejudice score was computed by subtracting the Ideal minus Black differences summed across 52 items from the Ideal minus White differences. Analyses based on 269 subjects revealed that neither age nor amount of prior contact with minorities predicted level of prejiduce. However, high and low-F-scale scorers differed significantly on the Prejudice score and on selected pupil perception factors. Implications in regard to training programs on racial attitudes were discussed.

Disturbed children's attitudes toward parents and peers as revealed by sentence completions.

A sample of child guidance patients was compared with a sample of school children previously studied by Harris and Tseng (1957) with regard to attitudes toward parents and peers as revealed in responses to a sentence completion test. The clinic children could not be differentiated by any single response trend. Instead, their reactions (and their differences from the normal children) depended upon their age, their sex, and the particular person toward whom they were reacting. They were, for example, almost as overwhelmingly positive in their attitudes toward the mother as were the normal children. They were considerably less positive toward like-sex peers; and, during adolescence only, were exaggeratedly positive toward peers of the opposite sex. Attitudes toward parent figures were also evaluated in relationship to factors such as parental presence and parental attitude.