Behavioural and school adjustment of 12-13-year old internationally adopted children in Norway: a research note

Rutter's scales for parents and teachers were used to assess the behavioural and emotional adjustment of 151 12-13-year old internationally adopted children. Additional questions about school adjustment were added to the teachers' questionnaire. The majority of the adopted children were found to be well adjusted. However, the adopted children were given higher mean scores both for the full scale and on a "hyperactive" subscale than a comparison group of non-adopted children. More adopted than non-adopted children had problems with arithmetic. Adopted boys had higher mean scores than adopted girls on both Rutter scales. Age at adoption was unrelated to outcome.