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Childhood emotional and behavioural problems: a comparison of children's reports with reports from parents and
M G Sawyer1, J J Clark, P A Baghurst
1Evaluation Unit, Adelaide Children's Hospital, Australia.
Insights
Children report more emotional and behavioral issues than their parents or teachers, especially older girls reporting internalizing problems. This highlights discrepancies in child behavior assessments.
Area of Science:
- Child psychology
- Developmental psychology
- Pediatric health
Background:
- Pediatricians frequently assess children with emotional and behavioral problems.
- Discrepancies often arise between self-reports and informant reports (parents, teachers) regarding child behavior.
Purpose of the Study:
- To compare the number of childhood emotional and behavioral problems reported by children versus their parents and teachers.
- To investigate patterns in these discrepancies across different problem types and demographics.
Main Methods:
- A comparative study assessing emotional and behavioral problems in community-dwelling children.
- Data collected through self-reports from children, and reports from their parents and teachers.
Main Results:
- Children consistently reported higher numbers of both internalizing and externalizing problems compared to parent and teacher reports.
- This pattern was most pronounced in older female children reporting internalizing problems.
Conclusions:
- Significant differences exist in how children perceive their emotional and behavioral problems compared to adult informants.
- These findings have implications for accurate assessment and diagnosis in pediatric practice.
Abstract:
Paediatricians are often asked to assess children with emotional and behavioural problems and are faced with the dilemma that reports about the children's behaviour obtained from the children, and from their parents and teachers, may differ. This study compares the number of childhood emotional and behavioural problems reported by children living in the community, with the number of problems reported by their parents and teachers. When describing both internalizing and externalizing problems, the children consistently reported that they had more problems than were reported by either their parents or teachers. This pattern was particularly evident with reports from older female children who reported many more internalizing problems than were reported by their parents and teachers. Possible reasons for the differences between reports from children and the other informants are discussed.