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Identification of Developmentally Appropriate Screening Items for Disruptive Behavior Problems in Preschoolers

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Abstract

Screening preschool-aged children for disruptive behavior disorders is a key step in early intervention. The study goal was to identify screening items with excellent measurement properties at sub-clinical to clinical levels of disruptive behavior problems within the developmental context of preschool-aged children. Parents/caregivers of preschool-aged children (N = 900) were recruited from four pediatric primary care settings. Participants (mean age = 31, SD = 8) were predominantly female (87 %), either white (55 %) or African-American (42 %), and biological parents (88 %) of the target children. In this cross-sectional survey, participants completed a sociodemographic questionnaire and two parent-report behavioral rating scales: the PSC-17 and the BPI. Item response theory analyses provided item parameter estimates and information functions for 18 externalizing subscale items, revealing their quality of measurement along the continuum of disruptive behaviors in preschool-aged children. Of 18 investigated items, 5 items measured only low levels of disruptive behaviors among preschool-aged children. The remaining 13 items measured sub-clinical to clinical levels of disruptive behavior problems (i.e., >1.5 SD); however, 5 of these items offered less information, suggesting unreliable measurement. The remaining 8 items had high discrimination and difficulty parameters, offering considerable measurement information at sub-clinical to clinical levels of disruptive behavior problems. Behaviors measured by the 8 selected parent-report items were consistent with those identified in recent efforts to distinguish developmentally typical misbehaviors from clinically concerning behaviors among preschool-aged children. These items may have clinical utility in screening young children for disruptive behavior disorders.

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Notes

  1. Differential item functioning analyses revealed no significant differences in item parameter estimates by questionnaire ordering condition (results available from the author upon request).

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Acknowledgments

This manuscript was completed with the support of an award (8KL2TR000116-02) from the University of Kentucky CTSA (UL1RR033173), supported by the National Center for Research Resources, now at the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH.

The authors wish to thank the physicians, staff, and patients of the University of Louisville Department of Pediatrics and Oldham County Pediatrics, as well as Gerard M. Barber, Ph.D., James Clark, Ph.D., Andrew J. Frey, Ph.D., and V. Faye Jones, M.D., for their support. The authors also acknowledge the invaluable data collection assistance of Judith Friedrich, Ph.D., Demeka Campbell, M.D., and Cynthia Bowman-Stroud, M.D.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

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  1. Department of Behavioral Science, University of Kentucky, 101 Medical Behavioral Science Building, Lexington, KY, 40536-0086, USA

    Christina R. Studts

  2. Kent School of Social Work, University of Louisville, Oppenheimer Hall, Louisville, KY, 40292, USA

    Michiel A. van Zyl

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Correspondence to Christina R. Studts.

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Studts, C.R., van Zyl, M.A. Identification of Developmentally Appropriate Screening Items for Disruptive Behavior Problems in Preschoolers. J Abnorm Child Psychol 41, 851–863 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-013-9738-8

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