by Sonya Y.W. Law. / Includes Chinese and English questionnaires. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1997. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 80-89). / ABSTRACT --- p.II / ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS --- p.III / TABLE OF CONTENTS --- p.IV / LIST OF TABLES --- p.V / LIST OF APPENDICES --- p.VII / Chapter CHAPTER I - --- INTRODUCTION / The phenomenon of informant discrepancy on child and adolescent psychopathology --- p.8 / Variables affecting the agreement of informants in rating child and adolescent psychopathology --- p.11 / Who is the reliable and valid informant? --- p.25 / Focuses of the present study --- p.30 / Chapter CHAPTER II - --- METHOD / Subjects --- p.33 / Instruments --- p.34 / Procedure --- p.38 / Statistical analyses --- p.38 / Chapter CHAPTER III - --- RESULTS / "Internal Consistency of the CBCL, YSR, TRF syndrome scales and interrelation among syndromes scales" --- p.40 / Informant concordance - on the severity of reported symptoms --- p.46 / "correlation between parent's, teacher's, and child's rating" --- p.53 / "Association between parent-, teacher-, child-rated internalizing and externalizing problems and the external correlates of psychopathology" --- p.61 / Predictive ability of ratings from different informants on the external correlates of psychopathology --- p.64 / Chapter CHAPTER IV - --- DISCUSSION / Informant agreement on the severity of symptoms --- p.68 / "Correlation between ratings of different informants in relation to adolescent's sex, age, clinical status, and type of psychopathology" --- p.72 / Association between ratings from different informants and the external correlates of psychopathology --- p.75 / "Predictive ability of parent's, teacher's and adolescent's rating on the external correlates of psychopathology" --- p.77 / REFERENCES / APPENDICES

A review of the literature regarding behavioral characteristics and underlying factors for behaviorally disordered (BD) students revealed that both elementary school aged and secondary school aged BD students may be able to be described by a similar factor structure. Utilizing ratings obtained on a national sample of BD students with the Behavioral Dimensions Rating Scale (BDRS). Research Edition, the pattern of item ratings for students in grades kindergarten through five (K-5) and grades six through eleven (6-11) was examined to confirm this literature-based theory. Multigroup simultaneous confirmatory factor analysis using maximum likelihood estimation procedures was utilized to compare the covariance structures of students in grades K-5 and grades 6-11. A goodness-of-fit index revealed that the covariance matrices of the two groups were invariant. Since the same factor structure could be used to describe BD students in grades K-5 and grades 6-11, the means for the two groups were compared using Hotelling's T^2 statistic for two independent samples. The analysis resulted in finding a significant difference between the two groups' means. A univariate F test was conducted for the behavioral dimensions to locate the source of the mean difference. A significant difference was found only for Factor I: Aggressive/Acting Out, indicating that teachers perceive these types of behavior to be more problematic for students in grades K-5. No significant differences were found between the two groups' means on Factor II: Socially Withdrawn, Factor III: Irresponsible/Inattentive, or Factor IV: Fearful/Anxious. This investigation has demonstrated that teachers can use the BDRS, Research Edition with confidence when assessing the behaviors of both elementary and secondary school aged students. Areas for further investigation include an examination for invariance across (a) more narrowly defined grade distributions, (b) gender, and (c) socioeconomic status.

Interparental conflict has been shown to be associated with child psychopathology (internalizing and externalizing behaviors). Adolescents are at risk for developing internalizing and externalizing behaviors because they are aware of the implications of the interparental conflict, they can attempt to mediate the conflict, and because of age-related responsibilities, they often experience new and unfamiliar stressors. A comprehensive review of the literature revealed four mediational models with substantial empirical support that explain the relation between interparental conflict and adolescent psychopathology: the cognitive-contextual model, the triangulation model, the spillover model, and the interparental conflict-parental psychopathology model. Typically, the mediators of these models (self-blame/perceived threat; triangulation; negative parenting behaviors; parental psychopathology, respectively) have been examined individually. The aim of this study was threefold: 1) examine the specificity of adolescent psychopathology (dimension versus diagnosis), 2) test each theoretical model, and 3) develop and test an integrative model that included the mediational mechanisms from the individual models. A community sample of 152 families (mother, father, adolescent) was recruited from the contiguous United States. Considering specific psychiatric diagnoses did not improve the fit of models that included the respective adolescent dimensional internalizing or externalizing behaviors. The hypotheses of the cognitive-contextual model (mediator: perceived threat), spillover model (mediators: maternal/paternal parenting), and the interparental conflict-parental psychopathology model (mediators: maternal/paternal internalizing) were supported in this study, but mediation was not supported for the triangulation model. Considering the mediators together, adolescent perceived threat, negative parenting, maternal internalizing and paternal externalizing behaviors were key in predicting adolescent psychopathology. Overall, the findings from the integrative models suggest that externalizing behaviors (interparental conflict, negative parenting, paternal externalizing behavior) lead to both adolescent internalizing and externalizing behaviors; whereas, parental internalizing behaviors leads to internalizing behaviors only. The implications of these findings, especially from the integrative model, have clinical implications and provide guidance for future research.

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A number of investigations have been conducted to examine social cognition and psychopathology among adolescents, yet little is known about the social cognitive reasoning of adolescents identified as having severe behavioral disorders. The purpose of the present study was to explore the social cognitive reasoning of adolescent boys with behavioral disorders in comparison to their peers without behavioral disorders. Group differences were examined with respect to epistemic reasoning and the dimensions of adolescent egocentrism. In addition, the relation between social cognition and social relationships was investigated. Finally, the relation between social cognition and psychopathology was explored. Thirty-one adolescent boys with behavioral disorders and 32 of their peers without behavioral disorders (matched forage, race, and SES) participated in the study. All participants were individually administered measures designed to assess epistemic reasoning, imaginary audience and personal fable ideation (i.e., invulnerability, omnipotence, personal uniqueness), and personal-intimacy and groupintegration with peers and family. In addition, boys with behavioral disorders completed a measure of internalizing, externalizing, and total problem behaviors. Teacher-ratings of problem behaviors were also completed for each participant in the study. Results revealed that adolescent boys with behavioral disorders were lower in epistemic reasoning than were adolescent boys without behavioral disorders. Groups were not found to differ with respect to imaginary audience or personal fable ideation. For boys with behavioral disorders, no relation was found between social cognition and social relationships. In contrast, for boys without behavioral disorders, personal uniqueness was negatively related to group-integration with peers and omnipotence was positively related to group-integration with family. Social cognitive reasoning was found to predict self-reported problem behaviors for boys with behavioral disorders and teacher-re ported problem behaviors for boys without behavioral disorders. Overall, these results suggest the importance of epistemic reasoning in understanding the relation between social cognition and psychopathology.

This thesis explores how concepts of "adolescence" and "adolescent psychopathology" have become salient among medical and lay communities in Pelotas, a small town in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil's southernmost state. The concept of adolescence emerged throughout the 20th century in Western Europe and North America from various specialized fields, including evolutionary medicine, psychiatry, and developmental psychology. Within these sub-fields, adolescence came to refer to a transitional phase in the life span, and specifically, to the psychopathologies and psychological opportunities ensuing from what could potentially become a life-altering transformation. In the past two decades, this concept of adolescence has been adopted by a number of global health agencies, who depict the adolescent phase as an opportunity for addressing the underlying causes of multiple psychopathologies and accordingly, for improving the developmental "health" of nations. Concepts and practices relating to the management of adolescent psychopathology readily took hold in Pelotas in the 1990s, not only because local professional communities have been seeped in a psychoanalytic tradition dating back to the early 20th century, but also because of a recent growing community-based health care movement that prompted the expansion of publicly funded mental health services. This expansion widened definitions of "therapy" to include preventive care and social mobilization, and impacted significantly the identity, social role and political inclinations of practitioners. Due to these changes, psychiatrists and psychologists are showing greater interest in adolescent patients and their various common mental disorders, including "aggressiveness," nervos, anxiety, and learning and school achievement problems. Yet several social and class struggles ensue when practitioners, many of whom seek to maintain their psychodynamic models relatively intact, shift the focus of their work f

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Maine, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 119-134).

Thèse (M.Ps.) -- Université du Québec à Chicoutimi, programme en extension de l'Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, 2005. / La p. de t. porte en outre : Mémoire présenté à l'Université du Québec à Chicoutimi comme exigence partielle de la maîtrise en psychologie offerte l'Université du Québec à Chicoutimi en vertu d'un protocole d'entente avec l'Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières. Comprend des réf. bibliogr. : f. [115]-123. Document électronique également accessible en format PDF.

This thesis examines aspects of adolescent family mealtimes and psychopathology among both non-clinical (adolescents and mothers of adolescents) and clinical (adolescents with anorexia nervosa (AN)) samples. It contains seven studies employing quantitative methodology, which address three broad aims. First, to examine relationships between aspects of family mealtimes and psychopathology among adolescents. Second, to examine links between family mealtime emotions and psychopathology among mothers of adolescents. Finally, to examine associations between specific parental mealtime interactions and adolescent outcomes during a therapeutic meal session for adolescents with AN. Self-report questionnaires were completed by non-clinical adolescents and mothers of adolescents to examine associations between characteristics of family mealtimes (mealtime environment, mealtime emotions and parental feeding practices) and eating psychopathology, anxiety and depression. In addition, observational analyses were conducted on recordings of the family meal session (session two) of Family-Based Treatment (FBT) for adolescent AN. Key findings from this research include: identifying a new factor structure for the Eating Disorders Examination Questionnaire when used in research with adolescents; developing a measure to assess mealtime emotions in both adolescents and their parents; and, identifying the feeding strategies used by parents of adolescents with AN during the family meal session of FBT. Overall, the findings reported on in this thesis suggest that family mealtimes may have an important protective role in adolescent psychopathology. In addition to providing frequent family mealtimes, families should be encouraged to concentrate on the positivity of the mealtime environment and emotional experience, which may help to promote psychological well-being, and lower levels of eating psychopathology among adolescents. In relation to family mealtimes within adolescent AN, the findings increase understanding of the types of mealtime strategies parents use with their adolescent child to encourage food consumption during the family meal session of FBT. Furthermore, the research findings highlight that certain strategies may be effective in promoting eating during the session and weight gain later on in treatment. Consequently, such findings might provide a focus for therapists when supporting and coaching parents during the family meal session.