Adjustment Scales for Children and Adolescents and Native American Indians

Abstract

The present study reports on the replication of the core syndrome factor structure of the Adjustment Scales for Children and Adolescents (ASCA) for a sample of 229 Native American Indian (Yavapai Apache) children and adolescents from rural north-central Arizona. The six ASCA core syndromes produced the identical two-factor solution as the standardization sample, an independent sample, and a sample of Native American Indians (Ojibwe) from north-central Minnesota. Principal-axis analysis using multiple criteria for the number of factors to extract and retain was used with varimax, direct oblimin, and promax rotations producing identical results and nearly identical factor structure coefficients. As with earlier studies, it was concluded that the ASCA measures two independent global dimensions of youth psychopathology (Overactivity and Underactivity) that are similar to the conduct problems/externalizing and withdrawal/internalizing dimensions commonly found in the child psychopathology assessment literature.