Assessment of behavioral and emotional problems of preschool children: A comparative analysis of mothers', fathers' and caregivers-teachers' evaluations

Abstract

Due evaluation of possible emotional disorders in preschool age is important not only from a theoretical point of view, explaining the etiology, the development, and the prognosis of psychopathology, but also from practical positions applying early psychopathologic intervention and prevention programs. In general, in order to evaluate psychological adaptation of young children, it is necessary to collect information from several sources. This research aims to analyse the information about behavioural and emotional difficulties of children collected from three different sources – mother, father, and nurse – using CBCL/1½-5 and CTRF/1½-5 (Achebach and Rescorla, 2000) scales and compare it to each other in order to find out whether the information collected from different sources about the same child is coincident. The results show that internal coincidence of both scales is better of evaluations provided by nurses than parents. The evaluations of mothers and fathers are more coincident than that of nurses and parents. The evaluations of girls are less different and more coincident than boys. Average evaluations of parents under different scales are higher than those of nurses, except concentration difficulties and withdrawal. Summarising the results of the research, the author sets guidelines for possible further research of early child development and discusses possibilities of psychological evaluation of children.