Raters' Views of the Problems and Competence of Adolescent Girls

Abstract

This study had 3 goals: (a) to identify the raters who could find adolescent girls in need of mental health services, (b) to identify the raters who could find adolescent girls eligible for special education services, and (c) to determine the relation between behavior problems and competence for hospitalized and comparison samples of girls. We obtained the ratings of parents, teachers, and youth for 16 girls who had been treated in a psychiatric hospital and 16 girls who had not been treated, for total behavior problems and competence, according to Achenbach's Child Behavior Checklist (1991a), Child Behavior Checklist Teacher Form (1991b), and Youth Self-Report Form (1991c). We found that parents identified their hospitalized daughters as clinically disturbed and in need of mental health services, and that parents of hospitalized girls were the only raters who had any significant agreement with teachers and could contribute to finding girls eligible for special education. We also found, within and across raters of comparison girls, a significant and negative correlation between the constructs of behavior problems and competence, a finding that has implications for treating girls' behavior problems by boosting their academic competence.