Personality Inventory For Youth Research Articles

Strengths and Limitations of the Personality Inventory for Youth (PIY) in Juvenile Delinquency Assessments

This article highlights and discusses the usefulness of the Personality Inventory for Youth (PIY) in juvenile delinquency assessments. Psychiatric disorders have high prevalence rates among youths ...

Parent–Child Discrepancies in Report of Psychopathology: The Contributions of Response Bias and Parenting Stress

This study explored the associations between response-bias features, parenting stress, and parent–child discrepancies in self-report and parent ratings of psychopathology in a sample of 153 preadolescents from an inpatient psychiatric setting. Correlational and multiple regression analyses utilized combinations of dissimulation (FB) and defensiveness (DEF) validity scales from the Personality Inventory for Youth (PIY; Lachar & Gruber, 1995) and Personality Inventory for Children (PIC–2; Lachar & Gruber, 2001) and components from Abidin's (1995) Parenting Stress Index (PSI) to predict normalized parent–child discrepancies between the PIY/PIC–2 clinical scales. Response-bias features were significantly associated with hypothesized patterns of under- and overreporting and accounted for most of the variance in parent–child discrepancies. Although child stress components of the PSI demonstrated a generalized pattern of moderate relationships with parent–child discrepancies, parent stress components demonstrated a weaker and more specific pattern of relationships.

Correspondence of the Millon Adolescent Clinical Inventory (MACI) and the Personality Inventory for Youth (PIY) in Juvenile Offenders

ABSTRACT This study examined the correspondence between the Millon Adolescent Clinical Inventory (MACI) and the Personality Inventory for Youth (PIY) in a sample of 105 incarcerated juvenile offenders. Intercorrelations between MACI and PIY scales ranged from −.66 to .67; 191 (79%) of the 243 correlations were statistically significant (p < .05). However, diagnostic correspondence between the two instruments was modest, with kappa coefficients for five pairs of conceptually similar scales (e.g., MACI Delinquent Predisposition and PIY Delinquency) ranging from .04 to .48. Surprisingly, most juvenile offenders did not obtain clinically significant elevations on the MACI (32) or PIY (19) delinquency scales. We caution clinicians about the different findings that result from the choice of self-report instrument to assess juvenile offenders.

Self-Report Problem Scales and Subscales and Behavioral Ratings Provided by Peers

The relationship between children's self-reported problems on the Personality Inventory for Youth (PIY) and peer descriptors derived from the Pupil Evaluation Inventory was examined in a regular education sample of 156 children in fourth through eighth grade. The relative contributions of the PIY scales and subscales to the prediction of peer ratings were compared. Peer ratings of withdrawn, disruptive, and prosocial behaviors were substantially correlated to self-report problem scales made up of logically related content. The addition of more content-specific PIY subscales contributed to the prediction made by PIY scales of peer-reported disruptive behaviors and withdrawal.

Bell Object Relations Inventory for Adolescents and Children: Reliability, Validity, and Factorial Invariance

The Bell Object Relations Inventory (BORI; Bell, 1995) is a self-report instrument that measures deficits in object relations ego functioning. It has demonstrated clinical and research utility in adult populations. This article reports the development of a version of the BORI for children ages 11 to 17, including studies of reliability, validity, and factorial invariance. Data of 705 children from public schools and 110 children from clinics and residential treatments were used. Of the 45 original BORI true/false items, 3 were dropped as inappropriate and most others were rewritten for easier reading. An additional 16 items were created to capture unique features of adolescent experiences in relationships. Items were tested in focus groups and revised accordingly. Eight items were dropped because of low communalities, so that 50 items were included in the final factor analysis. Assessments using self-report items from Behavioral Assessment Scale for Children (BASC; Reynolds & Camphaus, 1992) and the Personality Inventory for Youth (PIY) were also obtained to test concurrent validity. Oblique rotation yielded 5 factors. Four were very similar to the 4 from the adult version and were named accordingly: Alienation, Insecure Attachment, Egocentricity, and Social Incompetence. The fifth scale was comprised mostly of new items and was called Positive Attachment. Scales showed excellent factorial invariance and good internal consistency. Scales generally had very low intercorrelations reflecting their relative independence. Although differences were found for gender and race, the effect sizes were small. Support for construct validity came from moderate correlations with concurrent BASC and PIA scores, analyses of variance showing greater deficits in object relations in pathological subgroups compared with normals, and a trend analysis showed that Alienation scores followed a lawful relationship with increasing severity of psychopathology. These initial findings support the psychometric integrity of the instrument and its construct validity. Results indicate continuity of constructs between the adult and adolescent versions. The Positive Attachment subscale may prove a valuable addition for clinical and research applications.

Trauma Specific versus Generic Measurement of Distress and the Validity of Self-Reported Symptoms in Sexually Abused Children

ABSTRACT This study examined two issues in the assessment of child sexual abuse victims: sensitivity to trauma-related symptoms and validity of self-reports. The Trauma Symptom Checklist for Children (TSCC) and Personality Inventory for Youth (PIY) were completed by 41 sexually abused children. Parents and children completed diagnostic interviews for PTSD. We predicted that TSCC validity scales would be moderately correlated with PIY scales measuring similar constructs, and that TSCC clinical scales would be more sensitive to PTSD status than the PIY clinical scales. Results supported both hypotheses. TSCC validity scales appeared to be less likely to identify clinical cases, however. Clinical and research implications are discussed.

Self‐report objective measures of personality for children: A review of psychometric properties for RQC

AbstractKnoff (1995) indicated that Referral Question Consultation (RQC) can be applied to personality assessment and suggested several self‐report objective measures that could be consistent with this approach. The current article reviews the tools mentioned by Knoff, including the Children's Personality Questionnaire, The Millon Adolescent Clinical Inventory, The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory–Adolescents, The Personality Inventory for Youth, and The Self Report of Personality (SRP) from the Behavior Assessment System for Children. Each review addressed the reliability of the scales and composite scores, validity, usefulness of results for planning interventions, the empirical basis for analyses of individual items, and whether each measure accounted for response biases. The appropriateness of each for use with RQC, and individual strengths and weaknesses varied considerably. Therefore, practitioners should keep each test's limitations in mind when using it for intervention planning, and future research is needed to validate the tools for this purpose. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Assessment of Disordered Thinking in Children and Adolescents: The Rorschach Perceptual- Thinking Index

The new Rorschach Perceptual-Thinking Index (PTI; Exner, 2000a, 2000b) was designed to assess thought disorders more accurately than the Schizophrenia Index (SCZI; Exner, 1993). Using a sample of child and adolescent inpatients, we examined the relation of Rorschach variables (PTI, SCZI, M-, and X - %) to thought disorder indexes on a behavior rating scale (Behavior Assessment System for Children; Reynolds & Kamphaus, 1992) and a self-report measure (Personality Inventory for Youth; Lachar & Gruber, 1995). Results indicate that, when used in a categorical manner, the PTI differentiated between those patients with and without elevated thought disorder scores on the other measures. Of all Rorschach variables, M- was most related to the other measures, indicating that this variable may be a particularly robust indicator of thought disorder among children and adolescents.

The Personality Inventory for Youth: Validity and Comparability of English and Spanish Versions for Regular Education and Juvenile Justice Samples

In this study we examined the comparability of the Personality Inventory for Youth (PIY; Lachar & Gruber, 1993, 1995)-Spanish version to its English counterpart among bilingual Mexican American male and female high school students (n = 120), and among incarcerated bilingual Mexican American male adolescents (n = 52). Results indicated that language (English vs. Spanish) was not associated with a significant effect on the PIY scales or subscales for male adolescents in the juvenile justice facility, but was associated with a marginal effect for regular education adolescents; more specifically, regular education students completing the PIY in Spanish reported somewhat lower levels of symptoms than those completing the English version. Also, incarcerated males obtained significantly higher scores than regular education males on all 9 clinical and 19 out of 24 clinical subscales. Overall, the results of this study suggest that both language versions of the PIY may be applied usefully in the study and treatment of a variety of problems relevant to juvenile populations. Additional findings are discussed.

Performance of the Personality Inventory for Youth validity scales.

Response sets as well as cognitive and academic deficits compromise the validity of child and adolescent self-report of emotional adjustment. Three studies using clinical and asymptomatic samples of 4th to 12th grade students detail applications of the four validity scales of the Personality Inventory for Youth (PIY), namely, (a) Validity (VAL) a scale of six highly improbable statements, (b) Inconsistency (INC) consisting of pairs of highly correlated statements, (c) Dissimulation (FB) constructed of statements that were infrequent and characteristic of intentional distortion, and (d) Defensiveness (DEF) an extension of the Lie scale of the parent-report Personality Inventory for Children. The effects of minimizing, malingering, and random response sets on the PIY validity scales are reported. The importance of such validity scales derived from child and adolescent response is discussed.

Development and Validation of Disruptive Behavior Scales for the Student Behavior Survey (SBS)

This study evaluated the 102 items of the Student Behavior Survey (SBS; Lachar, Kline, Wingenfeld, &amp; Gruber, 1995). The SBS is a teacher behavioral rating scale that can be used with the parent-informant Personality Inventory for Children, the student-informant Personality Inventory for Youth (Lachar &amp; Gruber, 1995; Wirt, Lachar, Klinedinst, &amp; Seat, 1984), or as a stand-alone instrument. Three disruptive behavior scales (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity, Oppositional Defiant, and Conduct Problems), developed through consensual nomination to DSM-IV criteria, obtained empirical support for item placement and demonstrated positive psychometric properties. These scales possessed excellent internal consistency and adequate temporal stability and interrater reliability. Student gender, age, and referral status affected scale elevation in expected ways. These three SBS scales also obtained strong correlations with conceptually related independent measures and discriminated among subgroups of clinical and special education students.

The Personality Inventory for Youth (PIY)-Spanish Version: Reliability and Equivalence to the English Version

The present study, using bilingual (English-Spanish) college freshmen as participants, evaluated the psychometric characteristics of the Personality Inventoryfor Youth (PIY) that was translated into Spanish. The scales and subscales of the PIY-Spanish Version demonstrated internal consistency and temporal stability estimates comparable to their English counterparts established in both the present sample of college freshmen and in the PIY normative sample of students attending regular education classes ranging from 9 to 18 years of age. Multivariate analysis did not identify a language effect within the four study samples (English-English, Spanish-Spanish, English-Spanish, Spanish-English) for either profile scales or subscales, and the substantial correlations between English and Spanish versions obtainedfrom the same bilingual students approached and occasionally exceeded the limits established for temporal reliability in both English and Spanish translations.

Validity of self- and parent-report scales in screening students for behavioral and emotional problems in elementary school

The comparative validity of the child-report Classroom Screening Scale (CLASS) from the Personality Inventory for Youth (PIY), and the parent-report Adjustment Scale (ADJ) from the Personality Inventory for Children (PIC) was examined. The subjects were 111 children from fourth- through sixth-grade regular education classrooms. Children were classified as positive or negative for risk status on each screening scale using a cutoff of 60T. Parent description identified a higher proportion of children as at risk. Those identified as “at risk” by either parent or child report were more likely than others to have clinically elevated scores on both the PIC and PIY clinical scales. High scores on CLASS were more likely to have clinically significant elevations than were high scorers on ADJ. Parent report appeared to be sensitive to overt behavioral problems, while self-report was sensitive to mood disturbances and withdrawal. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Book Review: New Objective Ratings Scales for Child Assessment, II. Self-Report Scales for Children and Adolescents: Self-Report of Personality of the Behavior Assessment System for Children, the Youth Self-Report, and the Personality Inventory for Youth

Book Review: New Objective Ratings Scales for Child Assessment, II. Self-Report Scales for Children and Adolescents: Self-Report of Personality of the Behavior Assessment System for Children, the Youth Self-Report, and the Personality Inventory for Youth