Dimensions of Behaviour in Infant School Children

¹ Staff of Nuffield Psychiatric Unit and Department of Psychological Medicine, Queen Victoria Infirmary, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 4LP
² Royal Hospital for Sick Children, Edinburgh, EH9 1LF

1. The behaviour of infant school children can be described along two dimensions: conduct disorder and neurotic disorder, which are universally recognizable in other multivariate studies. The additional dimensions which have emerged in this study may be more specific to younger children. The content of these first two dimensions and the form and structure of other dimensions described in various studies are determined by the source of information about the children's behaviour (parents, teachers, etc.), the method of eliciting descriptions of behaviour (checklists, interviews, etc.), the population studied, i.e. age (this study), sex (Collins et al., 1962) type of sample (normal, clinic, etc.), items included in the behaviour scales, and whether item scores are summated (Conners, 1970 and this paper). The first two dimensions appear ubiquitous in form though not in content.

2. A brief questionnaire has been developed for quantifying behaviour in infant school children. It consists of 24 questions with appropriate probes which relate to four dimensions. Tentative norms are provided for the above four dimensions.

3. Probes and definitions of scales are available on request (to I.K.).