Mental Health Professionals' Perception of the Utility of Children, Mothers, and Teachers as Informants on Childhood Psychopathology

Surveyed clinicians' and researchers' perceptions of the relative usefulness of prepubertal children, their mothers, and teachers as informants on children's problem behavior. Findings showed a high level of agreement within types of informants surveyed. Children were seen as the least useful informants on their own hyperactivity, attention problems, and oppositional behavior. Teachers were judged superior to mothers as informants on children's hyperactivity/inattentiveness; these relative ratings were reversed for oppositional child behavior. Children and mothers were perceived as more useful informants than teachers, on children's internalizing problems, with mothers scoring higher than children in all but one area–worrying. The survey results largely agree with those of other studies using different methods.