Generality Of Disordered Behavior Across Populations Of Normal And Deviant School Children: Factorial Relations Analyses

In order to assess empirically the assumption that dimensions of child behavior disturbance remain invariant across adjusted and maladjusted segments of the population, teachers' behavior ratings of 2,527 randomly selected 5- to 15-year-old children were compiled to yield scores for eight groupings of maladaptive behavior. The children were separated into three groups, i.e., an adjusted sample containing 2,017 children with overall behavioral indices in the 'normal' range, a maladjusted sample containing the remaining 519 children diagnosed as significantly 'deviant,' and a total sample comprised of both adjusted and maladjusted children. Each sample was independently subjected to principal-components factor analysis with varimax rotation. The resultant factor structures were interpreted and thereafter submitted to a three-way analysis of factor structure relations according to Kaiser's analytic comparison method. Although some strong similarities existed among the factor solutions, with certain individual factors being continuous from one sample to another, the generality of dimensions of disordered behavior was not confirmed. The implications for researchers and clinicians are discussed.