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Studied the relationship between chronic thumb-sucking and behavior problems reflective of psychopathology. Compared scores on the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) and Eyberg Child Behavior Inventory (ECBI) for matched samples of thumb-sucking, referred, and nonreferred children. Mean scores for the thumb-sucking and nonreferred samples were equivalent and were significantly lower than scores for the referred sample. Comparing scores for older children (8-14 years) and younger children (4-7 years) did not produce a significant interaction. Correlating measures of thumb-sucking severity with ECBI and CBCL scores produced only 8 (of 42) significant correlations and a mean correlation of only .09. Collectively our results provide little support for the theoretically derived notion that thumb-sucking is necessarily a symptom of psychopathology.
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Friman et al. (1994) studied this question.
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