Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

3-1985

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Psychology

Major Professor

Leonard Handler

Committee Members

John F. Bryne, Alvin Burstein, Priscilla White

Abstract

Progress in child psychopathology has been hampered by the lack of a diagnostic system that reflects the typical symptom patterns found in children, and by the confusion and controversy surrounding the minimal brain dysfunction ("MBD"), attention deficit disorder ("ADD") and hyperactivity ("HA") categories. The purpose of this study was to determine the symptom clusters in a sample of out-patient children, to determine If there was a separate MBD/ADD/HA symptom cluster and to determine to which symptom clusters complications of pregnancy and select psychosocial variables relate.

Data were collected on 224 out-patient children, 6.0 to 11.11 years of age. Psychosocial variables were reduced vla In a principal component analysis with Varimax rotation. addition, each child was rated for complications of pregnancy as determined by the presence of congenital anomalies and the degree of prenatal stress, Intrapartum stress, neonatal stress and anoxia experienced.

A principal component analysis of the children's presenting problems, rotated via the Varimax procedure, yielded a seven factor solution; six factors were similar to those found by other researchers. Separate MBD/ADD/HA type factors were also found. These results support the belief that multivariate analysis can be used to provide a reliable and valid method of classifying children's symptoms. In addition, the Idea of a MBD/ADD/HA type factor existing as a separate symptom factor was supported.

Two canonical analyses were performed to determine the relationship between the domain of symptom factors and the domain of hypothesized etiological variables which consisted of complications of pregnancy In one analysis, and complications of pregnancy and the reduced psychosocial variables In the second analysis. While the results supported the idea that a MBD/ADD/HA type symptom cluster occurs more with males than with females, It did not support the notion that MBD/ADD/HA was related to complications of pregnancy. Instead, the results raised the hypothesis that other symptom clusters may be more related to complications. of pregnancy than the usually forwarded MBD/ADD/HA type factors.

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