Thomas Catron

The effectiveness of traditional child psychotherapy.

This study used a randomized design to evaluate the effectiveness of child psychotherapy as typically delivered in outpatient settings. Overall results were similar to the results of nonrandomized studies of traditional child psychotherapy: Little support was found for its effectiveness, with treatment producing an overall effect size of -.08. Despite the lack of significant differences between treatment and control groups in regard to changes in child functioning, parents of children who received treatment reported higher levels of satisfaction with services than control group parents whose children received academic tutoring. Overall, the findings highlight the importance of developing, validating, and transporting effective treatments to clinical settings.

The Vanderbilt School-Based Counseling Program An Interagency, Primary-Care Model Of Mental Health Services

In this report, the rationale, development, implementation, and evaluation of a school-based mental health services program for high-risk children with serious emotional and behavioral problems is described. The unmet needs of the target population and how a collaborative, primary care model of service delivery addresses the shortcomings of traditional mental health services is detailed. Finally, policy and future research directions are discussed.

Efficacy of the RECAP Intervention Program for Children With Concurrent Internalizing and Externalizing Problems

The authors evaluated the efficacy of RECAP, a psychosocial intervention developed to treat concurrent internalizing and externalizing problems in children. Participants included 93 4th-grade children assigned to the treatment group or a no-treatment control group. The school-based program, which lasts the 9-month academic year, provides individual, group, classroom, teacher, and parent training in the RECAP skills-development curriculum, which was derived from empirically supported treatment programs for nonconcurrent internalizing and externalizing problems. Outcome assessments included parent-, teacher-, self-, and peer reports. A mixed hierarchical linear models analysis indicated that, overall, treatment childrens rate of improvement in both internalizing and externalizing problems was significantly greater than that for control participants.

Common and specific features of childhood psychopathology

This article describes a conceptual and data-analytic model for characterizing different levels of common and specific features of child psychopathology: common features, which differentiate psychopathology from normality; broadband-specific features, which differentiate internalizing problems (e.g., anxiety, somatization) from externalizing problems (e.g., aggression, hyperactivity); and narrowband-specific features, which differentiate different narrowband syndromes (e.g., anxiety from somatization, hyperactivity from aggression) within each of the broadband syndromes. As an illustration of the model, data for 6 cognitive variables (e.g., global self-worth, causal attributions) are related to 6 psychopathology domains (e.g., aggression, depression) in a sample of 204 children. It is suggested that common features may be related to severity of psychopathology, whereas specific features may be more related to differentiation of psychopathology.

How I feel: a self-report measure of emotional arousal and regulation for children.

This article details the development and preliminary validation of a multidimensional self-report measure of emotion for 8- to 12-year-old children--the How I Feel (HIF). Item generation and selection occurred via 2 pilot administrations (ns = 250 and 378, respectively). Ten experts provided data on content validity. Exploratory factor analysis and subsequent confirmatory factor analysis with samples of 406, 524, 349, and 349 3rd-through 6th-grade children supported a 3-factor model, including the frequency and intensity of (a) positive emotion, (b) negative emotion, and (c) positive and negative emotion control. Results showed moderate longitudinal stability for 120 children over 2 years. Concurrent validity was established. The HIF can be useful in understanding the interplay between arousal and control in social-emotional adjustment in school-age children.

Specificity of the comorbidity of aggression and depression in children.

A number of investigations have reported that depressive and aggressive behavior are correlated in children. However, this relation actually may represent an association between the more broadband constructs of internalizing and externalizing problems. Three hundred fifty third through sixth graders and their teachers completed measures assessing aggression, anxiety, hyperactivity, and depression. Results of a second-order confirmatory factor analysis suggested that the relation between aggression and depression in fact may represent a more broadband relation between externalizing and internalizing problems. These findings may have implications for understanding of the causal processes underlying the relation between aggression and depression in children, and more generally, for our conceptualization of the nature of the comorbidity of depression and aggression.

An independent randomized clinical trial of multisystemic therapy with non-court-referred adolescents with serious conduct problems.

OBJECTIVE Adolescent conduct problems exact serious social as well as personal costs, and effective treatments are essential. One of the most widely disseminated and effective programs for the treatment of serious conduct problems in adolescents is Multisystemic Therapy (MST). However, most evaluations of MST have involved the developers of MST. The purpose of the present study was to conduct an independent evaluation of MST, with non-court-referred adolescents with conduct problems. METHOD Participants were 164 adolescents ages 11-18 years who were recruited from self-contained behavior intervention classrooms in public schools. Adolescents and their families were randomly assigned to receive MST or services as usual. Outcome measures assessed conduct problems, school functioning, and court records of criminal behavior. Participants were followed for 18 months after baseline using parent, adolescent, and teacher reports; arrest data were collected for 2.5 years postbaseline. RESULTS Two of 4 primary outcome measures focused on externalizing problems showed significant treatment effects favoring MST. Several secondary and intervention targets pertaining to family functioning and parent psychopathology showed positive effects of MST, and no negative effects were identified. CONCLUSIONS Results provide some further support for the effectiveness of MST, although smaller effect sizes than previous studies also suggest the complexity of successful dissemination, particularly to non-court-referred populations.

Development and Initial Validation of the Peer-Report Measure of Internalizing and Externalizing Behavior

This study describes the development and initial validation of the Peer-report Measure of Internalizing and Externalizing Behavior (PMIEB), a peer-nomination inventory that assesses internalizing (anxiety, depression, somatic complaints) and externalizing (aggression, delinquency, hyperactivity/attentional problems) psychopathology in school-aged children. Peer nomination inventories such as the PMIEB can provide an important perspective on childrens behavioral and emotional functioning, for purposes ranging from descriptive psychopathology to outcome assessments of school-based treatment programs. However, although there currently are peer-nomination inventories for several specific domains of behavioral and emotional problems, the PMIEB represents the first broadband peer-nomination assessment instrument that can efficiently provide peer-report information across a wide range of child emotional and behavioral problems. Results of this study provide support for the reliability and validity of both broadband PMIEB subscales, as well as 5 of the 6 narrowband PMIEB subscales.