The maternal perinatal scale as a predictor of future emotional disturbance and its relationship with the factor structure within the child behavior checklist

• Main Author: Shockley, Mary Ann
• Other Authors: Fischer, Wyman E.
• Format: Others
• Published: 2011
• Subjects: Mentally ill children.; Prenatal influences.; Prenatal care.; Child psychology.
• Online Access: http://cardinalscholar.bsu.edu/handle/handle/180739; http://liblink.bsu.edu/uhtbin/catkey/897478

The present study investigated the use of the Maternal Perinatal Scale (MPS) as an instrument for predicting group membership among normal versus emotionally handicapped children. An examination of neurological symptoms as they relate to specific behavioral factors within the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) was conducted, as well as an investigation of the relationship between factors within the MPS as predictors of specific behaviors within the CBCL. Subjects included 119 EH students and 211 normal subjects with a mean age of 10 years, 3 months. Samples were collected from a suburban midwestern area of approximately 800,000 population.Results of discriminant analyses indicated that the MPS items were able to predict group membership with 85.5% accuracy when the mother's history was included and 88.2% when the Childhood Checklist was added as additional data. Out of 66 possible factors, 22 yielded correlations which were significant at the .01 level.A significant relationship between the total number of neurological symptoms observed in a child and the degree of behavioral deviance as reported with the CBCL was an outstanding feature of this study. Nine of ten factors on the CBCL were correlated with the total NSI score at the .01 level of significance, with Attention Problems demonstrating the greatest degree of relationship. Canonical analysis of the MPS factors as predictors of specific CBCL subscales yielded vague results. Although several correlations were significant, the pattern of variance provided a minimal degree of interpretive utility.Future research stemming from these results would include further examination of the nature of relationships between perinatal factors and mother's history, as well as the incorporation of strategies to provide early intervention to infants and children at risk for future placement in the EH category. The MPS appears to offer promise as a tool for bringing consistency and replicability into the area of perinatal research, as well as serving to assist in the early identification of at-risk children. The prospect of predicting specific behavioral factors from perinatal variables continues to be a viable direction for future study. === Department of Educational Psychology