A psychiatric assessment procedure for children 1 1/2 to 5 years was developed and used in an ongoing study of offspring of normal and depressed parents. The procedure is a semi-structured play interview consisting of 3 10-minute segments: free play, doll play and aggressive play. The child's behavior is rated on a 15 item, 7 point unidirectional scale. A clinical rating is also made of overall psychiatric risk, emotional regulation, attachment, and coping and mastery. Finally, a clinical assessment is made of areas of concern in the child's behavior. The instrument was administered to 127 toddlers, and coding has been completed on 90. These data have indentified two groups of children who may be at risk for future psychopathology. One group shows repeated instances of maladaptive behavior throughout the observation session, while the other group shows less frequent, but more extreme forms of troublesome behavior. Follow-up research will indicate which of the patterns is most predictive of later psychopathology.
