This is the second phase of a three-phase prospective longitudinal study of 288 6- through 10-year-old disruptive and/or depressive boys. The general aims of the study are: to extend a two-factor model of child disruptive psychopathology to a third factor of depression or emotionality; to validate that extended three-factor model, using convergently and divergently valid direct measures of the three factors (i.e., hyperactivity, aggression, and emotionality); to compare the extended three-factor model to several stages of the DSM model; to improve understanding of comorbidity within and between the disruptive/depressive disorders; to develop and test methods for combining data into sound diagnostic decisions; and to make a unified proposal for subgrouping the disruptive and depressive disorders. There are eight subgroups of referred boys: (1) exclusively hyperactive = H; (2) exclusively aggressive = A; (3) exclusively emotional = E; (4) combined hyperactive and aggressive = HA; (5) combined hyperactive and emotional = HE; (6) combined aggressive and emotional = AE; (7) mixed hyperactive and aggressive and emotional = HAE; and (8) neither hyperactive nor aggressive nor emotional = psychiatric controls or PC, as well as 144 classmate controls or CC. The dependent criteria for external validation include: descriptive variables (e.g., age of onset, degree of impairment); family variables (e.g., family composition, parenting styles, marital harmony); cognitive and neuropsychological measures (e.g., intellectual functioning, academic skills, CPT); observational measures (e.g., behavior in play and task settings, parent-child interactions); personality measures (e.g., self-concept, sensation seeking, social cognition and attribution); generational indices (e.g., dimensions and disorders in first-degree relatives); course of symptoms (psychiatric symptoms/behavioral dimensions traced from ages 11 to 16); and general outcomes (psychiatric, cognitive, academic, social, and behavioral status at age 16). This second phase of the investigation will incorporate a sibling risk component, using information about 100 6- through 10-year-old sisters of the present sample of boys to answer questions about the expression, diagnosis, and development of disruptive and depressive symptoms and disorders in girls.
