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How well do parents understand their own psychotic child?

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Abstract

A study designed to test a hypothesis that parents can assess their psychotic child's level of development with reasonable accuracy is presented and discussed. Forty-two fathers and 45 mothers of 47 children with a mean age of 5 years and 4 months were asked to estimate their child's level of functioning in overall development, language, motor, social skills, self-sufficiency, and mental development. Parental estimates were then compared with those based on standard psychological testing. Correlations indicating that parents were very good predictors of test-based estimates remained significant even when possible influences of parental knowledge of the child's age were taken into account. Parents whose children were mildly psychotic were relatively poorer estimators than parents of moderately or severely psychotic children. It is suggested that professionals can utilize parental assessments when psychological testing of the psychotic child is not feasible.

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This study was supported in part by the National Institute of Mental Health, Grant MH-15539. The authors gratefully acknowledge the statistical consultation of Dr. Anthony Conger and Mr. J. Levinson, and the assistance in collection and analysis of the data by Mrs. Ginger Strickland, Research Assistant in the Child Research Project.

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Schopler, E., Reichler, R.J. How well do parents understand their own psychotic child?. J Autism Dev Disord 2, 387–400 (1972). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01538171

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01538171

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