Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry
New ResearchPredictive Value of Callous-Unemotional Traits in a Large Community Sample
Section snippets
Sample
In 2004, a sample of British children aged 5 to 16 years was identified using the child benefit register.15 In Great Britain, “child benefit” is a universal state benefit payable for each child in the family, and it has an extremely high uptake. For this reason, the British Child and Adolescent Mental Health Survey 2004 used the child benefit register to develop a sampling frame of postal sectors from England, Wales, and Scotland. Families whose record was under revision or who had no recorded
Results
At the baseline assessment, CU trait ratings were obtained from the parents of 7,636 children (96% of respondents). Of these children, 88% had no definite CU traits, 8% had one definite trait, 2% had two definite traits, and 2% had three or more definite traits. The CU traits were significantly correlated (p < .001 for all correlations) with the five SDQ symptom scores: conduct symptoms (r = 0.46), emotional symptoms (r = 0.24), hyperactivity symptoms (r = 0.33), peer problems (r = 0.30), and
Discussion
In this large study of a representative sample of children and adolescents, after controlling for the effects of potential confounders, CU traits were longitudinally associated with the overall level of psychiatric problems (SDQ total difficulties score) and specifically with conduct and emotional problems, although not with hyperactivity problems. As in our previous follow-up of the same cohort,14 the strongest predictor of future psychiatric symptoms was the baseline symptom score, and by
References (29)
- et al.
Callous/unemotional traits and social-cognitive processes in adjudicated youths
J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry
(2003) - et al.
Reduced eye gaze explains “fear blindness” in childhood psychopathic traits
J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry
(2008) Psychometric properties of the strengths and difficulties questionnaire
J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry
(2001)- et al.
Strengths and difficulties questionnaire as a dimensional measure of child mental health
J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry
(2009) - et al.
Young children of affectively ill parents: a longitudinal study of psychosocial development
J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry
(1992) - et al.
Adolescent development and the measurement of juvenile psychopathy
Law Hum Behav
(2002) The Mask of Sanity
(1976)- et al.
Refining the construct of psychopathy: towards a hierarchical model
Psychol Assess
(2001) - et al.
Callous-unemotional traits and the emotional processing of distress cues in detained boys: testing the moderating role of aggression, exposure to community violence, and histories of abuse
Dev Psychopathol
(2008) - et al.
Research review: the importance of callous-unemotional traits for developmental models of aggressive and antisocial behavior
J Child Psychol Psychiatry
(2008)
Evidence for substantial genetic risk for psychopathy in 7-year-olds
J Child Psychol Psychiatry
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
The ICD-10 Classification of Mental and Behavioural Disorders: Diagnostic Criteria for Research
Research review: DSM-V conduct disorder: research needs for an evidence base
J Child Psychol Psychiatry
Cited by (0)
The British Child and Adolescent Mental Health Surveys of 1999 and 2004 and their longitudinal extensions were funded by the Department of Health and the Scottish Executive and performed by the Office for National Statistics.