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Assessment of children's emotional adjustment: construction and validation of a new instrument
Author(s) -
Thorlacius Ö.,
Gudmundsson E.
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
child: care, health and development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.832
H-Index - 82
eISSN - 1365-2214
pISSN - 0305-1862
DOI - 10.1111/cch.12214
Subject(s) - psychology , psychopathology , cronbach's alpha , clinical psychology , anxiety , confirmatory factor analysis , convergent validity , scale (ratio) , exploratory factor analysis , child psychopathology , developmental psychology , mood , psychometrics , psychiatry , internal consistency , structural equation modeling , statistics , physics , mathematics , quantum mechanics
Abstract Background The present study describes the Children's Emotional Adjustment Scale ( CEAS ), a 47‐item parent‐reported scale designed to capture children's emotional functioning on four continuous dimensions. Method A large community sample of mothers of children ( n = 606) aged 6–13 years was used to examine the psychometric properties of the CEAS . Results Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis supported the hypothesized four‐factor structure of the instrument: (1) temper control; (2) anxiety control; (3) mood repair; and (4) social assertiveness. Cronbach's alphas for the factors were consistently above 0.90, and convergent validity of the factors was satisfactory with maternal ratings of child psychopathology. Children rated by their mothers as having emotional problems in the clinical range on the S trengths and D ifficulties Q uestionnaire had significantly lower scores on the CEAS scales. Conclusions The CEAS is a psychometrically sound instrument, covering healthy emotional adjustment as well as maladjustment. The scale might prove to be valuable in the assessment and screening of behaviours underlying child psychopathology.