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Temperament in Australian infants
Author(s) -
OBERKLAID FRANK,
PRIOR MARGOT,
GOLVAN DEBORAH,
CLEMENTS ANTHONY,
WILLIAMSON AUDREY
Publication year - 1984
Publication title -
journal of paediatrics and child health
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.631
H-Index - 76
eISSN - 1440-1754
pISSN - 1034-4810
DOI - 10.1111/j.1440-1754.1984.tb00074.x
Subject(s) - temperament , medicine , internal consistency , population , consistency (knowledge bases) , test (biology) , clinical psychology , developmental psychology , pediatrics , demography , personality , psychometrics , psychology , environmental health , social psychology , sociology , paleontology , geometry , mathematics , biology
A convenience sample of 240 infants aged 4–8 months was studied to evaluate the suitability of a revised version of Carey's Infant Temperament Questionnaire (ITQ) for an Australian population. Data analyses indicated all item/dimension correlations significant at P <0.01 or better, satisfactory internal consistency of the instrument as measured by alpha coefficients, and test retest reliability of 0.79. Infants rated as having a ‘difficult’ temperament were significantly more likely to be reported as having problem behaviours. Significant differences were found between Australian and American inlants on three of the nine temperament dimensions — rhythmicity, activity and intensity. The results of this study indicate that this revised ITQ is suitable for use with Australian infants.