Risk factors for behavioral and emotional disorder in preadolescent children.

The relationship between risk factors and behavioral and emotional disorder was examined in 792 11-year-old children. Background characteristics such as sex, maternal depression, marital status of the parents, and reading problems distinguished between children with and without disorder. It also appeared that disorder was related to the number of risk factors experienced. This study, like others, failed to provide strong support for differences in background characteristics among children with different diagnoses. This may reflect the degree of overlap among disorders, because even children with only a single disorder may not be entirely free of the symptomatology of other disorders. For this reason it is important to assess children for multiple disorders or at least consider impaired functioning in other dimensions.