Problems of studying antisocial behavior.

The importance of antisocial behaviour is underlined by the magnitude of the problem (largest category of emotional disturbance in youth) and by the poor psychosocial prognosis for the chronically affected child. The medical/psychological approach has pointed to the role of marital discord and parental psychopathology as significant features in the individual's environment predicting antisocial development. Conversely, sociology and criminology, which have begun with social theories, appear to have had less statistical success in accounting for aetiology. Definition of conduct disorder in terms of type, duration, frequency, and severity of anti-social behaviour is indispensible for the characterization of subgroups of affected children, and hence variables which protect against or accentuate risk factors. Prognosis depends among other things on age of onset (worse younger) and setting (home or community), implying that treatment programmes cannot be evaluated adequately without the differential characterisation of subgroups, their natural histories, and responsiveness to intervention. Although such data come from the study of individuals, case-by-case treatment runs the risk in certain groups of escalating anti-social behaviour. Thus community/youth oriented interventions, focusing on the remedial treatment of learning handicaps, improvement of non-school skills, may provide more promising points of attack. Incomplete knowledge of aetiology should not prevent action, provided the methodological issues raised serve as the basis for vigorous evaluation.