Peer status and the directionality of symptomatic behavior: prime social competence predictors of outcome for vulnerable children.

Social competence data from four target groups of vulnerable children--children of schizophrenic mothers; children of neurotic mothers; clinic children with externalizing symptomology; clinic children with internalizing symptomology--and from a large control group of their public school classmates, strongly suggest that peer-rated social incompetence and presence of externalizing behavior disorders are the best predictors of which vulnerable children run the greatest risk of poor adult outcome.