Abusive parents' reports of child behavior problems: relationship to observed parent-child interactions.

Purpose: We evaluated the hypothesis that abusive parents' reports may exaggerate rates of child behavior problems in a clinical sample.

Method: The association between parental ratings of behavior problems and independent observations of child behaviors was examined in a sample of 205 clinic-referred families, 58 of which had a reported history of physical abuse.

Results: Relative to the comparison group, parents in the abuse group reported more externalizing problems in their children after controlling for parental psychopathology, and displayed more emotionally controlling and less supportive behavior during parent-child interactions.

Effects of psychotherapy for depression in children and adolescents: a meta-analysis.

Serious sequelae of youth depression, plus recent concerns over medication safety, prompt growing interest in the effects of youth psychotherapy. In previous meta-analyses, effect sizes (ESs) have averaged .99, well above conventional standards for a large effect and well above mean ES for other conditions.

Parent-child interactions in relation to critical and emotionally overinvolved expressed emotion (EE): is EE a proxy for behavior?

Expressed emotion measures, encompassing dimensions of criticism (CRIT), and emotional overinvolvement (EOI) are increasingly being used to assess the parent-child relationship in child clinical populations, despite the lack of studies assessing their validity. We examined the correspondence between CRIT, EOI, and parent-child interactions as observed by neutral coders in a sample of 252 clinic-referred children and adolescents, ages 7-17 years. We found support for the validity of the CRIT code, with high critical parents showing more antagonism, negativity, disgust, harshness, and less responsiveness, compared to parents who scored in the low or borderline ranges.