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Parent ratings of school behaviour in children at risk of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

Sayal K, Taylor E

Department of Child Psychiatry, Institute of Psychiatry, Denmark Hill, London, UK. k.sayal@iop.kcl.ac.uk

OBJECTIVE: To investigate whether parents are accurate informants of child hyperactivity symptoms and impairment at school. METHOD: Parents of a community sample of 93 children with pervasive hyperactivity completed rating scales about their child's behaviour at home and school. These were compared with teacher ratings. RESULTS: Parent ratings about school correlate more closely with parent (home) than teacher ratings. Such ratings systematically under-estimate teacher ratings and are influenced by the child's behaviour at both home and school as well as parental mental health. However, a parental report of impairment for the child at school is likely to be accurate. CONCLUSION: There are limitations in relying on parental accounts of school behaviour if teacher ratings are unavailable. As such ratings may under-identify children with ADHD and discrepancies between parent and teacher ratings may reflect actual differences in behaviour, this suggests that ratings are required from both sets of informants.

Published 9 May 2005 in Acta Psychiatr Scand, 111(6): 460-5.
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