Do Problems of Clinic-Referred African-American Children Overlap with the Child Behavior Checklist?

Many factors contribute to children’s psychopathology. African-American children, members of the largest U.S. minority group, are reportedly at high risk for psychopathology, but researchers and developers of diagnostic measures seldom focus on them. We surveyed the clinic records of 1,605 African-American children, ages 4–18. Coders recorded children’s problems, their gender, and age. They coded children’s problems according to the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL). Overlap between some problems African-American children presented and CBCL items emerged but other problems did not match CBCL items. For problems which matched the CBCL, associations between such problems and children’s age emerged and boys had more problems than girls. The content and cultural validity of the CBCL for African-American children may, however, be questionable.