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Our purpose in this article was to determine the degree of consistency between different informants' reports of the behavioral/emotional problems of subjects aged from 11/2 to 19 years. We found 269 samples in 119 studies for meta-analyses of Pearson rs between ratings by parents, teachers, mental health workers, observers, peers, and the subjects themselves. The mean rs between all types of informants were statistically significant. The mean rs were .60 between similar informants (e.g., pairs of parents), .28 between different types of informants (e.g., parent/teacher), and .22 between subjects and other informants. Correlations were significantly higher for 6- to 11-year-olds than for adolescents, and for undercontrolled versus overcontrolled problems, although these differences were not large. The modest correlations between informants indicate that child and adolescent problems are not effectively captured by present-versus-absent judgments of problems. Instead, the variations between reports by different informants argue for assessment in terms of multiple axes designed to reflect the perceived variations in child and adolescent functioning.

(C) 1987 by the American Psychological Association