Citation

Petras H, Ialongo N, Lambert SF, Barrueco S, Schaeffer CM, Chilcoat H, Kellam S. J. Am. Acad. Child Adolesc. Psychiatry 2005; 44(8): 790-797.

Affiliation

Dr. Petras is with the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Maryland, College Park; Drs. Ialongo and Chilcoat are with the Department of Mental Health, Johns Hopkins University; Baltimore; Dr. Lambert is with the Department of Psy

Copyright

(Copyright © 2005, American Academy of Child Adolescent Psychiatry, Publisher Lippincott Williams and Wilkins)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

16034281

Abstract

OBJECTIVE:: To evaluate the utility of a teacher-rating instrument (Teacher Observation of Classroom Adaptation-Revised [TOCA-R]) of aggressive behavior during elementary school years in identifying girls at risk of later criminal court violence. METHOD:: A community epidemiological sample of 845 urban public school girls was rated at six time points during elementary school regarding their level of aggressive/disruptive behavior (75% of whom were African American). Criminal violence was measured using juvenile court records. Logistic regression was used to study the strength of the association between early indicators of aggressive behavior and adolescent females' violent outcomes. An extension of the traditional receiver operating characteristics analysis was used to study the accuracy of identifying girls at risk of violence under three different screening and intervention scenarios. RESULTS:: For girls, teacher ratings of aggression were a strong and consistent predictor of later violence across grades 1-5 and were strongest in fifth grade. Three screening scenarios were compared to determine the optimal identification threshold. The screening scenario with a focus on minimizing false negatives yielded the highest value (kappa = 0.803). CONCLUSIONS:: This study supports other studies indicating that early levels of aggressive behavior are strong and robust predictors of later violence among girls but are of limited utility in the early identification of girls at risk, especially when the focus is on reducing both false positives and negatives.