ABSTRACT
Conduct disorder is one of the most widely recognized and most thoroughly validated kinds of psychopathology seen among children and adolescents. In assessing this problem, the clinician commonly seeks information from various sources, which may include: parent interview or checklist, child interview or questionnaire, teacher checklist, behavioral observations in different settings, peer nominations and ratings, and others. However, the information from these different sources is quite often discrepant. Thus, a group of children who would be identified as having conduct disorder on the basis of a parent interview is not the same group that would be identified on the basis of a teacher checklist or an interview with the youngsters themselves. The issues addressed in this chapter are: (a) a critique of DSM-III and DSM-III-R criteria for conduct disorder from a research standpoint and (b) a discussion of how to integrate different sources of information in the assessment and diagnosis of conduct disorder in children and adolescents. There seem to be four different models in the current literature as to how different sources of information might be integrated in the assessment of conduct disorder. These could be named the gold standard model, the actuarial model, the clinical judgment model, and the hypothetical construct model. Our own views at present favor the use of the hypothetical construct model.
