The Meaning of Parental Reports: A Contextual Approach to the Study of Temperament and Behavior Problems in Childhood

Parent reports, specifically maternal reports, are the most widely used measures of child functioning in the developmental and the clinical literatures. In the first large-scale study of temperament in childhood, Thomas, Chess, Birch, and colleagues (Thomas, Chess, & Birch, 1968; Thomas, Chess, Birch, Hertzig, & Korn, 1963) relied on parental reports. Until recently almost all temperament research with children focused on parental reports.