Children' Depressive Inventory

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Differentiate between the populations for which children's depression is valid or invalid.

Note: I provided you with three inventories measuring children's depression with a source for each. Most of these inventories are commonly used tools for measuring depression in children; and have shown to be effective. However, among various populations the results can be invalid as noted.

Research suggests that children who have behavioral inhibitions are prone to develop anxiety (Muria and van Brakel, 2011). They conducted a study using a large sample (N=2, 547) of behavioral inhibited children aged 5-8 years, who were followed during a three-year period. It was hypothesized that behavioral inhibition would be predictive of anxiety symptoms, especially social anxiety symptoms over the three-year period. The children experienced high levels of stress as a result of life events (p.159).

The adolescent population is comprised of ages beginning from 10 to 12 years of age and ending at the period of 18 to 22 years of age. This period of development is a period of increasing anxiety as adolescents experience various psychological problems and behavioral symptoms including depression (Prencipe, Kesek, Cohen, Lamm, Lewis, & Zelazo, 2011). For instance, they may become stressful over concerns such as physical appearance, identity, peer relations and sex. Research also indicates that there is no simple way to interpret the behavioral symptoms of children because their symptoms man have various etiologies that include cognitive, emotional, or psychosocial functions, and emotional reactions to failures or performance difficulties. Several inventories have been recommended that would be appropriate to investigate potential depressive symptoms in children. The inventories examined here in particular are the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL, Achenbach, 1992, 1991); the Beck Depression Inventory, Beck, Ward, Mendelson, Moser & Erbough, 1961; and the ...