Three-year course of behavioral/emotional problems in a national sample of 4- to 16-year-olds: I. Agreement among informants.

Quantitative and categorical indices of psychopathology are reported for a nationally representative longitudinal sample assessed via eight empirically derived cross-informants syndromes, internalizing, externalizing, and total problems. Results showed medium to large stabilities for parents' ratings during a 3-year interval on all comparable scales. Predictive correlations between time 1 parents' ratings and time 2 teacher and self-ratings were weaker than parent-to-parent correlations. Classification of children as deviant showed weaker predictive relations than did quantitative scores. Odds ratios showed that children classified as deviant by parents' time 1 ratings were much more likely to be deviant at time 2 on corresponding parent, teacher, and self-ratings than were children initially classified as nondeviant.