Objective personality assessment of children: an exploratory study of the Personality Inventory for Children (PIC) in a child psychiatric setting.

Some initial data are presented on the clinical utility of a new multidimensional objective personality inventory, the Personality Inventory for Children (PIC), Tabulation of symptoms and family characteristics independently derived from the chart data generated by 79 preadolescent outpatient evaluations resulted in an average of 12 correlates for each of the 16 profile scales. These correlates provided substantial support for the basic interpretive intent of at least 14 of these scales, as well as additional serendipitous construct validity in the form of PIC scale-parent descriptor relationships. The presentation of case findings of two adolescents with dissimilar PIC profiles demonstrated the potential value of this diagnostic instrument.