Concurrent and predictive validity of the Yale Children's Inventory: an instrument to assess children with attentional deficits and learning disabilities.

The Yale Children's Inventory rating scales for completion by parents were developed to improve the ability of clinicians and researchers to evaluate the school-related problems of children. The inventory consists of 11 narrow-band and two broad-band scales, the Behavioral and the Cognitive. The concurrent and predictive validity of the Yale Children's Inventory scales are reported in a school-based sample of 103 boys. External criterion variables were obtained from parents, teachers, and standardized tests administered to the children. We found that the Attention scale overlaps both broad-band domains, indicating the importance and the intrinsic relationship of attention to both behavioral and cognitive functions, which supports the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, ed 3 nosology for disorders of attention and activity regulation. It also increases the number of children whose assessment may be enhanced by the availability of systematic parent report forms.