Personality, traits and disorders in childhood: A Q-Sort assessment procedure

Introduction: Despite a growing number of studies confirming that it is possible to evaluate childhood personality from a developmental perspective, the debate on childhood personality and its disorders still rages. Aim: The aim of this work is to develop a Q-Sort assessment procedure (inspired by the SWAP developed by Shedler and Westen) for the evaluation of children personality. Methods: From a literature review we derived 200 items that describe some specific patterns of affect, cognition, motivation and behavior in childhood with a straightforward manner. These items are included in seven Emerging Personality Patterns and four Personality Organizations. Items and Patterns were tested through theoretical and statistical consensus. The theoretical consensus was obtained by 30 expert clinicians that evaluated on a 5-point Likert scale each Pattern and item. The statistical consensus involved 42 clinicians assessing 42 children (M=7.92; 64% male). Results: Theoretical consensus: clinicians rated 4 or 5 to all the Patterns and most of the items, only few items were rated 3. Statistical consensus: we evaluated the mean score and the standard deviation (SD) for each item. Only 16 out of 200 items reached a SD lower than 1.50 and a little mean score. Then, to evaluate the internal coherence of each Pattern, we measured the Cronbach’s alpha that reached really good or excellent levels. According to the consensus results, we modified the problematic items to obtain the final version of the instrument. Discussion: Preliminary data is promising and seems to confirm that the personality can be assessed in childhood.