Adjustment scales for children and adolescents and Native American Indians: Factorial validity generalization for Ojibwe youths

Replication of the core syndrome factor structure of the Adjustment Scales for Children and Adolescents (ASCA; P.A. McDermott, N.C. Marston, & D.H. Stott, 1993) is reported for a sample of 183 Native American Indian (Ojibwe) children and adolescents from North Central Minnesota. The six ASCA core syndromes produced an identical two-factor solution as the standardization data through principal axis analysis using multiple criteria for the number of factors to extract and retain. Varimax, direct oblimin, and promax rotations produced identical results and nearly identical factor-structure coefficients. Coefficients of congruence resulted in an excellent match to the factorial results of the ASCA standardization sample and a large, independent sample. It was concluded that for these Ojibwe students, the ASCA measures two independent dimensions of psychopathology (i.e., Overactivity and Underactivity) that are similar to the conduct problems/externalizing and withdrawal/internalizing dimensions commonly found in the child psychopathology assessment literature. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Native American Indian children and adolescents have developmental disorders, mood disorders, anxiety disorders, psychoactive substance use disorders, suicide, and behavior disorders at significantly higher rates than the general population (Manson, Bechtold, Novins, & Beals, 1997). Manson et al. (1997) further reported that many studies investigated alcohol and drug use and suicide among Native American Indians, but few studies investigated psychopathology and emotional problems. In a study of Northern Plains American Indians, Beals et al. (1997) found higher rates of simple phobias, major depressive disorder, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, and alcohol dependence/abuse based on diagnostic interviews, and recommended population-based samples and representative samples in future studies. Costello, Farmer,Angold, Burns, and Erkanli (1997) also foundAmerican Indian children to have significantly greater substance abuse or dependence and its comorbidity with other psychiatric disorders than did White youths, but slightly lower overall prevalence of psychiatric disorders than the White sample. No differences in other psychiatric disorders’ prevalence were found. Psychiatric diagnoses in the Costello et al. study also were made based on interviews. Huang and Gibbs (1998) concluded that there was a “need for epidemiological data to indicate the incidence and prevalence of psychological and behavioral disorders among ethnic minority children and adolescents” (pp. 379‐380). Manson et al. (1997) also indicated that few epidemiological studies were completed with Native American Indians, and those that had been done suffered from serious flaws in sampling, diagnostic systems, cultural insensitivity, and the fact that Native American Indian social systems had changed a great deal in the 20 years since those early studies were completed.Additionally, none of the studies used objective psychometric assessment approaches such as behavior rating scales, personality inventories, or psychopathology instruments, but relied primarily on diagnostic interviews and classification rates from treatment facilities. McShane (1988) also commented on the lack of adequate instrumentation for use