The many conceptual and methodological difficulties involved in evaluating depression rating scales for children are discussed. A clinical validation of the Depression Self-Rating Scale for Children (DSRSC) is described. The instrument is easy to use and has a predictive value comparable with that of a psychiatric global rating of depressed appearance and history of depression obtained at interview. There was confirmation that the DSRSC can tap an internal dimension of depression and that children are able to evaluate their feeling states. An examination of misclassified children pointed to diagnostic overlap and some unreliability of diagnosis by clinicians.

Autism remains a fascinating condition, perhaps the most prolifically researched of all child psychiatric disorders. Its history yields many lessons: early accounts of possible autism are, with one exception, unclear; the greatest contributions to our understanding have come from individual clinicians and researchers; the concept and definition of the disorder have changed greatly over the years; some ideas once held with conviction, were later proved to be unfounded; and socio-political shifts as well as research findings have radically altered our understanding of the syndrome as well as the care and treatment offered to people with autism.

Parents of 21 autistic children and of 21 children with other handicaps, matched for sex, age, IQ and father's occupation, were interviewed with a schedule known to discriminate between schizoid and non-schizoid people. Ratings were reliable and the interviewers remained "blind". Parents of autistic children, especially fathers, were significantly more often rated as having schizoid traits. They were also more intellectual.

SyonpsisTwenty-two boys with schizoid personality were followed-up some 10 years later and compared with a matched control group with other diagnoses who had been referred to the same child psychiatry department. The diagnostic category is shown to have predictive validity. A start has been made towards an operational definition of the syndrome.

SUMMARY Schizoid children (clinically resembling Asperger's autistic psychopaths), high‐grade, speaking autistic children and normal children individually matched for age, sex and intelligence were compared on a variety of tests. The results suggest that children with schizoid personality disorder are distinct from autistic children on the one hand and from normal children on the other. In all cognitive, language and memory tests the schizoid children were more distractable than, the normal group. In language function they showed similar disabilities to the autistic group, though to a lesser extent. Unlike autistic children, they were not perseverative. On two tests of affect, the schizoid group used even fewer emotional constructs when describing people than did the autistics.