Sociometric Status: Its Stability and Validity Among Neglected, Rejected and Popular Children

Abstract

Although important distinctions among sociometrically rejected, neglected, and popular children have been reported in the literature, concerns have been raised about use of negative peer nominations in identifying these children. A revised procedure developed by Asher and Dodge [Developmental Psychology, 22, 444-449 (1986)] eliminates the need to obtain negative peer nominations. In the present study, the construct validity of this revised procedure was explored and its long-term stability examined over 6, 12 and 18 months. Our findings establish significant differences on several indices among rejected, neglected and popular children. However, the differences between rejected and popular children were more robust than those between neglected and popular children, who failed to differ from one another on most of the measures. Moreover, fairly good long-term stability was found for popular and rejected status, whereas the long-term stability for neglected status was quite poor. These findings were addressed in the context of similar research employing negative nomination methods. Implications for the identification of at-risk children were also discussed.

Autistic Traits in Children With and Without ADHD

“…Considering the well-established evidence that social difficulties are a core component of ASDs, [49][50][51] our findings also suggest that the social disability observed in the ADHD + CBCL-AT group may be more a reflection of underlying ATs than the presence of ADHD itself. The higher rates of mood, anxiety, disruptive, and substance use disorders, 52 and school failure, school dropout, and delinquent offenses 53 in ADHD + AT children is particularly worrisome.…”

Annotation: Sociometry and Peer Relationship

“…Whilst 69% of rejected children remained rejected, only 29% of neglected children persisted in this category. Their findings are supported by Ollendick et al (1991) who found only 11 % of neglected children in the same category after 12 months. Whilst these studies suggest that stability is not high it has been argued that, even though there is a fair amount of movement between categories over time, children tend to remain perceived in broadly the same terms by their peers within a consistent social environment.…”

“…A less perjorative method of assessing sociometric status has been developed in which peers rate one another on a Likert scale, rather than nominate disliked peers (Asher & Dodge, 1986;Ollendick, Greene, Francis & Baum, 1991). For example, on a "1" to "5" scale, children are asked to rate how much they like to "spend time with" or "work with" each person in the class.…”

“…When observed in social interaction they are less aggressive than others, including popular children . Neglected chiMren are not thought to be a group at risk of later adjustment difficulties (Parker & Asher, 1987;Rubin etal, 1990;Ollendick ^^ a/., 1991Ollendick ^^ a/., , 1992French &Waas, 1985;. Recent work suggests that neglected children do not differ from popular or averge status groups on behavioural characteristics (Coie & Dodge, 1988).…”

‘Do you still like to play with him?'

“…However, in their review article conclude that in general the stability of peer status increases with children's age and decreases with the length of the test-retest interval. Finally, popular, rejected and average groups of children are more stable than the neglected and controversial groups, which are highly unstable (Ollendick, Greene, Francis & Baum 1991;Asher & Dodge, 1986;Newcomb & Bukowski, 1983). In conclusion, research of both short-term and longterm stability points in general to moderate stability for status groups at the most (see Table 1 for an overview of the literature).…”