The concept of the best interests of the child pervades legislation to do with children and guidelines for psychological assessment. In this paper, we critically evaluate the way that courts and psychologists employ this concept of the best interests of the child. Difficulties in operationalising the concept are explored. Cultural biases are identified. Procedures to minimise individual and cultural biases and to make the process more transparent are proposed.

This study investigated the associations that three behavioural patterns, peer acceptance and rejection, friendships, and self-depreciating attributions have with children’s reports of loneliness at school. Data were collected from 214 children who were 11- to 12-years-old. Classmates provided peer perceptions of prosocial, aggressive, and withdrawn behaviour and rated sociometric status. Children themselves provided data on mutual friendships, feelings of loneliness, and attributions for social success ond failure. Regression analyses indicated that withdrawn behaviour and lack of friends were significant predictors of loneliness. Rejected children were significantly more withdrawn, less cooperative, and lonelier than were other groups of children. Internal, stable attributions for social failure were associated with more loneliness at school. However, no significant associations were found between reports of loneliness and attribution patterns for social success. Intervention for socially rejected children may be specifically warranted when the child shows withdrawn behaviour.

Some issues related to behaviour problems in preschool children are examined. Topics include prevalence and significance of early behaviour problems, problems in assessment of behaviour problems in very young children, and currently used classification systems and their relevance to very young children.The case for a developmental perspective will also be considered in conjunction with some recent methods of classifying child problems such as DC: 0-3 (Zero to Three: National Center for Infants, Toddlers, and Families, 1997) and with more behaviourally oriented guidelines. Finally, relationships that develop over time ore examined with respect to risk and protection, the case for prevention and early identification, and a brief review of interventions for preschool children. In spite of the difficulty in identifying significant problem behaviour in very young children, it is argued that it is important to intervene early in order to prevent more serious problems later in life.

The present paper reviews the empirical psychological literature on moral development to examine the hypothesis that children today are more advanced in their moral reasoning than their earlier counterparts. The review briefly examines the classic research on how children understand morality and when they understand the short- and long-term consequences of their behaviour. It then examines replication studies in the moral development literature. The review concludes that there is no evidence for or against the proposition that today’s children are more advanced in their moral reasoning than their earlier counterparts, as there is a distinct lack of reliable replication studies that could answer the question one way or another.

A three-phase study examined preprimary grade repetition in Western Australian schools. The purpose was to identify factors that influence teacher recommendations to repeat and to investigate outcomes of repeating. Focus group discussions with 24 preprimary teachers in the first phase identified three categories of factors: child, home, and school. Child factors that teachers considered important for coping in Year I were language, motor, and social skills. In the second phase of the study, 54 children were assessed on these three skills using the Early Screening Profiles (Harrison, 1990). A control group of“competent”Year Is was compared with children repeating preprimary and with Year Is considered “at risk” of not coping.The control group performed significantly better on all three skills than the other two groups, confirming thot these skills are accurately assessed in teachers’judgements of readiness for Year 1. The third phase of the study consisted of a posttest of the at-risk Year Is and the children repeating preprimary. The posttest late in the academic year did not find any significant differences between the language, motor, and social development of the two groups.

This paper briefly describes four essential elements of interviews involving children, where the primary goal is to obtain detailed and accurate information about an event (e.g., an alleged incident of sexual abuse). These elements include (a) the establishment of a good rapport with the child, (b) a clear description of the purpose and ground-rules of the interview, (c) objectivity and open-mindness, and (d) effective questioning skills. A rationale for the importance of each of these elements and practical recommendations are offered.

Oppositional defiant and conduct disorder are two of the most common childhood adjustment problems. Given the serious short-and long-term implications of these disorders, much research has focused on the assessment and treatment of these behaviour problems. However, most of the large body of literature on these problems has relied upon maternal responses to either forced-choice questions or directed questioning, limiting the qualitative input that the parent may contribute.The present study investigated the qualitative perceptions that mothers held of their child, with and without problems. Significant differences were found between mothers of clinical and nonclinical children. Many of the results supported past quantitative research, but there are new insights into the tendency of clinical parents not only to make more negative and critical comments about their child but also to qualify any positive remarks they made about the child.

This article provides information about some of the key concepts and principles that define society’s approach to juvenile offenders. These are explicated as models of juvenile justice. The causes of juvenile offending are also elaborated through considering various theories of juvenile delinquency. Next, the prevalence of juvenile crime is addressed followed by an overview of preventative and responsive interventions to reduce juvenile offending. The article makes the case for a systematic approach to assessing risk factors, needs, and strengths. This approach fits well with major threads in the juvenile justice arena. It is also necessary in order to make sound and useful decisions about young offenders.

Although a relationship between child maltreatment and juvenile offending has been documented, little is known about the way in which maltreatment affects the timing and frequency of juvenile offending. Recent work on antisocial behaviour and offending in adolescents suggests that young people exposed to negative childhood experiences are more likely to offend earlier in life and more frequently than those who have not been exposed to such risk factors. The purpose of this study is to explore how one childhood risk factor, being maltreatment, influences the age of onset and frequency of juvenile offending. This study used the records of an Australian birth cohort who are now 18 and who came to the attention of the Department of Families (Queensland) about a child maltreatment matter, a juvenile justice matter, or both. Children who were maltreated were more likely to offend than children without official maltreatment records and were also more likely to offend earlier and more frequently that children who had not been maltreated. This research has important implications for understanding the onset of criminal careers and for the allocation of resources into crime prevention interventions and effective responses to maltreatment.

The Rasch measurement principles espoused in the Bond & Fox (2001) volume reviewed elsewhere in this journal are routinely adopted by Australia's major educational measurement projects (e.g., by Australian Council for Educational Research, Educational Testing Centre). Yet those ideas are yet to have their full impact in smaller research projects in educational and developmental psychology. A number of quantitative analytical techniques used in our disciplines are able to help us to draw conclusions like “Betty is better than or more developed than Bob”, but Rasch measurement is uniquely placed to help us conclude that “Betty is this much better than or more developed than Bob.” In educational and psychological statistics, we regularly presume the “interval” nature of our research data, but only the Rasch model sets about to ensure that the units of measurement maintain their unit value across the whole achievement or development scale.

Characteristics of adolescents who sexually offend, their patterns of their offending behaviour and the defining features of their victims are firmly established in the overseas literature. The research literature in Australia, however, is less developed. This study describes the characteristics of a sample of clients of the Sex Offender Program of the New South Wales Department of Juvenile Justice and examines patterns of offence behaviours and related descriptions of victims. Adolescents who sexually offend in NSW have backgrounds of low educational attainment and abuse and a range of other social risk factors, and they are most likely to victimise female children. A typology of adolescent sex offenders based on their offending behaviour is offered.