Multi-Informant Assessment of Typically-Developing Sibling Psychological Functioning: Pitfalls of Single-Informant Assessment

Background:  Self- and parent-reports of typically-developing (TD) sibling psychological maladjustment often vary in their estimates of risk status (Meadan, Stoner, & Angell, 2010). This may be due, in part, to many TD sibling studies examining only one informant (Meadan et al., 2010). However, use of only one informant often leads a measure to demonstrate weaker specificity and sensitivity when determining risk status and an underestimation of actual risk (Goodman et al., 2000). Critically, the correspondence of TD sibling “at-risk” status outcomes between parent and youth reports has yet to be examined. Furthermore, whether differences exist in the relation between different informant’s reports and known predictors of TD sibling outcomes [e.g., externalizing behaviors associated with ASD, broader autism phenotype (BAP) symptoms; Petalas et al., 2012] has yet to be examined.

Objectives:  N/A

Methods:  Participants were 113 dyads, consisting of a parent and a TD sibling of a child with ASD. Parents completed the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), assessing emotional and behavioral functioning, and Children’s Social Behavior Questionnaire (CSBQ), assessing BAP and ASD symptom severity, about the TD sibling (M_age = 13.33, 50% male) and about their child with ASD, respectively; the Symptom Checklist Revised­10 (SCL­R 10) and Questionnaire on Resources and Stress (QRS­F) about themselves, measuring broad mental health and parenting stress, respectively. TD siblings self-reported via the SDQ and the Child and Adolescent Social Support Scale (CASSS), the latter measuring perceived social support.

Results:  Suggested classification cutoffs on the SDQ (see Goodman, 1997) were used to classify each sibling into no-risk (‘normal’ classification) or at-risk (‘borderline’ and ‘abnormal’ classifications). Overall, 75% of reports yielded no risk on either parent or sibling report. In youth where risk was indicated, only 21% had risk indicated on both reports (see Table 1). Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM), with informants nested within siblings, examined differences between informants in the effects of predictors of psychological maladjustment (e.g., parental stress) on TD sibling functioning. Overall, the effects of parent mental health concerns (β₁₁ = -.17, t = 2.33, p =.02), TD sibling BAP symptoms (β₁₁ = -.27, t = 6.46, p < .001), ASD symptoms (β₁₁ = -.09, t = 2.47, p =.02), and ASD externalizing symptoms (β₁₁ = -.66, t = 2.25, p = .03) all varied in their relations with TD sibling SDQ depending on the informant. No differences based on informant were found for either the effect of parental stress (β₁₁ = -.36, t = 1.19, p =.23) or social support on SDQ (β₁₁ = -.01, t = 1.06, p = .29).

Conclusions:  Results suggest that parent and sibling reports may identify different TD youth to be at risk of psychological maladjustment. Thus, single-informant investigations of siblings may be understating actual rates of TD sibling risk status among families with a child with ASD. Furthermore, 4 of 6 factors previously related to TD sibling functioning varied in their effects depending on which informant was used, highlighting the need for investigations to include reports, and perspectives, of parents and the siblings themselves.