Personality Disorders in Childhood: Validity of the Coolidge Personality and Neuropsychological Inventory for Children (CPNI)

Background: A growing body of evidence has shown that maladaptive traits and emerging patterns of personality can be traced to an early stage of development and may be assessed in childhood. The goal of present study was to provide preliminary data on the validity of the Coolidge Personality and Neuropsychological Inventory for Children (CPNI), an instrument designed to assess personality pathologies and other clinical conditions in childhood. Method: A sample of 146 clinicians completed the CPNI, as well as the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) to evaluate the behavioral problems and social competencies, regarding a child (aged 6–11 years) who had been in their care between 2 and 12 months. The clinicians also filled out a clinical questionnaire to provide information on the children, their families, and psychotherapies. Results: There were significant and clinically consistent associations between the CPNI and CBCL. They confirmed the good concurrent (convergent and discriminant) validity of the CPNI. Conclusions: The findings seem to support the validity of the CPNI as diagnostic instrument, taking children’s PDs and behavioral problems into account. Despite some limitations, the CPNI represents a helpful measure to evaluate the children’s personality configurations according to the DSM model. It may be employed along with other tools based on other diagnostic frameworks within the context of a multi-method and multi-informant assessment to provide an accurate and comprehensive formulation of children’s overall functioning.