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Preschool Parent-Pediatrician Consultations And Predictive Referral Patterns For Problematic Behaviors, John Fanton, Brittany Macdonald, Elizabeth Harvey

Elizabeth (Lisa) Harvey

Objective—The present study examined parents’ reports of the frequency, nature, and outcome of pediatrician consultation and interventions about significant preschool behavior problems. Method—Parents were asked whether they consulted or not with their pediatric providers about disruptive behavioral problems during a longitudinal study of preschool children. Results—Eighty 4-year-old children had parents who had consulted with their pediatricians versus 90 children whose parents did not. Children who eventually met criteria for Attention Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) or Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) two years later, received different pediatric interventions at age 4 than children who did not have a diagnosis, χ2 (2) = …