Assessment of depression in mentally retarded adolescents.
Standard teen depression forms correlate well in ID, yet teens and caregivers often disagree—always gather both views.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team gave three common teen depression checklists to the adolescents with mild or moderate ID.
They also asked each teen’s caregiver to fill out the same forms.
Then they compared scores to see if the teen and adult stories matched.
What they found
The three checklists tracked each other well—high scores on one usually meant high scores on another.
But teen and caregiver answers lined up only half the time; sometimes the teen looked sad while the adult saw no problem, or vice-versa.
How this fits with other research
Maïano et al. (2011) later trimmed the CES-D to 14 picture-based items and found stronger teen-caregiver agreement, building on this 1993 warning.
Wilson et al. (2023) pushed further, proving teens with ID can reliably rate their own wellbeing when questions use simple faces and clear words—something the 1993 study doubted.
Matson et al. (2004) saw the same rater split in younger kids with ID: teacher ADHD scales held steady, but parent scores drifted over time, echoing the mixed agreement found here.
Why it matters
Before you treat depression in a teen with ID, collect both self and caregiver data; if the scores clash, probe with interviews or direct observation. Use picture or smiley-face response options when possible—they boost honest self-report and close the gap this paper first flagged.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The performance of 25 mentally retarded and 25 normal IQ adolescents was investigated on self-report and informant versions of three childhood depression measures. These measures included the Children's Depression Inventory, the Bellevue Index of Depression, and the Reynolds Child Depression Scale. Adolescents with mild to severe levels of mental retardation were studied. Strong correlations between total scores of measures were found. Analyses of variance comparing mentally retarded and intellectually average adolescents differed significantly only on the Bellevue Index of Depression. Finally, the relationship between self-report and informant versions of these measures were correlated, with mixed results. Implications for the use of these scales in assessing depression of mentally retarded adolescents are discussed.
Research in developmental disabilities, 1993 · doi:10.1016/0891-4222(93)90029-j