A Qualitative Study of Children's Perspectives on Their Peer Relationships in the Context of Living With a Craniofacial Anomaly.

OBJECTIVE: To gain understanding of perspectives on peer relationships from children with congenital craniofacial anomalies (CFA). DESIGN: This was qualitative research based in a phenomenological approach, using narratives that captured children's responses to open-ended and objective questions about peer relations and life with a CFA. Interviews were audio recorded and transcribed. Transcripts were coded according to thematic categories. SETTING: Children were patients at a reconstructive plastic surgery center in an urban hospital and medical school and were recruited from a regional support organization for families of children with CFA that was associated with the hospital. PATIENTS, PARTICIPANTS: Nine children with congenital CFA aged 9 to 14 years. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Thematic coding categories were developed from the narratives using an open coding strategy; these categories focused on aspects of children's interactions with peers and their appraisals of the role of their CFA in their lives. RESULTS: Children reported satisfaction with most aspects of their peer relationships and expressed confidence in their ability to manage challenges. They acknowledged some difficulties with living with a CFA but tended to hold a balanced perspective on the impact of a CFA on their lives, and they expressed optimism about their future lives. CONCLUSIONS: This sample of children with CFA exhibited much resilience. Although they may not be representative of all children with CFA, they provide examples that can be used to generate hypotheses for future research.

The development and psychometric properties of the selective mutism questionnaire.

Research on selective mutism (SM) has been limited by the absence of standardized, psychometrically sound assessment measures. The purpose of our investigation was to present two studies that examined the factor structure and initial reliability and validity of the Selective Mutism Questionnaire (SMQ), a 17-item parent report measure of failure to speak related to SM. Study 1 (N = 589) utilized an Internet sample of parents of children ages 3 to 11 to demonstrate that the SMQ has a theoretically and clinically meaningful factor structure accounting for a significant portion of variance in responses with good internal consistency. Study 2 (N = 66) supported the validity of the SMQ in that scores discriminated clinic-referred children with SM from children with other anxiety disorders. Scores on the SMQ were correlated with measures of several theoretically and clinically important dimensions.