title: Ritual, habit, and perfectionism: the prevalence and development of compulsive-like behavior in normal young children.
abstract: Young children engage in a significant amount of ritualistic, repetitive, and compulsive-like activity that appears to be part of their normal behavioral repertoire. Empirically, little is known about the onset, prevalence, and developmental trajectory of these phenomena. A parent-report questionnaire, the Childhood Routines Inventory (CRI), was developed to assess compulsive-like behavior in young children, and was administered to 1,492 parents with children between the ages of 8 and 72 months. The CRI has strong overall internal consistency and a distinct two-factor structure. The frequency of compulsive-like behaviors changes with age: Two-, 3-, and 4-year-olds engaged in more compulsive behavior than children younger than 1 year of age and older than 4 years of age. Results are discussed from a developmental psychopathology framework and for their implications for future research in this area.
authors.affiliation: University of New Orleans, Department of Psychology 70148, USA. dweps@uno.edu
authors.forename: D W
authors.initials: DW
authors.lastname: Evans
authors.forename: J F
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Leckman
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Carter
authors.forename: J S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Reznick
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Henshaw
authors.forename: R A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: King
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Pauls
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D002652:Child Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003192:Compulsive Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D002658:Developmental Disabilities / Q000523:psychology; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D005260:Female; D006184:Habits; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D010290:Parents / Q000523:psychology*; D010553:Personality Development; D015995:Prevalence; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires / Q000592:standards*