Associations between clinic-referred boys and their fathers on childhood inattention-overactivity and aggression dimensions

The question asked in this study of 70 clinically referred 6- to 12- year-old boys with behavior problems was whether or not childhood inattention-overactivity and aggression are transmitted specifically from biological fathers to sons. Fathers' self-reported childhood inattention- overactivity on a retrospectively valid measure was exclusively associated with parents' ratings of their sons' current attention problems on the Mothers' Operational Measure for Sub-grouping (MOMS), the Revised Child Behavior Checklist (RCBCL), and an approximated DSM-IV inattention dimension. Fathers' self-reported childhood aggression was not associated with ratings of their sons' aggression on the MOMS or DADS (a parallel instrument for fathers), nor on DSM-III oppositional or conduct disorder dimensions, but it was exclusively associated with RCBCL ratings of sons' aggressive and delinquent behavior. None of the nonspecific correlations (father inattention-overactivity with son aggression or father aggression with son inattention-overactivity) was significant.