Abstract
The purpose of this study was to select test items among the various items of the Takagi-Sakamoto Child Personality Test which show high discriminability in the forecasting of adaptation or maladaptation at the time of the child's dental treatment. The subjects excompassed 186 children, four to eight years of age, who had visited the dental clinic of the Department of Pedodontics, Nihon University School of Dentistry at Matsudo without any previous dental treatment. The Takagi-Sakamoto Child Personality Test was divided into three groups; A, B and C according to observations of external behavior, and analyzed statistically.
The results are summarized as follows:
1. Correlations were found between the items “ anxiety pattern” and “sociability”, “lack of drive” and “independence”, “aggressiveness” and “expressiveness”and also “self control”, “adaptation to the home” and “self control” and also“ aggressiveness”, and between “adaptation to school” and “sociability”among the correlation matrix of the eleven items of the Takagi-Sakamoto Child Personality Test.
2. The items between which correlation was shown was different in the internal correlation matrix of the eleven items in each of the three groups; A, B and C.
3. As a result of discriminant analysis, it was found that the items particular to group A were “nervousness” and “adaptation to school”, items particular to group B were “expressiveness”, “self control”, “independence” and “constitution pattern”, and for group C were “anxiety pattern”, “lack of drive”, “sociability” and “adaptation to the home”.
4. The results derived from discriminant analysis of five selected items did not differ greatly from the results of discriminant analysis of eleven items. The five items selected were “adaptation to the home”, “aggressiveness”, “anxiety pattern”, “nervousness” and “independence”.
