Psychopathological symptoms in Italian children and adolescents with Specific Learning Disorder: What do mothers and fathers report about?

International literature provides evidence that Specific Learning Disorders (SLD) may be associated with multiple dimensions of psychopathology. In contrast, only a small number of studies have focused on emotional and behavioral problems in Italian children and adolescents with SLD. The Child Behavioral Checklist (CBCL) is a measure of psychopathological symptoms widely-used in the clinical contexts in Italy. We therefore conducted a preliminary study examining mothers’ and fathers’ reports on all of the eight CBCL syndrome subscales. First aim was to examine the mothers’ ratings on CBCL in a group of 22 Italian children and adolescents with SLD (mean age = 12.31, SD = 2.88) and 29 peers without SLD (mean age = 10.96, SD = 2.74). Second, concordances and differences between mothers and fathers of these children on CBCL were investigated. The children and adolescents with SLD obtained significantly higher Internalizing and Externalizing Total Scores, compared to peers without SLD. We discussed the relevance of early identifying Italian children with SLD to early contrast the risk of emotional and behavioral problems in these children. These findings underscore the need for further examination of the mother-father agreement on measures of psychopathological problems.