Oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), a common childhood disorder marked by argumentativeness, hostility, and noncompliance, has been tied to concurrent and future academic, social, and behavioral difficulties (Burke et al., 2010; Greene et al., 2002). Many children with ODD later meet criteria for conduct disorder (CD; Burke et al., 2010), including engaging in serious violent or criminal behavior and experiencing legal and substance use problems (Loeber et al., 2010). With the recent release of, the DSM-5 (APA, 2013), there has been renewed discussion of the appropriateness of a categorical versus dimensional classification of behavioral disorders and questions about whether appropriate statistical procedures were used to inform these decisions (Walters, 2013). Although ODD has received much attention in the literature—including issues related to changes in DSM-5 (e.g., Pardini et al., 2010)—research on its latent structure is in its infancy (Frick and Nigg, 2012). Specifically, does ODD exist on a continuum, or is it a qualitatively discrete condition that is either present or absent? Although researchers have called for investigations to advance our understanding of the clinical utility of a dimensional versus categorical
