The results from both a large community-based child sample and a large mixed psychiatric/control adult sample converged on a dimensional model of ODD. These findings, which included robust indicator validity coefficients and consistently low CCFIs, indicate that ODD should be assessed and diagnosed along a continuum and that attempts to distinguish between clinical and subclinical levels of ODD are likely to be arbitrary. Diagnostic classification systems need to better recognize the dimensionality of constructs, such as ODD, in an effort to improve how such systems are used in guiding decisions for individuals (Frick and Nigg, 2012). The recently published DSM-5 (APA, 2013) still yields a discrete diagnosis of ODD based on meeting a criterion number of symptoms and, thus, passing the symptom threshold for the disorder (versus not having the diagnosis). That is, a DSM-5 diagnosis of ODD is based on a dichotomized, categorical decision. Somewhat improved over its predecessor, an ODD diagnosis in DSM-5 includes a current severity index (mild, moderate, or severe, which is a required specifier for the diagnosis; APA, 2013), which at least recognizes dimensionality within
