Mothers reported on their children’s exposure to maltreatment during a standardised clinical interview protocol,15 16 used when the child was aged 5, 7, 10, and 12 years. Only those children whom the interviewers rated as having definitely experienced physical or sexual harm by an adult before age 12 were considered to have been maltreated.17 We assessed internalising and externalising problems at age 5 by using the child behavior checklist in face to face interviews with mothers and the teacher’s report form by mail for teachers.18 19 The internalising problems scale is the sum of items in the withdrawn and anxious/depressed subscales, and the externalising problems scale is the sum of items from the aggressive and delinquent behaviour subscales. We summed and standardised mothers’ and teachers’ reports to create cross-informant scales. We tested children’s IQ at age 5 individually by using a short form of the Wechsler preschool and primary scale of intelligence—revised.20 21
