Special education, basic, and honors students rated the severity of stress for each of the life events on the Source of Stress Inventory (Chandler, 1981). There was a significant positive relationship between the Chandler rankings and the rankings made by the 60 ninth-grade students. Special education students reported they had experienced more of the events than had honors students, and the special education students reported more intense stress for the experienced events. Life experiences considered more stressful by students when compared to the stress values assigned by the Chandler rankings (teachers and mental health workers) include poor grades in school, loss of job by parent, mother beginning to work, birth of brother or sister, increased arguments with brothers and sisters, and vision problem requiring glasses.
Within the past 10 to 20 years, several studies have investigated the impact of life events on a variety of physical and psychological conditions. For example, life events have been found to be associated with physical illness (Dohrenwend & Dohrenwend, 1974), psychiatric symptoms (Dekker & Webb, 1974), and depression (Tausig, 1982). To date, most of the research has been directed toward adults, using the Holmes and Rahe Schedule of Recent Events (1967) or the Life Experiences Survey (Sarason, Johnson, & Siegel, 1978).
More recently, studies have explored the association of various negative life events with children's problems. For example, the number of life events experienced and their stress ratings have been found to be greater for children with recurrent abdominal pain and children with behavior disorders than for healthy children (Hodges, Kline, Barbero, & Flanery, 1984). Further, higher levels of depressive symptoms are associated with increased life stress in children (Mullins, Siegel, & Hodges, 1985). Research on the impact of life events on children and youth often has used Coddington's Life Events Scale for Children (1972).
Chandler (1981) reported that the Source of Stress Inventory can be used by assessment personnel as a means of systematically examining the sources of stress in children. Chandler developed the instrument by modifying Coddington's list of life events, deleting 10 and adding 11 items, resulting in a list of 37 life events of elementary school-age children. Mental health professionals (psychologists, psychiatrists, psychotherapists, and social workers) and teachers rated each life event on a scale of 0 to 20, with 20 indicating the most stressful life event. As a reference point, "physical child abuse" was assigned a value of 20. Chandler found that the 33 mental health workers and 33 teachers were in close agreement regarding the degree of stress associated with the life events (r, = .93, p <.0001).