Developmental invariance is important for making valid inferences about child development from longitudinal data; however, it is rarely tested. We evaluated developmental and gender invariance for one of the most widely used measures of child mental health: the parent-reported Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). Using data from the large U.K. population-representative Millennium Cohort Study (N = 10,207; with data at ages 3, 5, 7, 11, 14, and 17 years), we tested configural, metric, scalar, and residual invariance in emotional problems, conduct problems, hyperactivity/inattention, prosociality, and peer problems. We found that the SDQ showed poor fit at age 3 in both males and females and at age 17 in males; however, it fit reasonably well and its scores were measurement invariant up to the residual level across gender at ages 5, 7, 11, and 14 years. Scores were also longitudinally measurement invariant across this age range up to the partial residual level. Results suggest that the parent-reported SDQ can be used to estimate developmental trajectories of emotional problems, conduct problems, hyperactivity/inattention, prosociality, and peer problems and their gender differences across the age range 5 to 14 years using a latent model. Developmental differences outside of this range may; however, partly reflect measurement differences.

发育不变性对于从纵向数据中对儿童发育做出有效推断很重要；但是，它很少经过测试。我们评估了儿童心理健康最广泛使用的测量方法之一的发育和性别不变性：家长报告的优势和困难问卷 (SDQ)。使用来自具有英国人口代表性的大型千年队列研究（N= 10,207；使用 3、5、7、11、14 和 17 岁的数据），我们测试了情绪问题、行为问题、多动/注意力不集中、亲社会性和同伴问题的配置、度量、标量和剩余不变性。我们发现，SDQ 在男性和女性 3 岁时和男性在 17 岁时都表现出较差的拟合度；然而，它的拟合程度相当不错，并且其分数在 5、7、11 和 14 岁时的跨性别残差水平上是测量不变的。在这个年龄范围内，分数也是纵向测量不变的，直到部分残差水平。结果表明，父母报告的 SDQ 可用于使用潜在模型估计 5 至 14 岁年龄范围内情绪问题、行为问题、多动/注意力不集中、亲社会性和同伴问题的发展轨迹及其性别差异。超出此范围的发育差异可能；但是，部分反映了测量差异。