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This study had two aims. Firstly, the psychometric properties of the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) and the Alexithymia Questionnaire for Children (AQC) that measure the three dimensions of alexithymia (DIF, difficulty identifying feelings; DDF, difficulty describing feelings; EOT, externally-oriented thinking) were explored in various samples of children, adolescents or young adults to detect the best factor-structure and to examine if the Externally-Oriented Thinking (EOT) factor must be deleted or not. Secondly, the capacity for adolescents to distinguish between alexithymia and depression was studied using factorial analyses of items of self-report of alexithymia and depression scales. Four groups were examined (80 healthy children, 105 adolescents with various psychiatric disorders, 333 healthy older adolescents and 505 young adults recruited from universities). The first two groups filled out the AQC and the latter two the TAS-20. Confirmatory factorial analyses (CFA) showed that the two-factor model (DIF, DDF) provided acceptable fits and had significant advantages over the three-factor model (DIF, DDF, EOT). Low alpha coefficients for the EOT subscale were reported (range from 0.18-0.61). Except for the children sample, exploratory factorial analyses (EFA) were performed on the items of the TAS-20 or AQC without the EOT items and the Beck depression inventory-II (BDI-II) or the Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale (SDS). The items of the AQC and BDI-II or items of the TAS-20 and SDS loaded on separate factors with only a minor overlap suggesting that adolescents were able to differentiate alexithymia and depression when self-assessments were used. Alexithymia can be reliably assessed in adolescents using the TAS-20 or AQC without the eight items rating the EOT dimension.

The present study examined the reliability and validity of the Leuven Adolescent Perceived Parenting Scale (LAPPS), an instrument initially developed for use with Dutch-speaking adolescents in Belgium, in French-speaking adolescents living in that same country. The instrument was administered to a sample of French-speaking adolescents ('N' = 625) and a carefully matched sample of Dutch-speaking adolescents ('N' = 630). Internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha), factor structure, and mean scores for the LAPPS subscales were highly similar across linguistic region. Finally, the LAPPS subscales showed a differential pattern of associations with an alternative measure of adolescent-parent relationships (i.e., the Emotional Autonomy Scale; EAS) in the French-speaking subsample. These results clearly show that the LAPPS is a reliable and valid measure of perceived parenting in French-speaking adolescents in Belgium. Suggestions for future research on the reliability and validity of the LAPPS are outlined.