The purpose of this study is to examine dissociation in a population of preschool-age foster children with documented cases of maltreatment. Data were collected from participants in the Early Intervention Foster Care program (EIFC), a randomized efficacy trial based on the empirically evaluated Multidimensional Specialized Foster Care program. Dissociative symptoms were assessed using three subscales of the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) that have been previously published in the trauma literature. Because the three subscales were highly intercorrelated, items were combined for a Exploratory Factor Analysis. Two distinct factors were found that may comprise new subscales assessing dissociative symptomatology and post-traumatic arousal symptomatology. In order to test their predictive validity, analyses compared the foster care sample and a community sample with no known maltreatment history and also compared dissociation across maltreatment categories. Implications for the use of dissociation as an adaptive coping mechanism are discussed
