Table of Contents
Abstract
Children behaviors are checked and assessed using certain tools that rely on particular constructs to examine child’s behavior. This paper will identify and discuss two assessment tools for child behavior. The tools that will be covered in this paper are: Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) and Behavior Assessment System for Children (BASC). Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) brings together a behavior checklist with 113 items. It also has a seven social competency checklist. The parents’ response to the checklist offers a comprehensive and accurate description of their children’s behavior and clinicians can apply the information from parents to differentiate between typical child behavior and those that could be as a result of potential behavioral disturbance. Particulars on the behavior problem checklist are categorized into behavioral syndromes that are analogous to the diagnostic clusters of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association (DSM-IV). The CBCL-IV behavioral taxonomy T-scores, and clinical cutoff scores were drawn from 2 samples of children: a less satisfactory sample of children under mental health treatments due to mental problems and an ideal sample of usual children. Reliability of the syndrome scores plus all behavioral rating scales heavily rely on the raters as well as interparent agreement coefficients.
The Behavior Assessment System for Children (BASC) is a multidimensional, and multmethod system aimed at examining observable behavior and ratings of self perception of persons of age between 2 and 25 years. The tool provides percentile ranks and T-scores on TRS and PRS rating scales as well as on Self report measure (SRP). Scores are dependent on national behaviors and are categorized by gender, age, and clinical status.
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Child Behavior Assessment Tools
Checking or assessing behavior of a child is fundamental to distinguish between normal behaviors associated with the childhood age and other behaviors associated with certain clinical conditions. The children behaviors are checked and assessed using certain tools that rely on particular constructs to examine child’s behavior (In Smith & In Handler, 2015). This paper will identify and discuss two assessment tools for child behavior. The tools that will be covered in this paper are: Behavior Assessment System for Children (BASC) and Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL). The tools are applied interchangeably because they measure the same construct. This paper will also examine measurement constructs for validity and reliability for each tool and constructs for each tool will be compared to each other. To achieve the comparison, methods applied to acquire reliability and validity for each tool will be described. In addition, how results on each assessment tool are interpreted will also be described. At the end of the paper, the relationship between the constructs in the two assessment tools will be clearly understood.
Child Behavior Checklist
Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) brings together a behavior checklist with 113 items. It also has a seven social competency checklist. The parents’ response to the checklist offers a comprehensive and accurate description of their children’s behavior and clinicians can apply the information from parents to differentiate between typical child behavior and those that could be as a result of potential behavioral disturbance. Particulars on the behavior problem checklist are categorized into behavioral syndromes that are analogous to the diagnostic clusters of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association (DSM-IV). The checklist can be used to come up with an empirical taxonomy of behavior disturbances where syndromes illustrate characteristics of behavior that co-occur amongst children (Achenbach & Rescorla, 2010). In addition, profiles show a collection of syndromes that happen at greater than chance levels
The CBCL-IV behavioral taxonomy T-scores, and clinical cutoff scores were drawn from 2 samples of children: a less satisfactory sample of children under mental health treatments due to mental problems and an ideal sample of usual children. The usual sample forms a balanced depiction of the forty eight continental states with regard to ethnicity, area, in addition to urban, suburban, and rural dwelling. Children who had been given services for mental health within the preceding year were disqualified, making the sample to some extent more behaviorally attuned as compared to using US kids as a group. Similarly, the CBCL representative sample was composed of 2 and 3 year olds staying in the same homesteads as children in the second sample. The checklist for behavior problems is the CBCL’s strongest aspect. The items of the checklist apply simple and instantly recognizable words to explain behavioral problems that attract attention of parents and mental health specialists.
Items were only included on the checklist of behavior problems if they considerably discriminated typical and referred children. Higher scores of behavior problems imply that a child has more behavior problems similar to referred children hence the child is more likely to be behaviorally disordered. Behavioral syndromes were obtained from analysis of principle components of the preferred children’s behavioral problems and titles of syndromes were assigned depending on item content of each syndrome (Achenbach, 2000). Users that interpret individual profile have to carefully examine the meaning of a syndrome score given to the items endorsed for that child. For every syndrome, standardized T-scores were dependent on a combination of referred and typical norms. Scores below T=70 were assigned depending on the norms of typical children and above T=70 scores were extracted from referred children’s behaviors. Since majority of the typical children received little problem endorsements, the measurements only makes few distinctions amongst various levels of normalcy and the scores of behavior problems do not go lower than the mean. The resultant syndrome scores on the CBCL tool are reasonably reliable with at least a week test-retest reliabilities falling below eight as well as internal coefficients averaging eight (Siddons & Lancaster, 2004).
Reliability of the syndrome scores plus all behavioral rating scales heavily rely on the raters as well as interparent agreement coefficients. There are various problems associated with CBCL tool. Majority of common children scored extremely high on the competence in which its scores start at T=55 going down. T-scores below T=33 were extracted from the chosen sample with a contradictory outcomes that some CBCL competence scores perform a better task of prejudicing among levels of incompetence than of competence. Directions for hand scoring included in the tool are tedious and results to so many minor errors on each protocol. One challenge in understanding these studies is that the CBCL tool is recognized in general to be a principle measure for examining the validity of most checklists of behavior problems. Also, low associations with related scales are generally associated with less acceptable factors of the other scales. Because of that, the most convincing evidence of validity of CBCL tool is its association with referral for behavioral disturbances, clinical diagnoses, in addition to poor social outcomes (Siddons & Lancaster, 2004).
Behavior Assessment System for Children (BASC)
The Behavior Assessment System for Children (BASC) is a multidimensional, and multmethod system aimed at examining observable behavior and ratings of self perception of persons of age between 2 and 25 years. The tool offers a triangulated view of behavioral functioning of a child through factoring ratings and observations by others like teachers and parents, background information, and self ratings. The assessment tool has many applications for example educational classification of behavioral and emotional behaviors among children and describing plans for treatments, helping with clinical diagnosis through use of DSM-IV-TR, examining students with visual and hearing impairments, and program evaluation. However, little evidence supports the validity of this tool for its many functions (Fontana, 2004).
The assessment tool has five components: parent rating scale (PRS), teacher rating scale (TRS), a student self report of personality (SRP), student observation system (SOS), and a structured developmental history (SDH). BASC focuses on both adaptive and positive behaviors and as negative and maladaptive behaviors. Items of BASC PRS, TRS, and SRP are outlined on a 4-point response scale. The tool provides percentile ranks and T-scores on TRS and PRS rating scales as well as on Self report measure (SRP) (Reynolds & Kamphaus, 2004). Scores are dependent on national norms and are categorized by age, gender, and clinical status. The three rating scales give individual scale scores, and overall composite scores. Each rating scale has validity checks to minimize chances of biased and untruthful responding, carelessness or low understanding of raters, and other possible errors that can compromise validity. The instruments can be scored by computer or manually. Manual scoring offers concrete and transparent on recording rating scales and administration. The tool interprets and guide every composite and scale, gives score classifications depending on T-scores, unearths high or low scale scores, in addition to providing parent feedback reports in which the PRS, TRS, and SRP composite scores can be graphed. BASC tool has a detailed internal consistency and reliability estimates for test-retest for the PRS, TRS, and SRP plus interater reliability of the rating scales. For the three measures, internal consistency coefficients are usually high (Reynolds, Kamphaus, & Vannest, 2015).
Conclusion
The two behavior assessment tools discussed above have varied strengths and weaknesses. Their validity varies between the tools. Low associations with related scales in child behavior checklist are generally associated with less acceptable factors of the other scales. Because of that, the most convincing evidence of validity of CBCL tool is its association with referral for behavioral disturbances, clinical diagnoses, in addition to poor social outcomes. The reliability of CBCL is dependent on accuracy of the rater and there are high chances for making errors. On the other side, use of three rating scales for behavior assessment system for children helps to minimize chances for making errors. Many steps are included in the tool to increase its reliability.
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