Clinical utility of the Devereux Behavior Rating Scale—School Form among culturally diverse children
✍ Scribed by David S. Goh
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1997
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 46 KB
- Volume
- 34
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0033-3085
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Two hundred sixty seven children from three ethnic samples (95 Caucasians, 95 African Americans, and 77 Hispanics) were rated by their teachers on the Devereux Behavior Rating Scale-School Form (DSF). The data were analyzed by univariate and multivariate ANOVAs, discriminant analysis, and sensitivity and specificity analysis. Results indicate the DSF has utility in screening children for serious emotional disturbance in the present sample. The findings also suggest that the criterion-related validity of the DSF found for the general population can be generalized to Caucasian, African American, and Hispanic children. In addition, the cutoff score of 1 SD above the mean on the DSF Total scale was found to yield the highest true positive and negative hit rates for the total and Caucasian samples. The optimum cutoff scores were slightly lower for the African American and Hispanic samples. Usefulness and limitation of the DSF as a screening instrument with school children are discussed. ᭧ 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
The past decade has witnessed a proliferating publication of a second generation of behavior rating scales . These rating scales show significant methodological improvement over the more traditional ones in both test development and validation. They commonly place greater emphasis on objective measurement of behaviors, strive for better standardization, and provide more evidence of validity and reliability. Some also supply appropriate empirical data in the manual to assist test users in analyzing and interpreting results. Because of these reasons, this new generation of behavior rating scales has been well-received. A number of them are widely used in the assessment of various behavior and emotional problems (e.g., attention deficit disorder, childhood depression).
A new addition to this group of contemporary rating scales is the Devereux Behavior Rating Scales-School Form (DSF; Naglieri, . According to the authors, the DSF is designed specifically to meet the need for an objective screening instrument for identifying children at risk of serious emotional disturbance (SED) as specified in the Individual with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA, 1990). An important feature of the DSF is that it is organized into four subscales and each is posited to tap one of the four areas of problem behaviors contained in the SED definition. These problem behavior areas include difficulties in interpersonal relationships, inappropriate behaviors or feelings, unhappiness or depression, and physical symptoms or fears. If this particular feature in test design is fully validated, users of the DSF will be able to link the results directly to subcomponents of the SED diagnostic criteria. This would greatly enhance the clinical usefulness of the DSF.
The DSF Manual provides evidence from a series of six studies on the scale's ability in predicting emotional status of children. These studies compared the DSF scores between clinically diagnosed subjects (e.g., children with emotional disturbance, combined LD/SED diagnosis, and multiple DSM-III-R disorders) and normal/regular education (RE) children in different school and residential settings. The results showed that clinical subjects scored significantly higher than control subjects on the DSF Total Scale and all four subscales. The magnitude of differences ranged approximately 1 to 3 d-ratios. Based on these findings, the authors suggest that 1 SD above the mean on the Total Scale (Scale score Ͼ 115) and the four subscales (Sub-