Pswko/oE.v in zhe Schoolr 1982, 19. 113-116

A BRIEF BEHAVIOR RATING SCALE FOR CHILDREN IN A SCHOOL SETTING

PAUL KAHN AND SOL RIBNER

Committee On The Handicapped, Board of Education, New York City

A brief behavior rating scale consisting of 28 items divided into 7 categories was developed for use in a school setting. Reliability coefficients for each of the categories ranged from .79 to .91; total reliability was .92. Test validity was based upon the successful discrimination between neurologically impaired, socially maladjusted, emotionally handicapped, and normal children.

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The mandated responsibilities of the Committee on the Handicapped (COH) to recommend placement for children in special education classes, including classes for the emotionally handicapped, have necessitated the development of more objective in- struments for assessing the behavior patterns of children. In addition, these instruments were seen as a basis for developing behavioral prescriptions for remediation of maladap- tive behavior patterns. The present study was undertaken to develop a short behavior rating scale as part of the assessment battery administered to children referred to COH. The criteria considered in developing such an instrument were:

1. 2.

It should be brief and its administration not consume too much time. It should consist of a variety of personality traits yielding discrete measures of personality dimensions that would meaningfully describe the wide range of behaviors manifested by children referred to COH.

3. The personality traits should maximally discriminate between children recommended for the various types of special eduation classes.

After reviewing several published behavior scales, it was decided not to develop a new scale but to modify an existing one to the needs of COH. The Devereux' series of scales (Spivack & Spotts, 1966; Spivack, Spotts, & Haimes, 1967; Spivack & Swift, 1966-1967) were felt to be the most suitable, as their items described concrete observable behavior, including a variety of behaviors that are relevant to COH decision making. Subsequent studies (Forbes, 1978; Swift & Spivack, 1969; Wallbrown & Wallbrown, 1976; Wallbrown, Wallbrown, & Blaha, 1976; Wallbrown, Wallbrown & Engin, 1977; Wallbrown, Wallbrown, Engin & Blaha, 1976) have indicated that the scales are, in fact, suitable in school situations.

METHOD Teachers of a variety of special education classes were asked to rate each of the

children in their classes on items selected from the various Devereux Behavior Rating Scales; 61 items were selected on the basis of their applicability to a school setting, their simple behavior-oriented language, and their lack of redundancy. Each item had a rating of 1 to 5, with the higher score indicating greater degree of disorder. The special educa- tion classes consisted of day schools for socially maladjusted children (SMED), classes

'Copyright. The Devereux Foundation, Devon, PA, 1966.

Requests for reprints should be sent to Paul Kahn, 1460 West 9th St., Brooklyn, NY 11204.

113

114 Psychology in the Schools, January, 1982, Vol. 19, No. 1.

for emotionally handicapped children (CEH) including Teacher-Moms and Transitional Classes, and classes for the Neurologically Impaired (NI). A total of 565 children were rated, composed of 208 children in NI classes, 265 in CEH classes, and 92 in SMED schools.

RES u LTS

Development of the Brief Behavior Rating &ate ( S S R S ) The 61 items were subjected to a discriminant analysis to determine how well they

discriminated between SMED, NI, and CEH groups. The results indicated that 67.6% of the children were correctly classified as to their placement, based solely on their pattern of scores on the 61 items.

They were also subjected to a principle factor analysis and orthogonally rotated with a Varimax procedure to identify clusters that formed discrete personality traits. The results yielded seven significant factors.

The criteria used for selecting items for the Brief Behavior Rating Scale were: (a) belonging to a cluster of items that significantly identified a unique, discernible per- sonality trait as indicated by high factor loadings, (b) contributing to the discrimination between diagnostic groups as indicated by high discriminant weights, and (c) obtaining a variety of behavioral features while minimizing redundancy.

The seven personality traits corresponding to the seven significant factors were: abrasiveness, inattentiveness, dependency, restlessness, self-involvement, bizarreness, and frustration tolerance. Each personality trait consisted of four items, yielding a total of 28 items in the Brief Behavior Rating Scale.*

Each item on the Brief Behavior Rating Scale was rated on a scale of 1 to 5 , as on the extended scale. The ratings of each item within a personality trait were then summed to yield a rating for each personality trait. These personality trait scores were then analyzed to ascertain the descriptive and discriminative power of the shortened form. Reliability

Coefficient Alpha was used in determining reliability. The coefficients ranged from .79 to .91 for each subscale and .92 for the total scale. Abilily to Discriminate Between Diflerent Special Education Groups

The next step in the analysis was to determine whether known groups, specifically children in special education classes such as NI, CEH, and SMED, differ as to their ratings on the personality traits.

A one-way analysis of variance yielded significant Fvalues for all personality traits. Since hypotheses about differences between groups were a priori, t-tests were used to compare the group means on each personality trait. It is noteworthy that the t values were so great that the results would also have been significant even if post hoc multiple comparison tests (e.g., Scheffe, Tukey) were used.

The findings indicate that all personality factors, with the exception of Dependency, discriminated at least one group from the others. The overall results indicate that the most severely disturbed group are the children in the SMED classes. They are significantly more restless, involved with self, abrasive, and display more bizarre behavior than any of the other groups. The NI group shows the least amount of behavioral disturbance, whereas the CEH group shows a greater degree of behavioral

'Copies of the BBRS may be obtained from Paul Kahn, 1460 West 9th Street, Brooklyn, NY 11204.

Brief Behavior Scale 115

disturbance than the NI group, but less than the SMED group. The traits that significantly distinguish CEH from NI are Frustration Tolerance, Self-Involvement, and Bizarreness. Cross- Validation Study

A cross-validation study was initiated to partially replicate and broaden the original study and to determine whether similar findings would be obtained on a different sample. Efforts were made to obtain subjects similar to each other in age and ethnic background, and to include children in the regular classes as a control group.

The new sample consisted of SMED day school students (127), junior high school CEH students (122), and regular grade junior high school students (44). Approximately 30 teachers rated the 293 children, with each teacher rating his/her class. The sample consisted of over 95% blacks and Hispanics. Exigencies of time and personnel did not permit the inclusion of NI children in the present study.

A one-way analysis of variance for the three groups was conducted for each per- sonality area. Significant F values at the ,001 level were found for all personality areas, with the exception of Inattentiveness.

Accordingly, t-tests were conducted (hypotheses about differences between groups were a priori) between each of the three groups to determine the pattern of group differences. The findings indicate that regular grade students scored significantly lower than either CEH or SMED students as measured on all traits.

The SMED children were found to show significantly more Abrasiveness and Restlessness and less Frustration Tolerance than the CEH children. There were no significant differences between the SMED and CEH groups in any of the other areas.

The next step in the analysis was to determine how well the BBRS as a totality was able to identify which students belong to each group. Accordingly, a discriminant analysis was performed, using the personality dimensions simultaneously.

The results indicated that 50% of the subjects were correctly identified as to their group membership, based only on information from the BBRS. Over 89% of the regular grade children and 61% of the SMED group were correctly identified. However, only 27% of the CEH group were correctly identified as belonging to CEH, the errors being equally distributed to the SMED and regular groups.

It would appear that SMED and regular grade children are relatively clearly dis- tinguished from each other in terms of their behavioral pattern. However, the CEH group shows a wide range of behavioral patterns that tend to operate against making any identification as to which group a child belongs to on the basis of his score on the BBRS alone.

The greater variability of the CEH group is evidenced by their consistently higher standard deviations than those of the SMED or regular grade groups.

DISCUSSION The results of the study indicate that children in special education classes of either

CEH or SMED are distinguishable from those in the regular grades and from those in NI classes. The BBRS presents a profile of children in the SMED day school and CEH classes as exhibiting significantly more behavioral problems than children in the regular grades and NI classes. In addition, significant differences also were found between the SMED and CEH groups.

It appears, then, that when the means of the groups are compared to each other, there are clear differences between them. Similarly, the scales can, in general, correctly

116 Psychology in the Schools, January, 1982, Vol. 19, No. 1

classify individual students solely on the basis of their scores as to whether they are in the regular grades or in SMED. Thus, not only do the two groups differ in their overall means, they also differ to such an extent that there is very little overlapping in their dis- tributions.

Individual children in the CEH group, however, cannot be as readily identified as belonging to that group by their scores alone. Many of them are misclassified as belong- ing to either the regular grade or SMED group. The CEH group, although distinct from the other groups in terms of its general averages, nevertheless shows wide variability among its members, such that the distribution of individual scores about its mean overlaps into the distributions of the SMED and regular grade groups.

Whether this finding represents a limitation of the instrument or a reflection of the type of child in the CEH classes is not clear. In either event, it should be understood that the BBRS should not be the sole criterion for placement in special education classes. It does, however, appear to be a reliable adjunct in making such decisions, as well as in helping the evaluator toward a clearer understanding of the child.

REFERENCES FORBES, G. B. Comparison of hyperactive and emotionally-behaviorally disturbed children on the Devereux

Child Behavior Rating Scale: A potential aid in diagnosis. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 1978,34,68-71. SPIVACK, G., & SPOTTS, J. Devereux Child Behavior Rating Scale manual. Devon, PA: Devereux Founda-

tion Press, 1966. SPIVAC~, G . , SPOTTS, J., & HAIMES, P. E. Devereux Adolescent Behavior Rating Scale manual. Devon, PA:

Devereux Foundation Press, 1967. SPIVACK, G., & SWIFT, M. Devereu Elementary School Behavior Rating Scale manual. Devon, PA:

Devereux Foundation Press, 1966- 1967. SWIFT, M., & SPIVACK, G. Clarifying the relationship between academic success and overt classroom

behavior. Exceptional Children, 1969, 36, 99-104. WALLBROWN, J. D., & WALLBROWN, F. H. Classroom behaviors associated with difficulties in visual-motor

perception. Psychology in the Schools, 1976, 13, 20-24. WALLBROWN, J. D., WALLBROWN, F. H., & BLAHA, J. The stability of teacher ratings on the Devereux

Elementary School Behavior Rating Scale. Journal of Experimental Education, 1976, 44, 20-22. WALLBROWN, J . D., WALLBROWN, F. H., & ENGIN, A. W. The prediction of first grade achievement with

behavior ratings taken during kindergarten. Journal of Experimental Education, 1977, 45, 16-20. WALLBROWN, J . D., WALLBROWN, F. H., ENGIN, A. W., & BLAHA, J. Dimensions of classroom behavior for

kindergarten children. Psychological Reports, 1976, 39, 1163-1 174.