Publisher:
ASEBA
(802) 656-8313 or 656-3456
www.ASEBA.org

Initial Material Cost:
Preschool hand-scoring starter kit: $174

Representativeness of Norming Sample: The 1999 child behavioral checklist norming sample of 700 children is nationally representative, but restricted to children with no major physical or mental disabilities and English-speaking parents. The 1,192 caregiver-teacher norming sample is not nationally representative—989 caregivers from the 1997 norming sample augmented the 203 preschool caregivers-teachers drawn from the 1999 sample. The language development survey sample consisted of 278 parents from the 1999 sample.

Languages:
English and Spanish (child behavioral checklist only)

Age Range and Administration Interval: 1.5 to 5 years. No prescribed interval, but routine use is recommended.

Personnel, Training, Administration, and Scoring Requirements:
Respondents should be able to read at the 5th grade level or higher and complete the forms in about 10 to 15 minutes. The authors recommend that a person with graduate training and familiarity with the manual interpret and score the assessment.

Summary
Initial Material Cost: 2 ($100 to $200)
Reliability: 3 (.65 or higher, with some lower)
Validity: 3 (.5 or higher for concurrent, with some lower)
Norming Sample Characteristics: 3 (normed within past 15 years, nationally representative)
Ease of Administration and Scoring: 3 (self-administered but scored by a highly trained individual)

Description: The ASEBA uses information collected from parents and caregivers/teachers to assess the behavioral, emotional, and social functioning (including language development) of young children between the ages of 1.5 and 5 years. To get a better understanding of how the child functions under different conditions, it is recommended that information be collected from more than one adult. The ASEBA consists of two self-administered reporting forms. The parent report consists of a 99-item child behavioral checklist (CBC) and a language development survey (LDS) that asks parents to provide the child’s best multi-word phrases and words the child uses from a list of 310 words The caregiver/teacher report (CTR) consists of a 99-item checklist similar to the CBC except 17 family-specific items have been replaced with group situation items. The 99 items in the CBC are organized into seven syndromes and two broader groupings of syndromes, while the 99 items in the CTR are organized into six of the CBC syndromes and the two broader groupings:

• Internalizing
  • Emotionally reactive
  • Anxious/depressive
  • Somatic complaints
  • Withdrawn
• Externalizing
  • Attention problems
  • Aggressive behavior
• Ungrouped (CBC only)
  • Sleep problem

The items are also organized into five DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder)-oriented scales.

Uses of Information: The results can be used to structure interviews with parents, identify areas for intervention, and evaluate intervention outcomes.

Reliability: (1) Internal consistency reliability (Cronbach’s alpha): the alphas for the CBC scales ranged from .66 to .92 for the syndromes and .63 to .86 for the DSM-oriented scales. The alphas were .89 and .92 for the two broader groupings (internalizing and externalizing syndromes) and .95 for the total score. The alphas for the CTR syndromes ranged from .52 to .96 and for the DSM-oriented scales from .68 to .93. The alphas were .89 and .96 for the internalizing and externalizing groupings and for the total score, .97. (2) Test-retest reliability, with an eight-day interval between tests: the correlations were .85 and .76 for the CBC and CTR, respectively. Test-retest studies on the LDS reported correlations greater or equal to .90.

Validity: (1) Concurrent validity: The CBC correctly classified 84 percent of a sample of children (some of whom were diagnosed as having emotional/behavioral problems), and the CTR correctly classified 74 percent of the children. Studies reported correlation coefficients between the CBC problem syndromes and the Toddler Behavior Screening Inventory and the Infant-Toddler Social and Emotional Assessment ranging from .48 to .70. In 11 studies that compared parent LDS scores with those obtained by trained examiners using other measures, the correlations between the parent’s score and the trained examiner’s ranged from .56 to .87. Other studies found the level of LDS agreement with other measures of language development ranged from .47 to .94. (2) Predictive validity: An 11-year longitudinal study found that children identified by the LDS to have language development problems were more likely to have weak verbal skills at age 13.

Method of Scoring: ASEBA can be hand or computer scored. Respondents complete the CBC and CTR by circling one of three responses and the LDS by circling the words the child uses spontaneously. The behavioral raw scores are derived by summing the response item values (0, 1, or 2) for the syndrome scale, syndrome groupings, and total score. The raw score for the language development survey is the total number of circled words. The manual provides instructions for converting raw scores into T-scores.

Interpretability: Although the ASEBA provides the user with T-scores to compare a child’s performance against other children and the scoring forms classify scores as normal (under 93 percent), borderline (93 to 97 percent), or clinical (over 97 percent), the authors recommend that the results be interpreted by someone with some graduate training.

Adaptations/Special Instructions for Individuals with Disabilities: The manual does not provide details about this, but suggests that persons rating children with disabilities compare the child’s behavior to their expectations of a typical same-age child.

Training Support: None indicated, however, ASEBA was designed to be easy to use and some support may be available on the internet.Adaptations/Special Instructions for Individuals with Disabilities: The manual does not provide details about this, but suggests that persons rating children with disabilities compare the child’s behavior to their expectations of a typical same-age child.

Report Preparation Support: The manual shows a report generated by computer scoring software.

References: 

Achenbach, Thomas M. and Leslie A. Rescorla. Manual for the ASEBA Preschool Forms and Profiles. ASEBA, Burlington, VT, 2000.