Authors:
J. Newborg, J.R. Stock, & J. Wnek (initial development); J. Guidubaldi (pilot norming study); J.S. Svinicki (completion and standardization)

Publisher:
Riverside Publishing Co.
800-323-9540
www.riverpub.com

Initial Material Cost:
Examiner’s manual: $58
Scoring booklets (15): $35
Examiner’s manual for screening test: $56 Screening test booklets (30): $41
Overview videotape: $58

Representativeness of Norming Sample: National norming sample of 800 children from birth to 8 years of age, stratified according to geographical region, age, race, and gender; 75 percent urban and 25 percent rural; 28 test sites in 24 states. Distribution of sample closely represents the four major geographical regions of the United States.

Languages:
English

Type of Assessment:
Direct Child Assessment, Observation, and Parent Interview

Age Range and Administration Interval: Birth to 8 years.

Personnel, Training, Administration, and Scoring Requirements:
Can be administered by paraprofessionals
(“nonpsychologists”) and is intended for use by infant, preschool, primary, and special education teachers. Important that examiners have supervised practice in administering BDI for children with disabilities across age span.

BDI Screening Test takes 10 to 15 minutes for children under 3 and over 5 years of age and 20 to 30 minutes for children between the ages of 3 and 5. The full BDI can be administered in about 1 hour for children under 3 and over 5 years of age and in 1.5 to 2 hours for children between 3 and 5 years.

Summary
Initial Material Cost: 1 (> $100)
Reliability: 3 (test-retest, .65 or higher)
Validity: 3 (.5 or higher for concurrent)
Norming Sample Characteristics: 2 (older than 15 years, nationally representative)
Ease of Administration and Scoring: 2 (administered and scored by paraprofessionals)

Description: The BDI assesses children from birth to 8 years of age on the following five domains: Personal-Social, Adaptive, Motor, Communication, and Cognitive. The BDI Screening test contains 96 items and represents a subset of the full battery, which is comprised of 341 items. Within each domain, the items are assigned age levels and organized sequentially into subdomains. The BDI is norm-referenced and helps to identify young children with special needs and assess the functional abilities of these children, as well as children without special needs. Child diagnostic information for the full BDI is presented in the form of age equivalents, percentiles, and standard scores (that is, developmental quotients, z-scores, T-scores, and normal curve equivalents) for each of the major domains and subdomains. This information is available for the Screening Test as age equivalents and cutoff scores.

Uses of Information: The BDI is primarily used for four purposes: (1) assessment and identification of children with special needs, (2) assessment of school readiness among children without special needs, (3) planning and providing educational instruction, and (4) evaluation of groups of children with special needs.

Reliability: Test-retest (4-month interval) for the total test is .98 for children 0 to 5 and 18 to 23 months old and .99 for children 6 to 11, 12 to 17, 24 to 35, and 36 to 47 months old.

Validity: (1) Content validity: The process for developing the BDI involved identifying skill areas to be assessed, selecting or developing the test items, and verifying the content validity of the results with review by content experts. (2) Construct validity: Factor analysis and the intercorrelations between the domains and subdomains supported the factorial validity and conceptual structure of the BDI. (3) Concurrent validity: Measures on the BDI relate well to other instruments, including the Vineland Social Maturity Scale (Doll 1965), and the Developmental Activities Screening Inventory (DASI; Dubose & Langley 1977), with correlations ranging from .78 to .94. While the BDI is not an intelligence test, it measures motor and language skills and is found to relate moderately well with the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale (S-B; Terman & Merrill 1960), with correlations ranging from .40 to .61. Validity tests were also conducted with the BDI Screening Test. The correlation between the total score on the Screening Test and that of the full battery is .99, indicating that performance on the Screening Test predicts performance on the full BDI.

Method of Scoring: Items are scored on a three-point system, according to whether the child typically completes the item correctly (2), sometimes does so (1), or rarely or never completes the task, even if the child did not have the opportunity to respond (0). The number of allowed trials is presented separately with each item. If a child completes the item correctly on the first trial, he or she receives 2 points and can move on to the next item. Basal rules are established so that test items that are extremely easy for a child need not be administered, while ceiling rules ensure that items that are much too difficult are not administered. A child receives full credit, 2 points per item, for all items that fall below the basal level. The subdomain raw scores for the full BDI battery are obtained by summing the individual item scores from the basal level through the ceiling level and then adding that total to the full credit sum (2 points per item) for items below the basal level. In contrast, for the Screening Test the basal and ceiling rules apply to each domain. Domain raw scores can be obtained by summing the subdomain raw scores, and a total raw score is obtained by summing the five domain raw scores. Once obtained, the raw scores are transferred to the Score Summary and Profile section in the Scoring Booklet.

Interpretability: Tables are used to convert raw scores to percentile rank, age equivalent scores, and the following standard scores: z-scores, T scores, deviation quotients, and normal curve equivalents. The Screening Test cutoff scores for each age group are provided for three probability levels that correspond to 1.0, 1.5, and 2.0 standard deviations below the mean. In interpreting the full BDI, standard scores are useful for decision making, percentile ranks are useful for reporting information to parents, and age equivalent scores may be required by federal, state, and local policies. Cutoffs are not provided for the full BDI, but the authors recommend following convention and treating standard scores that are 1.5 or more standard deviations below the mean as an indication of a performance deficit. BDI norms should not be used if the BDI has not been administered according to standard procedures. Five case studies on the interpretation of scores are presented in chapter 4 of the manual.

Training Support: An overview videotape is available.

Adaptations/Special Instructions for Individuals with Disabilities: The BDI includes guidelines for assessing children with disabilities so that they are able to respond in a manner that is appropriate for them. Also, most of the items include standardized stimulus/response options for children with visual, hearing, neuromotor, or behavior/emotional needs. Children with special needs are scored according to the same criteria used to score children without disabilities. Adaptations are not made for children who have “no opportunity” for a response on an item due to handicapping conditions, because a score of 0 reflects children’s actual level of functioning.

Report Preparation Support: Guidelines for developing goals and objectives for children with special needs through the Individual Education Plans are found in chapter 5 of the manual.

References:

Doll, E.A. Vineland Social Maturity Scale. Circle Pines, MN: American Guidance Service, 1965.

DuBose, R.F. and M.B. Langley.

Developmental Activities Screening Inventory. Hingham, MA: Teaching Resources Corporation, 1977.

Newborg, Jean, John Stock, Linda Wnek, John Guidubaldi, and John Svinicki. Battelle Developmental Inventory with Recalibrated Technical Data and Norms: Examiner’s Manual. Riverside Publishing, 1984.

Newborg, Jean, John Stock, Linda Wnek, John Guidubaldi, and John Svinicki. Battelle Developmental Inventory with Calibrated Technical Data and Norms: Screening Test. Riverside Publishing, 1984.

Terman, L.M. and M.A. Merrill. Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale, Third Revision (Form L-M). Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1960.