Rating problem behaviors in outpatients with mental retardation: Use of the aberrant behavior checklist

doi:10.1016/0891-4222(91)90037-S

Research in Developmental Disabilities

Volume 12, Issue 4, 1991, Pages 435-451

https://doi.org/10.1016/0891-4222(91)90037-S Get rights and content

Abstract

Parent and teacher ratings of behavior problems of an outpatient sample of 110 children, adolescents, and young adults with IQs ranging from severe mental retardation to borderline were obtained using a modified version of the Aberrant Behavior Checklist (ABC). Using factor analytic techniques, the five-factor structure of the parent data corresponded extremely well with the five factors originally obtained from staff ratings of mentally retarded inpatients (i.e., Irritability, Withdrawal, Hyperactivity, Stereotypies, and Inappropriate Speech). Factor content was virtually identical between the parent and original ABC data with differences involving only one or two items per scale. The teacher data also revealed a factor structure that corresponded to the same five factors as the parent and original data. Although the teacher and parent factors showed a high degree of similarity, the teacher data suggested that the Stereotypies and Inappropriate Speech factors of the parent and original analyses were not the same constructs for teacher respondents. Age was related to the withdrawal factor for parent data; level of intellectual functioning was the only subject characteristic related to factor scale scores in both parent and teacher data. Test-retest reliabilities were adequate to excellent for all factors for both parent and teacher data. Parent-teacher cross-informant reliabilities were adequate for at least four of the factors. The results of the report indicate that the ABC is a useful, reliable instrument for assessing maladaptive behaviors in young, developmentally disabled outpatients.

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^☆: This work was supported by grants MH00726 from the National Institutes of Health and HD25806 from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and grants from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the John Merck Fund (Dr. Reiss).

^∗: The authors wish to express their appreciation to Drs. Michael Aman and Gary Chase for their helpful comments regarding the preparation of this manuscript.

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Rating problem behaviors in outpatients with mental retardation: Use of the aberrant behavior checklist☆

Abstract

American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry

Biological Psychiatry

Research in Developmental Disabilities

Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry

Research in Developmental Disabilities

Applied Research in Mental Retardation

Research in Developmental Disabilities

The classification of child psychopathology: A review and analysis of empirical efforts

Psychological Bulletin

Child/adolescent behavioral and emotional problems: Implications of cross-informant correlations for situational specificity

Psychological Bulletin

The Aberrant Behavior Checklist: Factor structure and the effect of subject variables in American and New Zealand Facilities

American Journal of Mental Deficiency

Aberrant Behavior Checklist

The Aberrant Behavior Checklist: A behavior rating scale for the assessment of treatment effects

American Journal of Mental Deficiency

Psychometric characteristics of the Aberrant Behavior Checklist

American Journal of Mental Deficiency

Reliability of the Aberrant Behavior Checklist and the effect of variations in instructions

American Journal of Mental Deficiency