Case Study
The Child Behavior Checklist Nonclinical Standardization Samples: Should They Be Utilized as Norms?

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Abstract

The Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) is an extensively standardized parent-completed checklist of competencies and behavior problems of children, and adolescents. Clinicians and researchers frequently assume that the published scale scores for the CBCL nonclinical sample are stable even across demographically heterogeneous populations. The present study, a school-based postal questionnaire survey, was designed to compare the CBCL nonclinical sample with a different community sample collected in the U.S. The parents of 530 children, 6 to 10 years of age (73% of the eligible sample), attending one public school system in northern New Jersey were recruited. Mean total behavior problem scores for both sexes in the school sample were dramatically higher than the CBCL nonclinical sample even after removing clinically referred cases from the analyses. Additionally, in contrast to the manual, marked race/ethnicity effects were found in the male subsample. These results, in conjunction with those from other studies, raise serious questions about the common practice of using the CBCL norms as a yardstick for sample comparisons. J. Am. Acad. Child Adolesc. Psychiatry, 1991, 30, 1:124–134.

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The authors thank the school administrators, staff, and parents of the participating school district. Thanks also to the following research assistants: Lauren Baas, Evan Elkin, Ingrid Galed, Jennifer Hay, Marie Jean, Eden Kainer, Baan Kassir, Bonna Kennedy, Odine Kleiner, Debbie Kornfeld, Erika Milvy, Jamie Phillips, Lesley Pratt, Allysa Rieder, Joan Romo, Joseph Skoler, Jennifer Sloan, Elizabeth Trainor, Bayla Travis, and Margarita Viera. The authors also acknowledge the secretarial assistance of Pat Connolly ad Dorothy Lewis.

Dr. David Sandberg was supported by National Research Service Award HD06726 from the NICHD. This work was supported in part by a Small Grant from the Spencer Foundation, Grant 87-0982-84 from the William T. Grant Foundation, NIMH Research Grant RO3 MH-40914, and NIMH Clinical Research Center Grant MH-30906.

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