This research investigated the self-reported mainstream school experiences of those diagnosed on the autistic spectrum compared with the typically developing school population. Existing literature identifies four key areas that affect the quality of the school experience for students with autism: social skills, perceived relationships with…

Youth strengths are as important to consider as deficits in understanding developmental outcomes and thus are an important component of psychoeducational assessment. Latino/as are understudied with regard to strength-based constructs, although cultural and socioeconomic factors may be related to differences in Latino/a parents' views of their…

Describes the development of "The Behavioral and Emotional Rating Scale: A Strength-Based Approach to Assessment" for use with children with special needs. Reports on several pilot studies conducted to establish the scale's validity prior to the scale being normed on a nationally representative sample. These studies addressed content…

The authors' studies evaluated the discriminative ability of the youth and parent forms of the "Behavioral and Emotional Rating Scale--Second Edition" (BERS-2; Epstein, 2004). The BERS-2 is a standardized rating scale system that assesses the emotional and behavioral strengths of children and youth. Separate studies compared the…

Data are reported on the long-term (6-month) test-retest reliability of the Behavioral and Emotional Rating Scale (BERS), which is a strength-based assessment instrument. Participants included 95 typical elementary students and 26 children at risk of having or having emotional or behavioral disorders. Moderate to high test-retest correlations were…

This article describes the Behavioral and Emotional Rating Scale (BERS), a measure designed to identify the emotional and behavioral strengths of children and adolescents. The 52-item BERS assesses five areas: interpersonal strength, family involvement, intrapersonal strength, school functioning, and affective strength. A case study of a…

A study used the Behavioral and Emotional Rating Scale (BERS) with 129 students (ages 7-18) with learning disabilities (LD), 145 with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD), and 144 typical students. BERS discriminated among students with LD and EBD and controls and was able to classify students with EBD and controls. (Contains references.)…

Behavior rating scales are important tools in the process of assessing students' emotional and behavioral needs. Best practices in behavioral assessment dictate that the perspectives of multiple informants (e.g., teacher, parent, youth) should be considered. Overall, agreement between multiple informants is modest at best and is especially low…

Behavior rating scales are important tools in the process of assessing students' emotional and behavioral needs. Best practices in behavioral assessment dictate that the perspectives of multiple informants (e.g., teacher, parent, youth) should be considered. Overall, agreement between multiple informants is modest at best and is especially low…

Objective: This is the first validity study to date to examine the relationship between the Draw-A-Person: Screening Procedure for Emotional Disturbance (DAP:SPED) and strengths-based emotional and behavioral measures. The incremental predictive validity of the DAP:SPED relative to the Behavioral and Emotional Rating Scale was examined. Method:…