In my brief commentary, I offer a look to the past to celebrate lessons learned in social, emotional, and behavioral assessment. Then, I respectfully pose considerations for researchers and practitioners committed to early detection, intervention, and assessment of students with and at risk for emotional and behavioral disorders. Specifically, I…

The Revised Child Anxiety and Depression Scale--Parent Version (RCADS-P) is a parent-report questionnaire of youth anxiety and depression with scales corresponding to the "DSM" diagnoses of separation anxiety disorder, social phobia, generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and major depressive…

This article describes the development and initial psychometric properties of the Parent Tic Questionnaire (PTQ)--a new measure assessing the number, frequency, and intensity of motor and vocal tics in children and adolescents with Chronic Tic Disorder (CTD). Parents of 40 children with a CTD completed the PTQ as part of a larger assessment…

The study aims at developing and validating a brief, easy-to-use screening instrument for teachers to predict externalizing disorders in children and recommending them for timely referral. The scores are compared between Dutch and non-Dutch immigrant children and a significant amount of cases for externalizing disorders were identified but sex and…

Over the past few decades, the reported number of children identified as having one of the Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) has increased exponentially. One proposed reason for the dramatic increase in the prevalence of ASD is diagnostic substitution, whereby children with other disorders incorrectly receive a diagnosis of ASD. Little research has…

In this article, the authors examine the psychometric properties of the Student Risk Screening Scale (SRSS), including evaluating the concurrent validity of the SRSS to predict results from the Systematic Screening for Behavior Disorders (SSBD) when used to detect school children with externalizing or internalizing behavior concerns at three…

Although often lacking "malice", aggression is fairly common in children with intellectual or developmental disability (I/DD). Despite this, there are no scales available that are appropriate for an in-depth analysis of aggressive behavior in this population. Such scales are needed for the study of aggressive behavior, which is a common target…

Validity studies of measures for emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) for use with preschool children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are lacking. The Child Behavior Checklist 1.5-5 (CBCL; Achenbach and Rescorla, Manual for the ASEBA Preschool Forms & Profiles. VT: University of Vermont, Research Center for Children, Youth, and…

Whereas some scales exist for assessing aggression in typically developing children, they do not give a detailed analysis, and none is available for populations with developmental disabilities (DD). Parents of 365 children with DD completed the Children's Scale of Hostility and Aggression: Reactive/Proactive (C-SHARP), which surveys the severity…

In this study, psychometric properties of the Health of the Nation Outcome scales (HoNOS) and Health of the Nation Outcome Scales for People with Learning Disabilities (HoNOS-LD) were investigated in a sample (n = 79) of (young) adults with mild to borderline intellectual disability (ID) and severe behavior and mental health problems who were…

In the present study, we sought to extend instrument validation research for a strength-based emotional and behavior rating scale, the "Teacher Rating Scale of the Behavior and Emotional Rating Scale-Second Edition" (BERS-2; Epstein, M. H. (2004). "Behavioral and emotional rating scale" (2nd ed.). Austin, TX: PRO-ED) through…

There has been a recent emphasis on improving the academic performance of students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD). Improving the academic performance of students with EBD is especially important in the current accountability era in which there is much emphasis placed on performance of standardized tests. The purpose of this study…

Depression at the end of life is a common mental health issue with serious implications for quality of life and decision making. This study investigated the reliability and validity of one of the most frequently used measures of depression, the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAM-D) in 422 patients with terminal cancer admitted to a palliative…

This study examined 3-year-old children who were classified as hyperactive (HYP), oppositional-defiant (OD), hyperactive and oppositional defiant (HYP/OD), and non-problem based on mothers' reports of behavior. Using fathers', teachers', and observers' ratings of children's behavior, concurrent validity was excellent for the HYP/OD group, moderate…

The Systematic Screening for Behavior Disorders (SSBD), a multistage screening system designed to identify elementary school--age children at risk for emotional and behavioral disorders, was evaluated for use with middle and junior high school students. During SSBD Stage 1, teachers identified 123 students in grades 6 through 9 with…