In the field of special education, assessments are completed to determine children’s academic levels, cognitive and language abilities, adaptive behavior, intervention strategies and to replace undesired behavior with positive behaviors. Behavior testing and assessments looks at how each individual interact with their environment and can identify behavior patterns as well as reasons for the behavior. Testing and assessments have different tools being used to understand what might be behind the issues relating to the behavior. The behaviors could include a learning disability, mental health, developmental delays, emotional distress, emotional behavioral or attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). In my essay, I will discuss three standardized tests the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function- Preschool Version (BRIEF-P), Conners 3, and Conners Comprehensive Behavior Rating Scales.
The Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function-Preschool Version (BRIEF-P) was the first standardized rating scale to be designed for children, which appeared in 2000 for the use of preschoolers. It is a component of a comprehensive evaluation to assess a broad range of childhood disorders, its executive function is a general cognitive process and is combined with self-regulation of behavior. The BRIEF-P rating is based on the individual’s behaviors in the home and school environment. It is created for preschool children ages 2 to 5 years to address the need for measurement of executive function and early detection of self-regulatory difficulties in younger children (Gioia et al., 1996).
The assessment takes between ten to fifteen minutes, where it is administered to the parents, teacher, teacher assistant or day care provider who knows the child. The assessment rates how often certain behaviors have been problematic for the individual over the past six months relative to other children of the same age. The BRIEF-P involves adjusting items for the BRIEF-P to reflect the preschooler context to reflect behaviors, remove items (high means) if needed, assign items to scales and wide dispersion indices. According to Sherman & Books (2010), “The BRIEF-P appears uniquely suited to providing estimates of executive functions in this age group and can be seen as a crucial component of the neuropsychological assessment of preschoolers”.
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The assessment consists of 63 items with five clinical scales, three indices (Inhibit, Shift, Emotional Control, Working Memory Plan/Organize that measure different aspects of executive functioning (Gioai et al., 1996). The materials for this assessment consist of a software package for the computer scoring sheet and a profile form for hand scoring. According to Spiegel et al., (2017), “The rate on the Likert scale using never (n), sometimes (s) and often (o) and then are translated where a rating of never scores 1, sometimes 2, and often 3”.
The Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function using the T-scores and percentile ranks for the five clinical scales are based on gender, age, parent and teacher. There are two validity scales, which are inconsistency and negative that are designed to measure inconsistent and excessively negative responses. According to Sherman & Brooks (2010), “Measuring executive functioning presents a challenge at any age, but this challenge is especially acute in the assessment of preschoolers whose proficiency in language, memory and motor skills are not yet established and who have difficulty staying on a task for prolonged periods”. However, there test that focus on treatment and positive impacts of children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).
The Conners 3 is the most updated version of a series of measure for assessing ADHD, comorbid problem/disorder in children and adolescents ranging from 6 to 18 years of age. It focuses on the emotional, sensorimotor, cognitive, behavioral, social adaptive functioning and positive impact of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder children. The Conner 3 test consists of a self -report, parent and teacher questionnaires and items that are based on DSM-IV-TR. The assessment is appropriate for individual or group administration and the options are paper-and-pencil or online.
The individual reading level should be between third and fifth grade for Self Report and fourth and fifth for the Teacher and Parent forms. According to Kao & Thomas (2010), “The related problems that the test helps assess include executive dysfunction, learning problems, aggression and problems with peer/family relations”. The test can be administered by the psychologists, clinical social workers, psychiatric workers and the users should have completed graduate level courses in test and measurement. The Conners 3 test is straightforward, it provides technical information, scoring examples and normative data. On the assessment, the number of questions will vary from 110 for parent, 115 for teacher and 99 for self-report in the full version. However, it is a well-designed instrument with excellent technical properties that promise to be instruments in the evaluation, diagnosis and treatment response of children with ADHD (Conners, 2008).
Conners 3 has multiple scales to help assess ADHD and other related problems in children or adolescents. The Content Scales, learning problems, hyperactivity/impulsivity, aggression executive functioning and the DSM-IV-TR Symptom Scales are included. The rating scales are administered to teachers and parents for rating the child and the scale is from 0 (never or seldom) to 3 (very true or very frequently). Conners 3 scores are calculated as raw scores, converted to standardized scores to be used for reporting and comparison, the T-scores and percentiles allow for easier comparison of strength and weakness and for comparison among peers (Kao & Thomas, 2010).
The assessment is given reliability scores that are high and reliability assessment criteria seem to be met. On the assessment, the parent-parent and teacher-teacher scores report that they have the lowest reliability scores. On the assessment, the validity scales include positive impression, negative impression and an inconsistency index. The validity exploratory factor analyses structure remained consistent across the demographic groups. However, C. K. Conner revised the Conner’s Rating Scale to evaluate problems behaviors in children and adolescents.
According to Angello et al., (2003), “The Conner’s Rating Scale- Revised (CRS-R; Conners, 1997) was designed to evaluate problem behaviors by obtaining reports from the teachers, parents and adolescents”. The purpose of this test is to help assist in the assessment of ADHD children and adolescents ages 3-17 and the test materials are easy to use and are consistent with the purpose of the test. The rating scale has a long and short version of norm-references scales that are available and reflect a variety of DSM-IV criteria for childhood disorders.
There is three reliability information that is provided for the CRS-R which are internal consistency reliability, standard error of measurement and test-retest reliability. The coefficients for all forms of the test ranged from .73 to .91, with most exceeding a moderate reliability coefficient .80 (Angello et al., (2003). However, the Conners 3 scales focus on ADHD assessment, does not provide a comprehensive evaluation of emotional function and was co-normed with the Conners Comprehensive Behavior Rating Scales
The Conners Comprehensive Behavior Rating Scales (CCBRS) were developed with the Conners 3 to help serve as an instrument for the assessment of academic function, behavioral, social and emotional. The Conners Comprehensive Behavior Rating Scales is a norm-based parent-rated screening measure to identify whether an individual has symptoms and behaviors consistent with ADHD (Conners, 2015). It has been used in research as a reliable and valid measure, has good internal consistency and coefficient reliability. The assessment includes scales such as teacher rating (204 items), self-report (179), parent rating (203) and can be used with children from 6 to 18 years old. The assessment can be given by raters writing on their responses in booklet or taking it online. However, the test author decided to assess a range of behavioral problems and psychological problems that includes 40 scales.
According to Conners (2015), “The purpose of the CBRS is to serve as an important development and system scales derived from the DSM-IV-TR”. The Content Scales include broad areas of dysfunction: Emotional Distress, Defiant/Aggressive Behavioral, Academic difficulties and the scales are meant to help narrow down the diagnoses. In the validity scales, there are three patterns of responding: positive impression, inconsistency and negative impression. In the article, “A Pathway for emotional distress and implications for therapeutic jurisprudence in African American Juvenile Court Respondents” emotional distress is a broad psychological term that refers to anxious and depressive symptoms and one of the common diagnoses among African American Juvenile with court contact” (Andretta et al., 2016).
The assessment was given to all youth in the court clinic, which included 477 African Americans aged ranged 12 to 19 years. The scores show that on the DSM-IV-TR scales of the CBRS show that more African American females than males are at least one clinically score in a forensic setting. In articles on Juvenile African American in the Justice System, the Conners showed a T-score of 65 of higher indicating concerns in this range are eligibility for mental health diversion (Worrell et al., 2014).
The CBRS scores reliability shows internal consistency, reliability test-retest and analyses interrater reliability. The score conversions (norms) are divided by the individual age and gender, however, there were significant age and gender effects found in the normative data. Statistically significant effects for ethnicity and parent education level were found for many scales, but again most effects sizes were small (Conners, 2015). Overall, the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function-Preschool Version will be my focus for my course project. The BRIEF-P will give me the opportunity to research, gain a better understanding and knowledge on early detection of difficulties in younger children.
