The Developmental Behaviour Checklist (DBC)
by Dr Avril Brereton
What is the DBC?
The
DBC is a 96 item checklist that assesses a broad
range of behavioural and emotional disturbances in
young people with intellectual or developmental
disability aged between 4 and 18 years. It is
completed by parents or other primary carers or
teachers. This should take no more than 15 minutes.
The items were independently derived from a study of
the medical files of 7000 intellectually disabled
children and adolescents seen in a developmental
assessment clinic.
Structure of the DBC
There
are parent/primary carer (DBC-P) and teacher report
(DBC-T) versions of the DBC.The parent version has
96 items and is completed by the person fulfilling
the primary carer role and who has known the young
person for at least 6 months. The teacher version
has 94 items and is completed by a teacher who has
known the young person for at least 2 months.
Scoring the DBC
Each
behavioural description is scored on a 0, 1 or 2
rating scale.
0 = not true as far as you know
1 = somewhat or sometimes true
2 = very true or often true
The DBC is scored at
three levels
1.
The Total Behaviour Problem Score (TBPS) is an
overall measure of emotional and behavioural
problems. The DBC can also detect clinically
significant levels of overall emotional and
behavioural disturbance (a score of 46 or greater).
2.
Five subscales (derived from factor analysis) -
scores give a measure of disturbance across five
sub-scales: Disruptive/Anti-social Behaviour,
Self-absorbed, Communication Disturbance, Anxiety
and Social Relating.
3.
Individual behaviour items – indicates the
prevalence and severity of individual items.
The DBC can be used for
the following purposes:
1.
Clinical Assessment
The DBC can be used in conjunction with a clinical
assessment as a complementary and quick method of
obtaining information about the presence or absence
of a number of different emotional and behavioural
problems. Information from teachers can give
important information about whether the behaviours
occur in contexts outside the home.
2.
Change over time and monitoring interventions
Repeated administration of the DBC provides an
effective means of following change and measuring
the consequences of an intervention, e.g. the
introduction of medication or a behavioural
intervention program.
3.
Research
The DBC can also be used in research studies into
the phenomenology and aetiology, treatment outcomes,
specific behaviour problems and causes of
intellectual disability.
The use of the DBC as a
screening instrument for autism
1.
DBC-ASA
The effectiveness of the DBC as a screening tool has
been evaluated. A recent study determined that the
DBC can be used as a reliable and valid autism
screening tool (Brereton et al, 2002). A 29 item
scale - the DBC Autism Screening Algorithm (DBC-ASA)
was developed using items form the DBC and evaluated
in a sample of 180 children with autism (DSM-IV
Autistic Disorder) and 180 controls matched for age,
sex and IQ. The DBC-ASA has good validity in
discriminating young people (aged 4-18) with autism
and IQ ranging from normal to severe intellectual
disability from others using a cut-off score of 17.
2.
DBC Early Screen
This study aimed to identify emotional and
behavioural problems specific to young children with
autism using the Developmental Behaviour Checklist (DBC-P)
and evaluate the efficacy of this checklist as a
screening tool for autism in children with
developmental delay aged 18-48 months. Subjects were
60 children with autism and developmental delay and
60 children with developmental delay without autism.
Features were identified which differentiated the
children with autism from those with developmental
delay without autism. Analyses revealed that a
17-item version of the DBC-P performed well as a
screening tool for autism. The DBC-P offers a
potential simple and inexpensive method of screening
at risk populations of preschool children with
developmental delay for autism, facilitating timely
referral to scarce specialist autism diagnostic
services.
Translations
The
parent version of the DBC is available in the
following languages: Arabic, Chinese, Croatian,
Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hindi,
Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Portuguese
(Brazilian), Spanish, Swedish, Turkish and
Vietnamese.
References
Brereton, A.V., Tonge, B.J., A. Mackinnon & Einfeld,
S.L. (2002). Screening Young People for Autism Using
the Developmental Behaviour Checklist. Journal
of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent
Psychiatry, 41 (11) 1-7.
Clarke
AR, Tonge BJ, Einfeld SL, et al. (2003). Assessment
of change with the Developmental Behaviour
Checklist. Journal of Intellectual disability
Research, 47: 210-212 Part 3.
Einfeld, Stewart, L. and Tonge, Bruce, J. (2002)
Manual for the Developmental Behaviour Checklist
(second edition).
Gray
KM, Tonge BJ (2005) Screening for autism in infants
and preschool children with developmental delay.
Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry,
39 (5): 378-386.
For more detailed information and further
references:
http://www.med.monash.edu.au/spppm/research/devpsych/dbc.html
|