for Children

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For most purposes, the Behavior Assessment System for Children (BASC) is an excellent choice for screening externalizing behavior problems. The rating scale has a number of items and scales specific to the externalizing domain. The is a comprehensive system for assessing child and adolescent behavior. Included in the BASC system are parent and teacher rating scales for preschool-age children (4-5), children (6-11), and adolescents (12-18). These behavior rating scales are separately normed and somewhat unique across age range and informant versions, but still share a common conceptual and practical framework, and have many items in common across versions. Also included in the overall BASC system are comprehensive self-report forms for children (age 6-11) and adolescents (age 12-18), a structured developmental history form, and a student observation system. Although it is not yet as extensively researched as the more established behavior assessments, it appears to be technically sound and potentially useful for varied research and clinical purposes. The BASC is useful in clinical and education decision making, in several respects. Examples of the types of decisions that may be aided through its use include screening and assessment, classification and placement, and intervention decisions. Regarding intervention decisions, there appears to be an increasing acceptance of its usefulness for this purpose. The self-report forms of the BASC are practical, easy to use, psychometrically strong, and have many other positive qualities to support them. Even though the externally published research base for these measures is very small to nonexistent at the present time, the very extensive supporting technical evidence in the BASC manual should give practitioners and researchers confidence in using the SRP-C and SRP-A for a variety of purposes. Other advantages include low cost and efficiency; increased reliability and validity in comparison with some other methods of assessment; opportunity for assessment input from parents, teachers, and other important social informants; and the possibility of obtaining assessment data on individuals who are not in a position to be directly observed or to provide high quality self-report information (Flanagan, 1995; Reynolds, 1992).

The BASC is not without its disadvantages. The parent and teacher rating forms for children and adolescents include the PRS-C (parent rating scale for ages 6-11), PRS-A (parent rating scale for ages 12-18), TRS-C (teacher rating scale for ages 6-11), and TRS-A (teacher rating scale for ages 12-18). These instruments are relatively long in terms of number of items, ranging from 126 to 148 items. The extensive length may make these instruments difficult to use for routine screening work, and certainly a poor choice for weekly progress monitoring, which requires ...