Examined whether Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children (K-ABC) could discriminate between learning disabled and normal preadolescents. Tested 43 learning disabled (LD) students and 20 students without learning disabilities. Results indicated that the Achievement score relative to the Mental Processing Composite score was the only measure to…

Studies conducted to investigate the psychometric qualities of the Health Support Index suggest that the index is internally consistent, stable and, potentially useful in identifying those individuals who do or do not have adequate support from their social environment to make successful changes in health-related behavior. (CB)

A study with 10 developmentally delayed children between the ages of 52 and 80 months found that test-retest samples resulted in greater variability for lexical and morphological measurements than split-half transcripts. It was also found that 50-utterance sample segments contained 70-80 percent of the lexical information found in 100-utterance…

Empirical studies involving 875 adolescents and adults were conducted to develop and validate the Quick Discrimination Index (QDI), a 30-item, Likert-type self-report inventory that measures attitudes toward racial diversity and women's equality. The test was found to be internally consistent and stable and to have promising validity. (SLD)

This paper reviews the psychometric properties, treatment utility, and conceptual basis of instruments used to identify the functions of aberrant behaviors in people with developmental disabilities. Instruments include the Motivational Assessment Scale, Motivation Analysis Rating Scale, Functional Analysis Interview Form, and Functional Analysis…

This study describes the development of the Active Treatment Client Rights checklist (ATCR), which was designed to facilitate the assessment, monitoring, and implementation of readily observable client active treatment services for adults with developmental disabilities. The ATCR was found to be highly reliable, valid, and useful in enhancing…

Interviewed Israeli students to assess the Adult Attachment Interview's test-retest reliability and effects of the interviewers on the interview itself. Information about subjects' memory and intellectual abilities was obtained from external sources. Found a high degree of interrater and test-retest reliabilities, irrespective of interviewers.…

A method is presented for estimating the accuracy and consistency of classifications based on test scores. The reliability of the score is used to estimate effective test length in terms of discrete items. The true-score distribution is estimated by fitting a four-parameter beta model. (SLD)

Classically parallel, tau-equivalently parallel, and congenerically parallel models representing various degrees of part-test parallelism and their appropriateness for tests composed of multiple item formats are discussed. An appropriate reliability estimate for a test with multiple item formats is presented and illustrated. (SLD)

Developed interview-based Geriatric Depression Rating Scale (GDRS) and administered 35-item GDRS to 68 older adults with range of affective disturbance. Found scale to have internal consistency and split-half reliability comparable to those of Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression and Geriatric Depression Scale. Concurrent validity, construct…

Evaluated Negative Personal motives and Positive Social motives, two drinking motives scales derived from Mulford and Miller's Definitions of Alcohol Scales, and Negative Family Models scales for internal consistency and association with college students' scores on drinking-related Social Complications scale. In both initial (n=553) and…

This assessment of the reliability and validity of skills analysis programs within curriculum-based measurement (CBM), with various groups of handicapped and nonhandicapped youngsters, indicated that the skills analysis programs in spelling and math provided consistent information that related well to the primary graphed CBM scores. (Author/JDD)

Finds considerable instability across two administrations of Carbo's Reading Styles Inventory (RSI), for both the reading methods and the recommended adjustments for implementing the methods. Finds it unlikely that reported benefits from adjusting instruction based on the RSI derive from matching a method to assessed style. (SR)

Evaluation of the reliability of 7 measures assessing social cognitive variables hypothesized to define social intelligence, with a total of 125 adolescents with mental retardation, found high to very high interrater reliability coefficients; moderate to very high internal reliabilities; and moderate to high test-retest reliabilities. (Author/DB)

The Swedish version of the Communication Strategies scale of the Communication Profile for the Hearing Impaired was evaluated in terms of descriptive statistics, corrected item-total correlations, principal component analysis, and internal consistency reliability. The study concludes that the scale is an adequately reliable and clinically useful…