A study evaluated a prework assignment for predicting work-task preferences among three adults with severe multiple disabilities prior to supported employment. The assessment compared worker selections from pairs of work tasks drawn from their future job duties. The assessment accurately predicted tasks that the workers preferred to work on.…

Voice range profiles (VRP) were analyzed according to 11 frequency, intensity, and morphological characteristics for 94 typical children and 136 children with vocal fold pathologies (ages 6-11). Normative data are presented showing marked differences between the groups. The use of the VRP Index for Children for screening is discussed. (Author/CR)

This study developed a test battery to assess the cognitive skills in children with physical limitations. A preliminary battery of 83 items was administered to 26 children, aged 26 to 36 months, with severe physical impairments. Rasch analysis yielded a final battery of 35 items with high internal consistency, interrater reliability, and…

Study conducts confirmatory factor, reliability, and correlational analyses of scores on the Child and Adolescent Social Support Scale (CASSS). Analyses revealed evidence of reliability, a four-factor structure (Parent, Teacher, Classmate, and Close Friend subscales), and construct validity. There is evidence that the CASSS can be used to…

Used meta-analytic procedures from 51 studies worldwide to assess the reliability of two self-report measures (Parent Acceptance-Rejection Questionnaire and Personality Assessment Questionnaire) which test the transcultural association between perceived parental acceptance/rejection and psychological adjustment. Both were found reliable for use…

Reviews the D48, a nonverbal analogies test used as a measure of general intelligence. Results of a study with 126 Mexican American and 139 Anglo American 7th graders show the D48 to be reliable, free of slope or intercept bias, a valid indicator of performance on Stanford Achievement subtests, and significantly correlated with both achievement…

Explored the limitations of identifying sedentary people via an existing screening question on a questionnaire. Data from responses on the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System indicated that many who initially reported no leisure time activity actually engaged in various types of physical activity, highlighting the difficulty of measuring a…

Three studies are reported addressing the test-retest reliability and convergent validity of the Behavioral and Emotional Rating Scale-Second Edition (BERS-2): Parent Rating Scale (PRS). In the first study, test-retest reliability was investigated over a one-week period to determine the stability of the BERS-2 PRS over time. Reliability…

Back-translation is typically used to verify semantic equivalence (SE) of a translated measure to the original scale. Although validity of the adapted scale depends fundamentally on SE, back-translation always involves subjective evaluations. This study developed "dual-language, split-half quantitative methods of verification to supplement…

The latent structure, reliability, and validity of the Behavioral Inhibition/Behavioral Activation Scales (BIS/BAS; C. L. Carver & T. L. White, 1994) were examined in a large sample of outpatients (N = 1,825) with anxiety and mood disorders. Four subsamples were used for exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. In addition to generally…

This research examined 2 elements of multiple-choice test construction, balancing the key and optimal number of options. In Experiment 1 the 3 conditions included a balanced key, overrepresentation of a and b responses, and overrepresentation of c and d responses. The results showed that error-patterns were independent of the key, reflecting…

When raters assign different scores to a performance task, a method for resolving rating differences is required to report a single score to the examinee. Recent studies indicate that decisions about examinees, such as pass/fail decisions, differ across resolution methods. Previous studies also investigated the interrater reliability of…

This article describes the derivation of a short-form of the Marwit-Meuser Caregiver Grief Inventory (MM-CGI), an inventory designed to measure grief in caregivers of persons with progressive dementia. It presents initial reliability and validity data and describes ways to use the inventory both clinically and scientifically. The resulting MM-CGI…

The Questionnaire on Resources and Stress (Friedrich, short form: QRS-F) has been used widely with parents of children with disabilities. However, its psychometric properties in parents of young children with autism have not been established. Here, 174 mothers and 43 fathers of children under 6 years with autism spectrum disorder were studied by…

This study examined psychometric characteristics of the Spanish translation of the Marital Satisfaction Inventory-Revised (MSI-R) in a community sample of 205 couples from Spain. Overall, analyses of the scales' internal consistency compared favorably with findings for both the English and Spanish versions of this instrument with U.S. samples.…