Clinical Assessment of Behavior™ (CAB™)

B.A. Bracken, Ph.D. & L.K. Keith, Ph.D.

The CAB is an objective, comprehensive, and highly reliable behavior rating scale that is closely aligned with current diagnostic criteria found in the DSM-IV-TR™ and IDEA. Standardised on a large representative national sample, the CAB assists in the identification of children and adolescents across a wide age range who are in need of behavioral, educational, or psychiatric treatment or intervention. It enables professionals to identify behaviors associated with educationally relevant exceptionalities.

The CAB offers a balanced theoretical framework of both competence-based qualities and problem-based concerns for the CAB scales and clusters, making it useful for evaluating adaptive strengths and clinical risks in children and adolescents. The CAB assesses behaviors that reflect current societal concerns and issues about youth and their behavior (e.g., bullying, aggression, executive function, gifted and talented). It includes both Parent and Teacher Rating Forms, thus providing a multisource, multicontext assessment of children’s and adolescents’ behaviors.

Features of the CAB

• Provides three separate Rating Forms: the Parent Extended Rating Form (CAB-PX), with a total of 170 items, and the Parent Rating Form (CAB-P) and the Teacher Rating Form (CAB-T), each with a total of 70 items.

• Provides Parent (ages 2-18 years) and Teacher (ages 5-18 years) Rating Forms with corresponding items, thus allowing both parents and teachers to contribute equally to the evaluation of target behaviors.
• Requires only an 8th-grade reading level for completion.

• Rating Forms are quick to administer and can be efficiently scored by the CAB Scoring Program (CAB-SP).

• Normative data includes 2,114 parent ratings and 1,689 teacher ratings.

Based on scale and cluster internal consistency (alpha) coefficients in the .88 and higher range across the three CAB Rating Forms, examiners can expect to use the CAB-PX, CAB-P, and CAB-T Rating Forms with confidence to assist in making important diagnostic or intervention decisions for individual children and adolescents. Scale and cluster reliabilities also were consistently high across age level, gender, and race/ethnicity. Test-retest reliability coefficients across the three CAB forms ranged from .77 to .95 with a mean test-retest interval of 17.6-19.3 days. Interrater reliabilities indicate a high level of agreement between parents and teachers (.44-.56) and even higher agreement between pairs of parent raters (.70-.90). Finally, the CAB-PX, CAB-P, and CAB-T scales and clusters demonstrate good evidence of validity based on test content, factor analytic studies, convergent and discriminant evidence, and concurrent validity studies across various clinical groups, including conduct/disruptive behavioral disorders, cognitive dysfunction, and ADD/ADHD.

Scales for Differentiating Emotional Disturbance From Social Maladjustment

These new scales appear in Appendix H of the CAB Professional Manual. The new scales, Emotional Disturbance (ED) and Social Maladjustment (SM), are discussed in terms of item assignments for each of the CAB Forms (CAB-PX, CAB-P, and CAB-T) and norms development based on the same T-score metric as the other CAB scales. A case example is included and interpretation is discussed. Discrepancy score tables are included for each of the CAB Forms that further differentiate Emotional Disturbance and Social Maladjustment. The CAB Scoring Program (CAB-SP) also has been updated to provide T scores for both scales by age and gender, and each scale can be considered in light of its respective qualitative classifications.

Free CAB Scoring Program (CAB™-SP) Is Included!

The CAB-SP calculates raw and T scores and percentiles for all scales and clusters. After paper-and-pencil administration, the parents’ and/or teachers’ responses are entered manually using the CAB-SP. The software offers easy and rapid data entry for CAB items, calculation of all scores, and generation of a complete Score Report and profile for each of the three CAB Rating Forms.

Requirements: Windows® 2000/XP/Vista™; NTFS file system; CD-ROM drive for installation; Internet connection or telephone for software activation