Child Behavior Checklist

The Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) is a component of the Achenbach System of Empirically Based Assessment (ASEBA). It is a questionnaire that can be used in various forms by qualified caregivers, pediatricians, and mental-health professionals to evaluate behavioral and emotional problems in children from ages eighteen months to eighteen years. Normative data can be used to assess both internalizing behaviors such as anxiety and depression and externalizing behaviors such as aggression and hyperactivity. The test itself does not diagnose such problems, but in the hands of a qualified doctor or psychologist, it becomes a useful tool in identifying children experiencing behavioral or social competence problems. Since its introduction in the 1980s, it has become the most widely used test for identifying social dysfunctions in children.

Overview

The first CBCL manual was published in 1983, and the first preschool version of the CBCL was published by Thomas M. Achenbach, the director of the Center for Children, Youth, and Families at the University of Vermont, in 1992. All the pre-2001 tests were designed to be used with children from ages four to sixteen. The CBCL for the 2010s exists in two versions: one for children ages eighteen months through five years and another for ages six to eighteen. The first section of the questionnaire consists of twenty competence items, and the second section consists of more than 100 items on behavior or emotional problems during a period of six months. Teachers or parents rate the child, or, in the case of older children, the child rates herself/himself, and several standardized scores are calculated that identify if the child manifests clinically significant problems. There is also an adult version of the questionnaire (ABCL) for which normative data is provided for each gender at ages eighteen to thirty-five and thirty-six to fifty-nine. The ABCL has been used effectively with parents of children seen for mental health and family therapy services.

A popular instrument because it is valid, inexpensive, and easily administered, the CBCL typically takes under thirty minutes and can be administered in homes, schools, and health facilities. Low cost and ease of administration also mean that information can be gathered from parents and parent-surrogates, from teachers, and, when appropriate, from the child in order to allow for comparisons of ratings by different observers and to provide the fullest picture possible to the diagnostician. In addition to identifying students who have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, bipolar disorder and other common behavioral disorders, the CBCL can address social issues including violence, defiance, and bullying.

The various versions of the CBCL have been translated into more than eighty-five languages and are accepted worldwide by clinicians and researchers as valid and reliable indicators of children’s behavioral and emotional functioning. Comparisons of CBCL scores from more than thirty countries confirm the effectiveness of the CBCL as a multicultural instrument. In 2001, options for multicultural norms were added, allowing scale scores to be displayed in relation to different sets of cultural/societal norms. Scales were also added for obsessive-compulsive disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. Scores that indicate problems are scored according to scales that coincide with the DSM-5.

Bibliography

Achenbach, Thomas M., and Craig S. Edelbrock. Manual for the Child Behavior Checklist: And Revised Child Behavior Profile. Burlington: U of Vermont, 1983. Print.

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Gimpel, Gretchen A., and Melissa L. Holland. Emotional and Behavioral Problems of Young Children: Effective Interventions in the Preschool and Kindergarten Years. New York: Guilford, 2003. Print.

Kelley, Mary Lou, George Noell, and David Reitman. Practitioner’s Guide to Empirically Based Measures of School Behavior. New York: Kluwer Academic, 2004. Print

Kim, HeeYoung, and Timothy Page. “Emotional Bonds with Parents, Emotion Regulation, and School-Related Behavior Problems among Elementary School Truants.” Journal of Child & Family Studies 22.6 (2013): 869–78. Academic Search Premier. Web. 23 July 2013.

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Le Prohn, Nicole Suzanne, et al. Assessing Youth Behavior: Using the Child Behavior Checklist in Family and Children’s Services. Washington: Child Welfare League of Amer., 2002. Print.

Pedro Caldeira da Silva, et al. “Validating Regulatory Sensory Processing Disorders Using the Sensory Profile and Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL 1½–5).” Journal of Child & Family Studies 21.6 (2012): 906–16. Academic Search Premier. Web. 23 July 2013.

Ugurlu, Mahir, Esra Sozer Boz, and Sedat Turgut. "Psychometric Properties of the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) for Ages 6–18 to Identify Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) in a Turkish Parent Sample." Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 26 July 2024, doi.org/10.1007/s10803-024-06495-z. Accessed 26 Dec. 2024.

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Shuang Wang, et al. “Prenatal Bisphenol A Exposure and Child Behavior in an Inner-City Cohort.” Environmental Health Perspectives 120.8 (2012): 1190–94. Academic Search Premier. Web. 23 July 2013.