Abstract
Discriminant analyses and stepwise multiple regression techniques were applied to teacher ratings of 184 kindergarten through eighth-grade students using Stephen's Social Behavior Assessment (SBA) inventory and were used to predict group membership as emotionalyy disabled (ED) or non-ED. The results suggested that the SBA was highly effective in correctly discriminating ED from non-ED students. The linear discriminant function derived from the 30 SBA subcategories correctly classified 83% of the subjects, yielding a highly significant separation of groups of ED and non-ED children. While the results of the discriminant analyses have not yet been cross-validated, these findings support the discriminant validity of the SBA for ED versus non-ED classification and suggest that the SBA is potentially a useful instrument for school psychologists as one source of information in a multifactored assessment regarding the identification of children as ED.
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Stumme, V.S., Gresham, F.M. & Scott, N.A. Validity of Social Behavior Assessment in discriminating emotionally disabled from nonhandicapped students. Journal of Behavioral Assessment 4, 327–341 (1982). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01341228
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01341228