Child Behavior Rating Test Comparison

This report discusses the selection of a child-behavior-rating test, comparing the Behavioral and Emotional Screening System (BASC-2) and the Achenbach System of Empirically Based Assessment (ASEBA). The analysis, based on reviews from the ASEBA Catalog, the Pearson Clinical Catalog, and the Mental Measurements Yearbook, concludes that ASEBA is more recommendable due to its comprehensive coverage of adaptive and maladaptive functioning, strong empirical support, and efficient family-based assessment capabilities. While BASC-2 is also widely used, its poor inter-rater reliability makes it less suitable for broader applications. ASEBA's scoring system, which includes adaptive functioning, empirically derived syndromes, and DSM-oriented scales, provides a more precise and economical assessment compared to BASC-2.

Running head: Which would you buy?
Psychology
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In this paper a discussion is made as to which child-behavior-rating test is highly recommendable
to buy child-behavior tool. For this, a selection is made on Behavioral and Emotional Screening
System (BASC-2) and Achenbach System of Empirically Based Assessment (ASEBA) by
reviewing ASEBA Catalog, the Pearson Clinical Catalog, and the Mental Measurements
Yearbook. These catalogs assist in recommending and justifying the choice as to which child-
behavior assessment tool is considered to be the best.
ASEBA catalog content is more relevant and justify the topic of interest more strongly as
compared to other two catalogs. ASEBA deals with nearly all elements to assessing adaptive and
maladaptive functioning. Numerous studies performed on primary and secondary children have
demonstrated significant associations between ASEBA scores and both diagnostic and special
education categories. BASC-2 is also widely applied to analyze a range of behavioral and
emotional problems in children, but its poor inter-rater reliability makes it unfit to perform
children-behavior analyses on a broader scale (Achenbach, 2017).
ASEBA scoring relies on adaptive functioning, capability, empirically derived
syndromes, diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders-oriented scales, internalizing,
externalizing, and total problems (Mash et al., 2014). The tool efficiently facilitate family-based
assessment by providing parallel scale scores for parent and child problems or teacher and child
problems, or parents and teacher problems, as compared to the BASC-2 tool which assay inter-
relation between each subscale i.e. parent with child or child with teacher, or teacher with parent,
one at a time. Thus, ASEBA ensures the provision of precise result more comprehensively than
BASC-2 in an economical and rapid manner (Havdahl et al., 2016).

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References
Havdahl, K. A., von Tetzchner, S., Huerta, M., Lord, C., & Bishop, S. L. (2016). Utility of the
child behavior checklist as a screener for autism spectrum disorder. Autism Research, 9(1), 33-
42.
Mash, E. J., & Barkley, R. A. (Eds.). (2014). Child psychopathology. Guilford Publications.
Achenbach, T. (2017). Achenbach System of Empirically Based Assessment (ASEBA). Retrieved
2 February 2017.