Factor structure of the developmental behavior checklist using confirmatory factor analysis of polytomous items.

Abstract

The Developmental Behavior Checklist (DBC; Einfeld and Tonge, 1995) is a 95 item clinical screening checklist designed to assess the extent of behavioral and emotional disturbance in populations with intellectual deficit (ID). The DBC provides five principal-component derived subscales covering clinically relevant dimensions of psychopathology (i.e., Disruptive, Self-Absorbed, Communication Disturbance, Anxiety, and Social Relating). Validating these subscales for individual differences research requires examinations of the stability of this structure. This study begins a program of psychometric study of the DBC, by utilizing item level data to investigate the DBC's subscale structure in reg..