Assessing severity in behavior disorders: Empirically based criteria

Abstract

School psychologists are routinely required to make judgments about the severity of behavior disorders in children. While federal law demands that a child exhibit an emotional problem “to a marked degree,” school psychologists are given few clearcut guidelines for making judgments about the severity of students' adjustment problems. The purpose of this paper is to present a list of empirically based criteria for assessing the severity of behavior disorders in children. To this end, research on major behavior disorders in children of interest to school psychologists is reviewed.