The Concurrent Validity of a Behavioral Rating Scale for Assessing Attention Deficit Disorder (DSM III) in Learning Disabled Children

Abstract

For a total sample of 120 elementary school pupils that had been differentiated into three subsamples of 40 so-called normal children, 40 assigned to Resource program classrooms (for relatively less severe learning disabilities), and 40 placed in Special Day program classrooms (for relatively more severe learning disabilities), an attempt was made to demonstrate the concurrent validity of the Ozawa Behavioral Rating Scale that had been devised in terms of the diagnostic criteria for Attention Deficit Disorder Without Hyperactivity in DSM III published in 1980 by the American Psychiatric Association. Six of the rating scale items were intended to sample characteristics from DSM III related to distractibility, and nine items were designed to portray behaviors attributed in the same volume to impulsivity. Relative to five criterion measures afforded by (a) the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (Arithmetic, Digit Span, Coding, and a Composite score) intended to represent a previously defined factor dimension termed Freedom from Distraction and (b) the Matching Familiar Figures test developed by Kagan to portray the construct of impulsivity, the newly designed rating scale showed statistically significant relationships. In addition, it was able to differentiate pupils classified as normal from those categorized as having differential levels of learning disability. It would appear that teachers have available to them a new scale that provides at least a modest degree of promise for the identification of a learning disabled pupil with a general attention deficit.