The validity and reliability study of the Repetitive Behavior Scale-Revised- Turkish Version in autism spectrum disorder

Abstract

Objective: One of the diagnosis criteria for autism spectrum disorders (ASD) is repetitive behaviors and the severity of the repetitive behaviors is an important variable in identifying the severity of the disorder as well. In the current study the Repetitive Behavior Scale-Revised (RBS-R-TV), which is used to assess the severity and types of re-petitive behaviors in individuals with ASD, is adapted to Turkish and psychometric characteristics of the Turkish form are examined. Method: The participants consisted of 292 individuals with ASD, who were 3 to 23 years old (M=240, F=52). The parents of the participant individuals were asked to fill the RBS-R-TV. The ASD diagnosis of the participants were confirmed by Gilliam Autism Rating Scale-2-Turkish Form (TV-GARS-2). To measure validity of the scale; content, construct, criterion, and predictive validity analyses were conducted, and for reliability the scale’s internal consistency was examined by calculating the Cronbach’s alpha coefficients. Findings: The analyses showed that RBS-R-TV has good content validity, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) revealed that it has a six factor structure, and model fit indices showed a good fit (χ2/df=2.00, RMSEA=0.059, SRMR=0.067, NNFI=0.94, CFI=0.94). Discriminant validity indicated that children with ASD had significantly higher scores than the children with intellectual disabilities in RBS-R-TV and predictive validity analysis showed that total scores obtained from RBS-R-TV significantly predicted the severity of autistic disorder. As the reliability analysis, internal consistency coefficients were between 0.73 to 0.94 for sub scales and the total score. Discussion: Analyses showed that RBS-R-TV is a valid and reliable tool for the use of diagnosticians, researchers, and educators.