The document discusses an adaptive behavior assessment scale used to evaluate individuals with intellectual or developmental disabilities. It can assess strengths and weaknesses to document progress and treatment effectiveness. The scale measures adaptive behaviors in areas like communication, daily living skills, socialization, and motor skills. It provides reliable and valid assessment of functional autonomy, interpersonal adjustment, social responsibility, and intrapersonal adjustment. Administering and interpreting the scale requires trained professionals to properly evaluate the level, quality and pattern of individuals' adaptive behaviors.

1. AAMD
ADAPTIVE BEHAVIOUR SCALE

2. INTRODUCTION
• Purpose - To assesses the status of individuals with intellectual disability,
emotional maladjustment, autism, or developmental disability. It enables a
professional to assess strengths and weaknesses of an individual in adaptive
areas, document progress, and assess the effectiveness of intervention/school
programs.
• Age group- The Adaptive Behavior Assessment System-3rd Edition (ABAS-3;
Harrison & Oakland, 2015) is a rating scale, which, in the Adult form, is designed
to assess adaptive behaviors in adults aged 16–89 years.

3. INTRODUCTION
• Age Group- There are two versions of the Adaptive Behavior Scales (ABS)–a school
version (ABS-S:2—Lambert et al., 1993a) and a residential and community version
(ABS-Residential and Community, ABS-RC:2— Nihira et al., 1993). The ABS-S:2 is
used to identify students who are significantly below their peers in adaptive functioning
for diagnostic purposes. It also determines strengths and weaknesses, documents progress,
and assesses the effects of intervention programs.

4. STRUCTURE DIMENSIONS OF THE TEST
• The instrument assesses four areas of adaptive behavior: Communication, Daily
Living Skills, Socialization, and Motor Skills.
• The Sub- Scales are-
Factor analyses of domain scores indicated four dimensions of adaptive behavior.
Comparison of factor structure across school classification and age groups
revealed the same four dimensions for all groups.

5. STRUCTURE DIMENSIONS OF THE TEST
• Functional Autonomy
• Interpersonal Adjustment
• Social Responsibility
• Intrapersonal Adjustment

6. HOW TO USE THE TEST (ASSESSMENT AND SCORING)
• Assessment- The assessment of adaptive behavior is complex. One must consider not
only general competencies across relevant domains but also the level, quality, and fluency
of those behaviors. In addition, there is the issue of the ability to perform behaviors (i.e.,
can do) versus the actual performance of those skills (i.e., does do). In order for the
assessment to be clinically and scientifically meaningful, it is important that the assessor
be sufficiently trained in using and interpreting appropriate instruments. A high level of
training is necessary in order to capture and distinguish the level, quality, and pattern of
adaptive behavior displayed by a given subject, as viewed by the eyes of the respondent
(parent, teacher, or caregiver).

7. HOW TO USE THE TEST (ASSESSMENT AND SCORING)
• Assessment- The frequency of performance can be classified along a dimension from
“never” to “usually or always.” The number of choice points varies by specific instrument
or by the variation in the clinical interpretation of the assessor when a formal assessment
instrument is not used. The quality of performance may be somewhat more subjective, but
a key feature is the appropriateness of a given level of adaptive behavior performance. For
example, one needs to distinguish between an individual's deficit in a specific adaptive
behavior skill, as opposed to a deficit in a larger domain.

8. RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY
• Validity evidence was based on comparing DABS scores with scores obtained on
the Vineland Adaptive Behaviour Scale, second edition. The stability of the test
scores was measured using a test and retest, and inter-rater reliability was
assessed by computing the inter-respondent concordance.
• The DABS convergent validity coefficients ranged from 0.70 to 0.84, while the
test-retest reliability coefficients ranged from 0.78 to 0.95, and the inter-rater
concordance as measured by intraclass correlation coefficients ranged from 0.61
to 0.87.

9. RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY
• All obtained validity and reliability indicators were strong and comparable with the
validity and reliability coefficients of the most commonly used adaptive behaviour
instruments.