Assesment of Adaptive Behavior
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.59519/mper2002Keywords:
adaptive behavior, adaptive skills, assessment of adaptive behaviorAbstract
Understanding the construct of adaptive behavior and its evaluation is crucial for researchers and clinicians to successfully diagnose intellectual disability (ID), formulate goals and frameworks for education and rehabilitation, and focus on the essential dimension of human functioning. Since the first standardized instrument for measuring adaptive behavior (1968) until today, over 200 different scales have been developed. However, just few of them completely met the following criteria: that they were based on a three-factor structure of adaptive behavior (conceptual, social and practical skills), standardized on a representative sample of the tipical population, constructed specifically for the purpose of setting or excluding the diagnosis of ID and having good psychometric characteristics. Modern Adaptive Behavior Assessment Scales usually cover a wide range of respondents’ years, typically have alternative informant forms (parents and teachers), have been standardized on large samples of respondents recently, and there is evidence of their reliability and validity. Bearing in mind that adaptive behavior is what measures the scales for its assessment and that it is probably the only definition that is generally agreed by all researchers, the aim of this paper is to provide insight into contemporary knowledge of adaptive behavior assessment based on a review and analysis of available literature.
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