Psychometric properties of the revised Developmental Behaviour Checklist scales in Dutch children with intellectual disability.
The Dutch DBC is a solid parent screener for kids with ID, and later studies built adult and short forms from it.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team wanted to know if the revised DBC works for Dutch kids with intellectual disability.
Parents filled out the checklist. Researchers ran numbers on reliability and validity.
What they found
The Dutch DBC passed the tests. It gives steady scores and truly flags kids who need help.
In short, the checklist is trustworthy for this group.
How this fits with other research
Hatton et al. (2005) built on these results. Three years later they made the DBC-A for adults with ID.
Straccia et al. (2014) did the same job in French. They showed the adult scales also hold up.
Jackson et al. (2025) trimmed the teacher form to 35 items. Their short German DBC-T still works, so busy teachers save time.
Why it matters
You now have a Dutch parent checklist you can trust. Use it to spot emotional or behavior problems early. If you work with adults, grab the DBC-A. If you need teacher data, try the short German form. One family of tools covers the lifespan and two languages.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The present study assessed the reliability and validity of the revised scales of the Developmental Behaviour Checklist (DBC) in a Dutch sample of children with intellectual disability (ID). The psychometric properties of the parent and teacher versions of the DBC were assessed in various subsamples derived from a sample of 1057 Dutch children (age range=6-18 years) with ID or borderline intellectual functioning. Good test-retest reliability was shown both for the parent and teacher versions. Moderate inter-parent agreement and high one-year stability was found for the scale scores. Construct validity was satisfactory, although limited by high informant variance. The DBC scales showed good criterion-related validity, as indicated by significant mean differences between referred and non-referred children, and between children with and without a corresponding DSM-IV diagnosis. The reliability and validity of the revised DBC scales are satisfactory, and the checklist is recommended for clinical and research purposes.
Journal of intellectual disability research : JIDR, 2002 · doi:10.1046/j.1365-2788.2002.00353.x