The Nisonger CBRF: a child behavior rating form for children with developmental disabilities.
The Nisonger CBRF is a brief, reliable behavior checklist you can start using right away with children who have intellectual disability.
01Research in Context
What this study did
LeSage et al. (1996) built a new rating form for kids with intellectual and developmental disabilities. They called it the Nisonger Child Behavior Rating Form (CBRF).
Parents and teachers filled out the form for the children. The kids ranged from 3 to 16 years old. All had mild to profound intellectual disability.
What they found
The form showed strong internal consistency. Alpha was 0.87 for the parent version and 0.89 for the teacher version.
Parent and teacher scores matched well. The form also lined up closely with the widely-used Child Behavior Checklist. This means the CBRF gives reliable data.
How this fits with other research
Scahill et al. (2015) later screened 24 tools for repetitive behaviors. They picked only five as trial-ready. The CBRF was not among them, but it covers broader behavior problems, not just repetitive ones.
Chen et al. (2001) and Nikolov et al. (2009) took a different path. They shortened existing forms for adults and for behavior-function assessment. Like LeSage et al. (1996), they proved a brief form can keep strong psychometrics.
Together these studies show a trend: start with a long, trusted tool, then trim or tailor it for disability populations without losing quality.
Why it matters
If you need a quick parent or teacher snapshot of behavior problems in kids with ID, the Nisonger CBRF is ready. It takes little time, shows good agreement between raters, and correlates well with the CBCL. Use it today for baseline data or to track progress after interventions.
Get CEUs on This Topic — Free
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ on-demand CEUs including ethics, supervision, and clinical topics like this one. Plus a new live CEU every Wednesday.
Print the Nisonger CBRF parent and teacher forms and collect baseline data on your next client with ID before starting intervention.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
Although the rate of behavior and emotional problems of children with mental retardation is considerably higher than the rate among typically developing children, there is a shortage of tools for assessing persons with mental retardation. The Child Behavior Rating Form (CBRF) was modified by altering instructions and adding new items describing behavior problems known to occur in children with mental retardation. The adapted scale was named the Nisonger CBRF. Three hundred sixty-nine children being assessed at a University Affiliated Program for MR/DD were rated on the CBRF by their parents and teachers. Independent factor analyses of parent and teacher ratings produced two Social Competence subscales and six Problem Behavior subscales. These results were largely consistent across rater types and similar to prior findings with the CBRF. Internal consistency was generally high, parent-teacher agreement was satisfactory, and subscales from the Nisonger CBRF correlated highly with analogous subscales from the Aberrant Behavior Checklist. The Nisonger CBRF appears to be a promising new tool for assessing behavioral and emotional problems in children with mental retardation; however, further psychometric work is warranted.
Research in developmental disabilities, 1996 · doi:10.1016/0891-4222(95)00039-9