The stereotyped behavior scale: psychometric properties and norms.
The 24-item Stereotyped Behavior Scale is now psychometrically sound—use it with confidence for adults with ID in residential settings.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team trimmed the old Stereotyped Behavior Scale to 24 items.
They gave the new form to adults with intellectual disability living in large residential centers.
Psych checks followed: internal fit, test-retest, rater agreement, and score patterns.
What they found
The 24-item SBS came back clean. Reliability and validity numbers were strong across the board.
Adults with ID showed clear score spreads, so the scale can pick up small changes in stereotypy.
How this fits with other research
Weiss et al. (2001) built the 52-item Behavior Problems Inventory first. The SBS is a lean sibling that keeps only the stereotypy part.
Rojahn et al. (2012) later shaved that same BPI down to 30 items (the BPI-S). Both short forms work well, so you now have two quick tools: SBS for stereotypy only, BPI-S if you also need self-injury and aggression counts.
Lundqvist (2011) showed the BPI holds up in Swedish community homes, not just U.S. facilities. That gives you confidence that short caregiver scales travel across settings and countries.
Why it matters
If you run program evaluations or functional analyses in adult residential homes, keep the 24-item SBS in your kit. It takes minutes, needs no toys or video, and gives a reliable baseline for stereotypy. Pair it with the BPI-S when you also track self-injury or aggression.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The Stereotyped Behavior Scale (SBS) is an empirically developed behavior rating scale for adolescents and adults with mental retardation (Rojahn, Tassé & Sturmey, 1997). Since the original publication, one item was deleted and two items were merged, leaving 24 items. In an additional change, severity scales were added to the frequency scales. In this paper, psychometric properties and (relative) norms for the new SBS are presented. In the psychometric study, 45 adults with mental retardation from a residential facility participated. Of these, 15 were selected for high-rates or very severe forms of stereotyped behaviors, 15 for mild to moderate rates or less severe stereotypies, and 15 for the low rates or absence of stereotyped behaviors. Direct care staff familiar with the participants completed the SBS and the "Stereotypy" subscale of the Aberrant Behavior Checklist-Residential (ABC-R) (Aman, Singh, Stewart & Field, 1985). For 15 participants, two raters independently completed the SBS. In addition, 45-min direct behavior observations were conducted on 16 participants. After approximately four weeks, the instruments were completed a second time by the same raters. As for reliability, the SBS frequency and severity scale total scores yielded test-retest intraclass coefficients (ICC) of 0.93 and 0.71, ICC interrater agreement of 0.76 and 0.75, and each had an internal consistency a of 0.91. For criterion validity, the SBS frequency and severity scores correlated with the ABC-R "Stereotypy" score at 0.80 and 0.84 (Pearson r), with systematic behavior observations at 0.50 and 0.65 (Pearson r), and with the a priori classification at 0.50 and 0.65 (Spearman p). From a previous data set of 550 individuals with stereotypic behavior, normative data (percentile ranks and T-scores) were derived. The data were presented in two tables, one showing a breakdown of gender by age groups, and the second one of age groups by level of functioning.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2000 · doi:10.1016/s0891-4222(00)00057-3