Overview
The Developmental Behavior Checklist (DBC; Einfeld & Tonge, 1992, 2002) is a combination of instruments for the assessment of behavioral and emotional problems of children, adolescents, and adults with developmental and intellectual disabilities. There are multiple versions of the DBC in the set, including versions for parents, teachers, adults, short form, monitoring chart. Two components have been studied separately from the others. The DBC – Autism Screening Algorithm (DBC-ASA; Brereton, Tonge, Mckinnon, & Einfeld, 2002) is a a 29-item scale derived from the Developmental Checklist Parent/Primary Caregiver Report (DBC-P). It is intended for children and adolescents 4 to 18 years old. The DBC-Early Screen (DBD-ES; Gray & Tonge, 2005) is a 17-item instrument also derived from the DBC-P, for the screening of autism in children with developmental delay aged 18-48 months. Scoring software is available for both.
Summary
Age: DBC- ASA - 4 year to 18 years | DBC-ES 1.5 years to 4 years
Time to Administer: 5 - 10 minutes for either instrument.
Method of Administration: DBC- ASA
The DBC-ASA is a subset of items derived from the DBC-P (Developmental Checklist – Parent/Primary Caregiver Report)
Yields cutoff score, which is compared to the cut-off of 17 which optimizes sensitivity and specificity
DBC-ES
The DBC-ES is a subset of items derived from the DBC-P (Developmental Checklist– Parent/Primary Caregiver Report)
Subscales: N/A for either instrument
Screening/Diagnosis: S for either instrument.
Autism Related Research
Autism Screening Algorithm: Deb, Dhaliwal, & Roy (2009)
Age Range: 3-17 years
Sample Size: 109
Topics Addressed:
Utility of the DBC-ASA as a screener for those with ID
Outcome:Autism Screening Algorithm: Deb, Dhaliwal, & Roy (2009)
DBC-ASA mean score was significantly higher among children with ASD compared to children without. AUC was large (0.864) for children with ID.
Conclusion: The DBC-ASA score may be able to discriminate between children with ID with and without ASD.
Early Screen: Gray, Tonge, Sweeney, & Einfeld, S. (2008)
Age Range: 20–51 months
Sample Size: 207
Topics Addressed:
Psychometric properties of the DBC-ES
Outcome:Early Screen: Gray, Tonge, Sweeney, & Einfeld, S. (2008)
Good interrater reliability: between parents (interclass correlation of 0.772 p<0.01). Positive moderate correlations between the DBC-ES score and the ADI-R domains (r = .36-.53). Sensitivity and specificity: Using cut-off score of > 11 sensitivity = 0.83 (95% CI: 0.76-0.89) and specificity of 0.48 (95% CI: 0.35-0.60).
Conclusion: the DBC-ES may perform slightly better as a screening tool for young children compared to the M-CHAT and the SCQ.
Autism Screening Algorithm: Witwer & Lecavalier (2007)
Age Range: 6-12:7 years
Sample Size: 49
Topics Addressed:
Diagnostic validity
Outcome:Autism Screening Algorithm: Witwer & Lecavalier (2007)
DBC-ASA correctly classified over 80% of the sample; sensitivity = 0.94 and specificity = 0.46, which was lower than the SCQ’s (0.62), though the 95% confidence intervals of the two instruments’ specificity overlapped substantially.
Conclusion: the DBC-ASA is effective in identifying children with ASD.