The Developmental Behavior Checklist (DBC). Psychometric properties and norms of the German version

Background: In the German speaking countries there is a significant lack of behavioral checklists for the assessment of children with profound developmental delay, most notably mental retardation. Objective: The Developmental Behaviour Checklist (DBC) is an internationally widely used procedure for the assessment of behavioral and emotional problems in children and adolescents with significant developmental delays. The DBC was translated into German and standardized based on data from a large sample of N = 721 children and adolescents with mental retardation in Germany. Psychometric properties were also assessed. Methods: Psychometric analyses included various checks of both validity and reliability. Before constructing norm tables the effects of age, gender, and severity of mental retardation were controlled. Results: The 5 factors of the DBC were replicated for the German version (VFE). Internal consistency coefficients were good to excellent for 4 of the 5 subscales. Retest reliability after a long time interval of 1.8 years was very high. The resulting norm tables consider severity of mental retardation. Conclusions: The WE as a German version of the DBC represents a well constructed checklist of behavioral and developmental problems for children and adolescents with significant developmental delay that has adequate psychometric properties and German norms.