The validity and applicability of the ADIECAS classroom rating scale in a sample of children with Down's syndrome

Abstract

The ADIECAS classroom behaviour rating scale (Evans & Hogg, 1984) was used with a sample of 123 children with Down's syndrome as part of a wider study of child and family adaptation. According to Evans & Hogg, the ADIECAS scale measures two types of behaviour: attentiveness-distractability, and inhibition-excitability. Such measures of behaviour style may be related to behaviour problems and child and family relationships for children with mental handicap. The factor structure of the 16 ADIECAS items was investigated by using confirmatory factor analysis within the LISREL program. Overall, the original factor structure was found to be a poor fit to the new data, in that, while the distractability factor replicated well, the excitability factor split into three. After examining the components of the four factors, two were discarded as containing unreliable items, and goodness of fit statistics on the two revised factors, using 10 of the original 16 items, gave the best results. Thus, the factors structure showed only limited replicability with a different subject group from the original Evans & Hogg study.