The Disability Assessment Schedule: a brief screening device for use with the mentally retarded

The design, administration, and scording of the first edition of the Children's Handicaps, Behavior & Skills (HBS) structural interview schedule, intended to elicit information concerning metally retarded or psychotic children, are described. A high level of reliability was achieved with experienced interviewers and good informants. In a study of 104 such children, the levels of overall agreement between parent and professional informants on the 62 sections of the schedule were, in general, 70% or above. Agreement was better for rating absence of skills or behavioral abnormalities than for rating their presence. This tendency was particularly marked for the behavioral abnormaliteis. Parents, when compared with professional workers, tended to describe their children as having higher developmental skills, more social contact but also more repetitive and difficult behavior.