The Development and Validation of a Scale for School Observation of Characteristics Associated with Learning Disabilities and Minimal Brain Dysfunction in Elementary School Boys

Abstract

A description is provided of the development and validation of an instrument entitled School Observation Scale (SOS) that elementary school teachers can use to record their observations of pupil behavioral characteristics associated with Learning Disabilities (LD) and Minimal Brain Dysfunction (MBD) syndromes. The 63 item variables of the current SOS form are organized in five logical domains: motor coordination and activity (15 items), lack of attention and distraction (10 items), learning and cognition difliculties (10 items), emotionality (14 items) and personal social response (14 items). Every one of the 63 items reliably differentiated between behaviors of one sample of 171 normal (N) boys and those of a second group of 107 educationally handicapped (EH) boys. Factor analyses of intercorrelations of the 63 item variables yielded for the EH sample factors of conduct disorder, cognitive dysfunction, lack of attention combined with heightened activity, and anxiety state; for the N sample, factors of conduct disorder, cognitive confusion, and lack of integration of social response. The five a priori scales for both samples were typically represented by two or three empirical dimensions that in turn cut across at least two domain scales. Furnishing internal consistency estimates of reliability ranging between .69 and .88 for the N sample and between .78 and .92 for the EH sample, the five a priori scales of the SOS provide adequate reliability and promising concurrent validity in differentiating EH and N boys. The SOS is a factorially complex instrument, the a priori scales of which exhibit limited correspondence with empirically derived dimensions.