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Assessing the severity of behavior disorders: Rankings based on clinical and empirical criteria
Author(s) -
Clarizio Harvey F.,
Klein Alan P.
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
psychology in the schools
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.738
H-Index - 75
eISSN - 1520-6807
pISSN - 0033-3085
DOI - 10.1002/1520-6807(199504)32:2<77::aid-pits2310320202>3.0.co;2-g
Subject(s) - psychology , clinical psychology , categorization , intervention (counseling) , empirical research , school psychology , response to intervention , applied psychology , psychiatry , philosophy , epistemology
Abstract School psychologists need to assess the severity of behavior disorders accurately to facilitate comprehensive diagnosis, to provide appropriate intervention, to enlighten research efforts, and to be in compliance with state and federal guidelines. Although clinicians in fields such as mental retardation categorize severity of behavior to make diagnostic and general treatment decisions, school psychologists rarely attempt to assess severity in any systematic or comprehensive way. The primary purpose of this study is to see how 92 practicing school psychologists rank 11 variables in their assessments of SED in school‐age children. A secondary purpose is to examine the extent of school psychologists' reliance upon clinical and empirical criteria in assessing the severity of SED. It is concluded that school psychologists agree in their rankings of variables from most to least important and that they do not consider empirical criteria more important than clinically based criteria when assessing SED. Implications for practice are presented.