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Description: The Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) was designed to address the problem of
defining child behavior problems empirically. It is based on a careful review of the literature and
carefully conducted empirical studies. It is designed to assess in a standardized format the
behavioral problems and social competencies of children as reported by parents.
Reliability: Individual item intraclass correlations (ICC) of greater than .90 were obtained
"between item scores obtained from mothers filling out the CBCL at 1-week intervals, mothers
and fathers filling out the CBCL on their clinically-referred children, and three different
interviewers obtaining CBCLs from parents of demographically matched triads of children."
Stability of ICCs over a 3-month period were .84 for behavior problems and .97 for social
competencies. Test-retest reliability of mothers’ ratings were .89. Some differences were found
between mothers’ and fathers’ individual ratings.
Validity: Several studies have supported the construct validity of the instrument. Tests of
criterion-related validity using clinical status as the criterion (referred/non-referred) also support
the validity of the instrument. Importantly, demographic variables such as race and SES
accounted for a relatively small proportion of score variance.
Norms: Normative data, obtained from parents of 1,300 children, were heterogeneous with
respect to race and socioeconomic status and were proportionate to the composition of the
general U.S. population.
Suggested Uses: It is suggested that the CBCL is a viable tool for assessing a child’s behaviors,
via parent report, in a clinical or research environment.