Psychometric properties of the Questions About Behavioral Function scale in a child sample

The Questions About Behavioral Function (QABF) scale is a caregiver report form designed to identify behavioral functions important in maintaining aberrant behavior. In the present investigation, we evaluated the psychometric properties of the QABF with an outpatient sample of 91 children with developmental delays and significant aberrant behavior (e.g., physical aggression, self-injury, and property destruction). One caregiver completed the QABF and Motivation Assessment Scale on aberrant behavior identified in a preappointment interview for each child. Results indicate that the QABF exhibited fair to good internal consistency, strong corrected item-total correlations, acceptable intersubscale correlations, and convergent validity with the Motivation Assessment Scale. Implications of the results, potential utility of caregiver report instruments, study limitations, and future directions are discussed.