Interrater Agreement for Syndromic Profile Classifications on the Adjustment Scales for Children and Adolescents

This article reports on an investigation of the interrater agreement on the Adjustment Scales for Children and Adolescents (ASCA) syndromic profile classifications. Teaching professionals (N = 29) who shared the same classroom for a minimum of one hour per day provided independent ratings of the same child on the ASCA. Results indicated that statistically significant interrater agreement was achieved across all 22 syndromic profile classification levels. However, good clinical significance was obtained only for the three- and two-level broad classifications while fair clinical significance was obtained for the five-level broad classifications. Thus, there was adequate interrater agreement for ASCA classifications that reflected broad levels of adjustment and maladjustment but inadequate agreement for specific behavioral types of adjustment and maladjustment. Additional research with much larger sample sizes is needed to better determine the agreement for the 22 syndrome profiles.