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The Critical Events Scale: Behavioral Profiles of Students with Externalizing and Internalizing Behavior Disorders

An instrument to identify elementary-aged students who may be at risk for developing behavioral disorders, the Systematic Screening for Behavior Disorders (SSBD) procedure, has recently been normed and field tested in a diverse sample of elementary schools throughout the United States. One of the components of the SSBD, the Critical Events Index, asks teachers to indicate whether students in their classrooms have engaged in behaviors of low frequency but high intensity and salience such as stealing, physical aggression, inappropriate sexual behavior, teacher defiance, and so forth. Two studies are reported. In Study One, teachers in grades 1–5 rated over 850 students on two forms of this instrument — one for externalizers and one for internalizers. In Study Two, 912 students in grades 1–5 in two school districts were rated on a combined form. In both studies, students who were identified by teachers as the highest ranked externalizers and internalizers were found to exhibit strikingly different profiles on the Critical Events Index. Stealing, having tantrums, ignoring teacher reprimands, damaging property, using obscene language, and physical aggression were behaviors engaged in by a large percentage of externalizers, while many of the internalizers exhibited problems such as painful shyness and sad affect. Two case studies are presented to provide more complete behavioral descriptions of students who are identified by the SSBD as candidates for referral to child study teams. Systematic screening of all students for behavioral disorders is advocated since both externalizing and internalizing students are typically underidentified and thus do not access services specifically aimed at their problem behaviors.