The Youth Self-Report (SRP; Achenbach
& Rescorla, 2001) is one component of the larger set of assessment instruments offered within the Achenbach System of Empiri- cally Based Assessment that includes a par- ent rating scale, a teacher rating scale, an observation scale, and other measures. The YSR is designed for ages 11 through 18, and obtains adolescents’ reports about their own competencies and problems in a for- mat similar to that of the parent CBCL and teacher TRF, discussed in the next chapter.
As with their predecessors, the most recent measures in the Achenbach system have considerable content overlap, which can be both an advantage and disadvantage of this system, depending on what the clinician is seeking from behavioral rating scales.
An additional form covers the ages of 18–30 entitled the Young Adult Self-Report (YASR; Achenbach, 1997). The YASR content is similar to that of the YSR with noteworthy differences such as scales for substance use and some unique adaptive functioning scales (e.g., Friends, Education, Job, etc.). In light of the developmental periods of focus in this text, the YASR will not be discussed in detail here, but an intro- duction may be found at http://www.aseba.
org/products/yasr.html.
Scale Content
Composite scores reflecting externalizing and internalizing dimensions and a total composite are offered. The following clini- cal scales contribute to these composites.
Withdrawn/Depressed- preferring to be alone, shy, sulks, sad, lacking energy, etc.
Somatic Complaints- nausea, headaches, dizziness, etc.
Anxious/Depressed- crying, fears, ner- vous, suicidal ideation, etc.
Rule-Breaking Behavior- lying, sub- stance abuse, truancy, stealing, etc.
Aggressive Behavior- teasing others, arguing, fighting, destruction of property, etc.Included in the Total Composite but not the Internalizing or Externalizing compos- ites are the following:
Social Problems- jealous of others, teased by others, clumsy, etc.
Thought Problems- strange behaviors, hoarding objects, sleeping less, hallucina- tory experiences, etc.
Attention Problems- failing to finish assignments, immature, impulsivity, day- dreaming, etc.
Scales referred to as Social Competence are also included that assess participation in a variety of activities (e.g., sports) and social interactions (e.g., friendships).
The clinical scales are empirically- derived via factor analysis, and the com- petence scales are rationally derived.
Critical items (e.g., harming self, setting fires, etc.) are also available on this ver- sion of the YSR. In addition, six DSM- Oriented scales are available for the YSR. These scales were formed based on psychiatrists’ impressions of items (see Achenbach, Dumenci, & Rescorla, 2001) that theoretically map on to the DSM- related domains being assessed (i.e., Affective Problems, Anxiety Problems, Somatic Problems, Attention/Hyperac- tivity Problems, Oppositional Defiant Problems, Conduct Problems). Research has supported the structure of the syn- drome scales of the YSR across over 20 cultures (Ivanova et al., 2007).
Administration and Scoring
The YSR is designed to be self-adminis- tered and requires approximately 15–20 min (Achenbach & Rescorla, 2001). The YSR uses a three choice response format:
“Not True, Somewhat/Sometimes True, and Very True or Often True.” Some items
also provide space for additional informa- tion such as, for example, “Describe:” fol- lowing “I store up too many things I don’t need.”
Templates are used for hand-scoring, and computer scoring is also available. An integrative computer program can be used to compare results for several raters (e.g., a parent, two teachers, and the YSR), and this option is discussed in great detail by Achenbach and Rescorla (2001). The level of comparability facilitates the study of inter-rater agreement in clinical or research settings and aids in clinical interpretation of converging evidence and discrepancies in reports of the child’s functioning.
Norming
The design of the YSR norming sample attempted to mimic the national popula- tion of school children for ages 11 through 18 in terms of SES, geographic region, and ethnicity. The sample included 1,057 youth, 52% of whom were boys. Children who had reports of mental health, sub- stance abuse, or special education services were excluded, thus making this a “normal”
sample rather than a “normative sample.
Most participants (i.e., 53%) were from a middle SES background, whereas 16%
were from lower SES homes. The sample was 60% White, 20% African American, 8% Latino, and 11% Mixed or Other. From these statistics, both African Americans and individuals identifying as Latino(a) appear to be underrepresented (Current Popula- tion Survey, 2001). Approximately 40% of participants were from the southern part of the United States with the Northeast, Midwest, West each being represented by approximately 20% of the sample partici- pants (see Achenbach & Rescorla, 2001).
The derived T-scores for the YSR are normalized, which results in changing the shape of the raw score distribution (i.e., reduc- ing skewness). Furthermore, the T-score distributions are truncated, which limits
the range of low scores on the clinical scales and high scores on the competence scales.
For example, T-scores for the clinical scales were not allowed to be articulated below a value of 50. The transformation to reduce skewness and truncated score range both serve to make the T-score distribution for the YSR different from original sample results.
The intent of this approach is to aid in inter- pretation of strengths and difficulties across domains. However, this lack of reflection of sample characteristics in the T-scores makes them of dubious value for research purposes in particular. For most research questions, raw scores would likely be more appropriate than normalized T-scores.
Reliability
Internal consistency estimates are reason- able for the clinical scales falling between .71 and .89. The internal consistencies of the composites are all above .90. Internal consistency estimates are somewhat lower for the competence scales (see Achenbach
& Rescorla, 2001).
Short-term (i.e., approximately one- week interval) test-retest coefficients are generally good, with only the Withdrawn/
Depressed scale having a coefficient below .70. Seven-month test-retest coefficients were adequate with coefficients generally in the .50 range. Coefficients for the With- drawn/Depressed scale and Somatic Com- plaints scale were somewhat lower.
Validity
The YSR manual does not report evidence of criterion-related validity, particularly in regards to the correspondence between the YSR and other measures of emotional and behavioral functioning.
Some differential validity data are presented, with the scales of the YSR consistently differentiating between clinic- referred and non-referred youth. Excep- tions to this differential validity were the
DSM-Oriented Anxiety Problems and Somatic Problems scales. The ability of the YSR to differentiate among clinical groups is not addressed. Achenbach and Rescorla (2001) indicate that differential validity is the driving force behind content selection for the current YSR and its predecessors.
The most recent YSR has six items that differ from the items in the previous YSR.
Generally speaking, the validity evidence reported in the manual concerning the YSR is minimal. However, the previous version of the YSR enjoys a great deal of validity evidence from independent researchers. In addition, in light of the close item corre- spondence between the two versions, one can surmise that support for the validity of the earlier YSR can be taken as providing some support for the current YSR, particu- larly the problem scales.
A study by Thurber and Hollings- worth (1992) compared YSR results with the results of several other measures (e.g., California Personality Inventory and Beck Depression Inventory) in a factor-analytic investigation. The sample for this study included 102 adolescent inpatients. Sup- port for the existence of the internalizing and externalizing dimensions was found, as these factors converged with measures of similar constructs to form recogniz- able factors. Of interest was an additional finding that the Externalizing Scale may be affected by a tendency to respond in a socially desirable way and deny problems.
The Internalizing Scale also showed some sensitivity to response sets in that it was affected somewhat by minimizing symp- toms (Thurber & Hollingsworth, 1992).
Brown (1999) likewise found that “high- risk” adolescents tended to underreport behavior problems when school records and police reports were used as external criteria. Adolescent reports tended to agree with other reports for “more positively oriented items.” These findings should be taken into account when interpreting self-report results and should be combined
with corroborating evidence in drawing conclusions.
In contrast, Sourander, Helstelae, and Helenius (1999) found that Finnish adoles- cents reported significantly more problems than their parents, and girls reported more distress, especially internalizing problems, than boys. These authors concluded that many adolescents may not be receiving appropriate mental health services because their problems go unrecognized by their parents.
A criterion-related validity study by Handwerk, Friman, and Larzelere (2000) compared the YSR to the NIMH Diag- nostic Interview Schedule for Children (DISC). They compared DISC and YSR results to behavior in a treatment program and, generally speaking, found no differ- ences between diagnostic groups formed by using either instrument. Similar results have also been found for the YSR in com- parison to the DISC Version 2.1 (Morgan
& Cauce, 1999).
More validity studies exist for various cultural groups on the previous version of the YSR. Reliability and factorial validity of the YSR have been found to be comparable to North American findings in the Nether- lands (de Groot, Koot, & Verhulst, 1996), Switzerland (Steinhausen & Metzke, 1998), Japan (Kuramoto et al. 1999), and Spain (Abad, Forns, Amador, & Martorell, 2000).
Research has led to the conclusion, given that sex differences appear very consistently on the YSR, that sex is a more important consideration in predicting psychopathol- ogy than demographic factors such as age or nationality (Steinhausen & Metzke, 1998).
However, unlike the teacher and parent report measures of the Achenbach system, the YSR does not include gender-specific norms.
A predictive validity study of the previ- ous YSR was conducted in Finland, where 121 adolescents were administered the YSR at age 14 or 15 and followed up to ages 20 and 21 (Aronen, Teerikangas, &
Kurkela, 1999). YSR problems were good predictors of adult symptomatology. Of equal interest are the findings that internal- izing symptoms were better predictors and that self-report was more predictive than parent report. Results such as these specifically support the practical utility of the YSR, and they suggest that self-report technology should be used with all chil- dren and adolescents with adequate read- ing comprehension.
Interpretation
The Achenbach manual provides some case studies, yet it does not provide interpre- tive guidance. This omission is remedied to some extent by the existence of other articles on the YSR and by its amenability to general interpretive approaches such as those described earlier in this chapter.
A strength of the Achenbach approach to scale construction is the ease with which interpretations can be made across informants because of the close item cor- respondence on the different forms. As mentioned above, Achenbach and Rescorla (2001) detail the approach by which statisti- cal comparisons across informants may be made. To the extent that informants agree on the presence of a problem, the clinician may be more confident that a problem war- ranting attention exists.
However, it is possible to be too heav- ily influenced by indexes of agreement in the interpretive process. For example, one might require agreement across raters to make diagnostic or other decisions. We prefer to consider each rater as a valu- able source of information that may be diagnostically or otherwise valuable for case conceptualization in its own right, when combined with other information.
To illustrate, if a clinician requires paren- tal agreement for a self-report finding, a child or adolescent may be denied needed services (Sourander et al., 1999). Youth may be rich and valid sources of informa-
tion about their emotional and behavioral functioning (Aronen et al., 1999; Barry et al., in press).
Convergence across informants has merits for answering a referral question and making recommendations. However, we also hold to the philosophy that differ- ent raters make unique contributions to the understanding of a child’s referral dif- ficulties (see Chap. 15) and that disagree- ment among informants is not necessarily indicative of a measurement problem.
Strengths and Weaknesses The YSR has several strengths:
1. Brief administration time
2. A large research base on its closely- related predecessor
3. Research conducted with individuals representing many cultures and norms from a number of cultural groups 4. A large base of experienced users 5. Considerable item overlap with its parent
and teacher report counterparts, which aids in cross-informant interpretation 6. A helpful Web site with information for
administration, purchasing, interpreta- tion, and user discussion is available at http://www.aseba.org/products/ysr.html Weaknesses of the YSR include:
1. Little assessment of school-related problems
2. Limited assessment of adaptive compe- tencies
3. The absence of validity scales
4. Limited construct validity evidence to date for the current YSR.
5. Direct comparisons of norm sample demographics to US population are not provided; however, African Americans and Latino(a)s appear to be under-rep- resented.