Vineland Adaptive

Behavior Scales
 What is Vineland?
• It is designed to measure adaptive behavior of
individuals from birth to age 90 .
• Vineland is a standardized norm-referenced
assessment tool that can be used for:
• Measuring the individual’s daily functioning
• Measuring deficits in adaptive behavior
• Clinical diagnosis of autism spectrum disorders,
genetic disorders, developmental
• Delays emotional and disturbances as well as
other mental, physical or
a. Injury related conditions
b. Developmental evaluations
c. Progress monitoring
d. Program planning
e. Research
Length and Structure
• Vineland scales are available in 3 formats. First there
are 2 survey forms, the survey interview form and the
parent/ caregiver interview form. These forms assess
the 4 broad domain areas:
a. Communication
b. Daily living skills
c. Socialization
d. Motor skills
In addition there is an optional scale that measures
maladaptive behaviors.
The 2 forms are identical except for the mode of
administration (either interview or rating scale)
second there is an expanded interview which
measures the broad domain areas. It also provides a
basis for developing educational, residency or
treatment programs. There is a teacher rating form
which measures the 4 domain areas as the teacher
sees the beahavior occuring specifically within the
educational setting. It includes items pertaining to
academic functioning. The teacher rating form is for
students aged 3 to 21 years 11 months.
• The Vineland is designed to be administered
individually. The four domains: communication,
daily living skills, socialization and motor skills
are made up of subdomains in which the scores
are added to form the domain composite scores.
These scores then combine to form the adaptive
behavior composite for those individuals aged
birth to 6 years 11 months.
• 3 domain composite scores combine to form the
adaptive behavior composite for those aged 7
through 90.
• The administration of the interview format takes
20-60 minutes to complete. While the
administration of the parent/ caregiver self
report form takes 30-60 minutes.
 Administration, Scoring and
Interpretation
• Vineland manual suggests that the test
examiners and scorers have graduate training in
test administration and interpretation. A rater
should be an adult who is familiar with the
everyday activities and behavior of the individual
being assessed. He should have significant
contact with the individual over an extended
period of time. A caregiver could be a parent,
guardian, grandparent, nurse social person or
other individual who is close to the person being
assessed.
• Raw scores can be converted to Vineland, derived
scores, standard scores, V-scale scores,
percentile ranks, age equivalents and stanines.
Confidence intervals can be constructed for
scores. Results can be described by adaptive
levels and maladaptive levels. Adaptive levels are
descriptive categories which communicate test
results. Maladaptive levels are descriptive
categories in which maladaptive behaviors are
rated as average, elevated or clinically
significant.
• Individuals with formal graduate
level or professional training in
psychological assessment should
interpret test result using the 6
step interpretation. Method
described in the manual. The
mnual contains chapter on
interpretation including exemplar
case studies.
 Subscales
• The Vineland consists of 5 domains each with
subdomains
1. Communication domain- Receptive: how the
individual listens and pay attention and what he
understands.
Expressive: what the individual says, how he uses
words and sentences to gatherand provide
information
Written: what the individual understand about how
letters make words and what he reads and
writes
2. Daily living skills domain- Personal: how the
individual eats, dresses and practices personal
hygiene
Domestic: what household tasks the individual
performs
Community: how the individual uses time, money,
telephone, computer and job skills
3. Socialization domain- Interpersonal relationship:
how the individual interacts with others.
Play and leisure time: how the individual plays and
uses leisure time
Coping skills: how the individual demonstrates
responsibility and sensitivity to others
4.Motor skills domain- Gross motor: how the
individual uses arms and legs for movement and
coordination
Fine motor: how the individual uses hand and fingers
to manipulate objects
5.Maladaptive behavior domain (Optional)-
Maladaptive behavior index: a composite of
internalizing, externalizing and other types of
undesirable behavior that may interfere with the
individual’s adaptive functioning
Maladaptive behavior critical items: more severe
maladaptive behavior that may provide clinically
important information
Adaptive behavior: a composite of the
communication, daily living skills, socialization and
motor skills domain
 Documentation
• Vineland survey forms provide
specific procedures for
administration and scoring. The
manual also contains
comprehensive chapters on
interpretation test
standardization, norm
development validity and
reliability.
 Norming Sample
• The Vineland Parent/ Caregiver form was
standardized using a nationally representative
American sample of 3,695 individuals from birth
to 90 years. The norm sample was stratified
according to demographic variables such as sex,
race/ ethnicity, socioeconomic status and
geographic region. The researchers also
controlled for the community size and SPED
program placement. Data for norming and
standardization were collected on 11 clinical
groups; attention deficit, autism nonverbal,
autism-verbal, emotional or behavioral
disturbance, deafness or hard of hearing,
learning disability, cognitively delayed mild,
cognitively delayed moderate, cognitively delayed
severe and visual impairment.
• The demographic stratification of many of the
variables is close to that of the 2001 US current
population survey.
 Reliability
• 4 methods were used to evaluate the reliability
of Vineland.
• Internal Consistency: A split half reliability test
determined the reliability test for 2 halves of
the test using the standardization sample data.
The spearman-brown formula was used to
determine correlations of the domains and
subdomains. Across the aged groups, the
communication domain ranged from .84 to .93.
The motor skills domain ranged from .77 to .90.
The maladaptive behavior index demonstrated
internal consistency coefficients ranging from
.85 to .91 across age groups. The adaptive
behavior composite reliability was determined
from the formula of Nunnally correlations from
this composite ranged from .93 to.97 across the
age groups.
• Test retest reliability: the manual notes that in
order to determine test stability a sample of 414
respondents from the standardization sample
completed 2 forms of the Vineland on sepeate
occassions.
• Average correlations were found to range
between .76and .92 across domains, subdomains
and ages. The maladaptive behavior subscales and
index demonstrate correlations ranging from .59
and to the mid .80 across age groups.
• Interrater reliability: measures the degree to
which scores from different respondents about
the same individual are consistent. Data from
152 individuals were used to determine
interrater reliability. Average correlations
ranged between .71 to .81 across
domains/subdomains and ages. Maladaptive
behavior subscales and index demonstrated
correlations between .89 and .83 for te survey
interview form and between .39 and .87 for the
parent/caregiver rating form across age groups.
 Validity
• The sources of validity evidence
listed in the Vineland manual come
from test content, response
process, test structure, clinical
groups and relationship to other
measures.
 Test Content
• The content of Vineland is supported from
several important sources including American
Association on Cognitively delayed, American
Psychological Association and National Academy
of Sciences,as well as from the previous version
of Vineland. The manual also notes that test
development followed various procedures to
ensure test content would be representative of
purported measurement areas. This process
included justifying the theoretical structure
defining the content and test blueprint and
evaluating the representativenessof the content.
Items within each of the subdomain were
analyzed using some methods from item response
theory to ensure that each item is included
within its appropriate domain.
 Group Differences
• The test developers evaluated
measurement bias at the item and
scale levels using Differential
Item Functioning. The difference
among sex, socioeconomic status,
ethnic and group membership
were found to small.
 Test Structure
• The intercorrelations of subdomain, domains and
Adaptive behavior composite scores were
analyzed. The authors indicate that “generally
correlations between subdomains are moderate
in size and are higher at younger ages than older
ages. Subdomain correlations within a domain
tend to be larger than those between domains.
However, the amount of subdomains clustering is
modest implying that there are functional
relationships among adaptive behaviorsin
different subdomains”. The manual list result of
confirmatory factor analyses. Overall the results
indicate the data fit the proposed model well.
Any Questions?