Free Argumentative Essay On Potential Limitations Of Parent And Teacher Perceptions In The Assessment Of Child Behavior Problems

A child's behavior problem is defined as any behavior that interferes with children's learning and development, keeps the child at a high risk for later social issues or failure in school, and is harmful to the child and others. This behavior can be a source of great frustration to parents, teachers, as well as other caregivers. Such behaviors are developmentally suitable early in life, and all children engage in it periodically on a continuous basis as they mature. On the other hand, some children depend on such behaviors as a way to their needs met. These kinds of the child require personalized interventions (Eyberg, & Ross, 1978). Studies have demonstrated that the prevalence of child behavior problems in young children is approximately 10 percent and may even reach 25 percent of children from low-income families. Preschool children with behavior issues are three times more likely to get expulsions from schools than children in grades K-12 are. Of about 3 to 15 percent of preschool- age children, antisocial and aggressive behavior continues beyond age 3. About half of the children begin paths that eventually result in delinquency in adolescence and adulthood. Therefore, the longer children continue to experience behavior problems, the more worrisome it becomes and the more difficult it is to change the behavior. Thus, early intervention is necessary.
The assessment of children behavior problems has been emphasized for several years in the definition, diagnosis, and classification of behavior issues. Every child must use daily adaptive skills to function independently as well as effectively. A child with behavioral deficits can experience issues in meeting the different demands of numerous situations and environments. These children may experience difficulties with important life activities, which include interactions with peers, learning new skills, taking care of personal needs, and general functioning at school, home, and community. Functional behavior assessment is considered to be a problem-solving process for addressing children behavior problems. It depends on different techniques and strategies to determine the purpose of a particular action and to assist in identifying suitable interventions to address the problem behavior directly. Thus, a comprehensive assessment of children's behavior is significant for identifying their strengths and needs as well as for focusing on important goals for intervention programs (Eyberg, & Ross, 1978). Currently, the standard for assessing children behavior issues depend on teachers and parents data concerning the child's early vulnerabilities and social capacities. However, sometimes disagreements erupt between parents and teachers in their assessments.
Although teachers report children's behavior problems as the biggest challenges they face, the same challenges also happen in home settings. Research indicates that behavior problems influence the family system, activities, and routines invariably. Thus, it appears that child and family issues are because of interrelated family situations (Dumas, Wolf, Fisman, & Culligan, 1991). With this knowledge and the understanding that parents play a role in shaping and maintaining problem behavior, it appears that behavior issues should be assessed in the context of parent-child interactions.
However, while teacher or parent rating scales are beneficial in assessing children behaviors, they have several limitations that should be considered in children behavior assessment, and they should be supplemented with other information gathering methods. For instance, ratings of teachers or parents may only provide an evaluation of their perceptions of a relative summary of the child's general behavior issue rather than an exact frequency of responses (Webster-Stratton & Hammond, 1988). In addition, rating scales are limited to skills that can be assessed on a rating scale or questionnaire filled by a parent or teacher, which may not offer all possible behavior issues. The ratings of the teacher or parent on the scales reflect only their expectations and standards for particular actions, which may differ from parents or teachers and settings. Teachers or parents may also be affected by features of the child, which include the ability, background, academic performance, as well as appearance. Thus, multiple techniques of assessment should be integrated, and information should be collected from several sources given the above limitations.
Other techniques that may be appropriate in a comprehensive assessment of behavior problems include social skills assessment, informal interviews, sociometric methods, and structured observations. Formal, naturalistic observations concentrate on systematic and direct observation of a person in a particular setting such as the classroom, playground, and home. Social skills assessment offers identification of significant acquisition and performance deficits that influence a child's social interactions. Sociometric methods such as peer nominations and peer rating are useful in identifying the effect of behavior problems on the perceptions of peers. Direct testing of the child's behaviors and may offer an objective information about what the child is capable of doing in a structured testing environment and may supplement parent or teacher rating scales and its focus their perception of what a child does.
Studies suggest that correlations between parent and teacher ratings of children's behaviors are weak to moderate. Further research findings suggest that correlations between teacher and parent ratings are higher when behaviors become more severe. However, even for children with severe problems, teacher and parent scores on behavior issues differ significantly. Informal interviews with parents and teachers may offer data about factors that relate to child behavior issues and may affect teacher and parent ratings on behavior scales (Zimmerman, Khoury, Vega, Gil, & Warheit, 1995). For instance, different teaching and parenting techniques and expectations or children's behavioral inconsistencies in various settings may influence behavior ratings. Integration of data from several methods of assessment, as well as data collection and several sources of information, ensures a valid possible data for decision-making and planning interventions. For instance, a combination of norm-referenced rating scales together with informal interviews with teachers and parents may reveal a child's strength in particular skills and weaknesses in others.
On the other hand, parents may report that the child has adequate social skills at home and in the community while teachers may say that the child has social skills problems in the classroom. More interviews with the child, teachers and parents; as well as systematic observation in the classroom may reveal that the child has less social interactions that an average peer in the class; and that the limited and infrequent social interactions of the child are characterized by hostile behavior such as shoving and raised voice, between the child and peers (Zimmerman, Khoury, Vega, Gil, & Warheit, 1995). Thus, this example demonstrates the comprehensive nature of behavior issues information offered by multiple assessment techniques and sources of data and the implications of the integrated data for prioritizing interventions.
Furthermore, parents and teachers observe children in a different context and thus have a different expectation based upon their particular roles. There is little research to support the value for data collected from teachers and parents (Kolko, & Kazdin, 1993). Only a few studies have been found that offer comparison on assessment of teachers and guardians to other criteria in order to compare their respective qualities. Misunderstandings between teachers and parents provide significant implications for researchers. It is also a critical problem from the perspective of the child. Parents or teachers communicate in a certain way their evaluation to children about how bad or good are their behaviors and the extent to which they are expected. Such an assessment affects the child in different ways (Zimmerman, Khoury, Vega, Gil, & Warheit, 1995). For instance, valid parent or teacher perception of the child might result in sensitive parents or teachers to coherent response in a day-to-day interaction or in more structured fashion, such as in schooling or prevention programs, for consolidation of competency.
It will be beneficial for the child to adopt behavior that conforms to ordinary expectations if parents or teachers communicate clearly their valid perceptions. On the other hand, inaccurate perceptions are harmful to children. Inaccurate perceptions can only benefit children if they are positive. However, negative attitudes from parents or teachers seem to be the worst scenario for the child. Many studies have indicated that depressed, mentally ill, or stressed parents or teachers have a greater possibility to offer negative perceptions of the child that is in turn related to children behaviors (Dumas, Wolf, Fisman, & Culligan, 1991). For instance, depressed mothers tend to describe their children as disturbing compared to non-depressed mothers. Stress on the part of the parent or teacher, which results from a negative evaluation of the child, is related to the social difficulties or competencies of the child.
In conclusion, the limitations of the perceptions of parents and teachers in the assessment of the child behavior problems exist. Disagreements between teachers and parents result in assessment results that do not reflect the behavior of the child. The discrepancies in perceptions appear to be affected by environmental or personal factors. Stressed parents or teachers are unable to perceive the child's competencies accurately.

References

Dumas, J. E., Wolf, L. C., Fisman, S. N., & Culligan, A. (1991). Parenting stress, child behavior problems, and dysphoria in parents of children with autism, Down syndrome, behavior disorders, and normal development. Exceptionality: A Special Education Journal, 2(2), 97-110.
Eyberg, S. M., & Ross, A. W. (1978). Assessment of child behavior problems: The validation of a new inventory. Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology, 7(2), 113-116.
Kolko, D. J., & Kazdin, A. E. (1993). Emotional/behavioral problems in clinic and nonclinic children: correspondence among child, parent and teacher reports. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 34(6), 991-1006.
Webster-Stratton, C., & Hammond, M. (1988). Maternal depression and its relationship to life stress, perceptions of child behavior problems, parenting behaviors, and child conduct problems. Journal of abnormal child psychology, 16(3), 299-315.
Zimmerman, R. S., Khoury, E. L., Vega, W. A., Gil, A. G., & Warheit, G. J. (1995). Teacher and parent perceptions of behavior problems among a sample of African American, Hispanic, and non-Hispanic white studients. American Journal of Community Psychology, 23(2), 181-197.