Answer: Factor analysis did not elicit a separate self-regulation scale for infants 4 weeks to 18 months.  Several items related to self-regulation factored into what was later to be called the Attachment/Relationships scale.  Many experts agree that the development of self-regulation in the first year of life is synonymous with the adult child-attachment relationship and the two are difficult to tease apart.  When looking closely at the A/R scale for infants the items that are indicative of SR in relation to healthy attachment relationships include:

• Accept comfort from a familiar adult
• Calm down with help from a familiar adult
• Seek comfort from familiar adults

Answer: Initially, when generating the item pool there was a list of behavioral concern items.  It was evident that all of these items could be written in a strengths based way and still allow raters to pick up on risk, for example, one of the negative behaviors was “Does not engage in eye contact.”  It can just as easily be worded, “engages in eye contact and if scored as happening “never” on the Likert scale it would show up as a risk.   Feedback from clinicians, parents, researchers and early care and education providers supported the 100% strength-based approach to the DECA I/T assessment.

Answer: Yes. If languages other than English or Spanish are needed, please contact deca@devereux.org

Answer:

1. Many, but not all, of the items on the DECA-I/T were derived from the DECA for Preschoolers.  These items had been reviewed by the Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services program of the ERIC Clearinghouse for potential bias against minority children.  Any items that raised concern were not included in either the DECA or the subsequent DECA-I/T.  When the DECA-I/T was developed, the CLAS program had been defunded, so we were not able to have the new items, which are unique to the DECA-I/T reviewed in the same way.
2. The norms on the DECA-I/T are based on a large, nationally representative sample of infants and toddlers.  Children from various racial and ethnic groups were included in the standardization sample in numbers proportional to their representation in the nation.
3. We did explicitly test for bias, defined as mean score differences, between (1) Black and Caucasian and (2) Latino/a and Caucasian children on each scale on the DECA-I/T.  In  18 of the 28 comparison the differences between the mean scores obtained by the different groups of children were “negligible” operationally defined as a d-ratio of less than .20. (this means that the mean scores differed by less than about 2 T-score points, a trivial, non-consequential difference. Of the remaining 10 comparisons, 8 were classified as “small” differences (3 to 5 T-score differences) and only 2 met criteria for a “medium” sized difference (6 to 7 T-score points) .  In these two cases, the Latino/a children had higher mean scores than the Caucasian children.   So there is little evidence of meaningful differences between Black or Latino/a children and their Caucasian peers and where it did exist it was in favor of the Latino/a children.
4. Ultimately, it is the responsibility of the DECA-I/T User to make sure that the DECA-I/T is appropriate to use with the group of children in your care.  This is especially true if you are working with populations of children other than Black or Latino/a.  Should you be using the DECA-I/T with children from a particular ethnic, cultural or other group, we strongly suggest that you have the DECA-I/T items reviewed by an expert in that culture and take into account any reservations or recommendations that they might have.  For instance, you might ask raters to leave a particular item unanswered if cultural experts feel that it is inappropriate for children from that group.

Answer: As stated in the User’s Manual, Devereux suggests that a teacher should, at a minimum, observe the child for two to three hours a day, for two to three days per week, for four weeks.  Devereux made this recommendation based on feedback from early childhood educators who worked in group settings.  Because of the differences between home visitation services and care in a group setting, Devereux offers modified recommendations for home visitors.  Devereux strongly recommends that a home visitor must wait a minimum of 4 weeks before conducting the rating, but that the number and length of visits within that period of time might vary.  The most important question for the home visitor to be able to answer is: “Do I feel that I know the child well enough to confidently respond to the questions on the record form?”  If the answer is ‘yes’ and she has known the child for a minimum of 4 weeks, she can proceed to conduct her rating.

Answer: In general, the DECA Toddler form is recommended for two-year-old children. However, in those cases where a child is enrolled in a program for three year olds and the child will turn three within a matter of a few months, the DECA-P2 can be used. Studies were conducted to determine if results for “older twos” differed significantly from the three years olds in the DECA-P2 standardization sample. Significant differences were not found.

Answer: The DECA-I/T was standardized with a sample of children ages 4 weeks up to 36 months, therefore the standardized scores (T-scores and percentiles) can only be used for children falling within that age range.  If a DECA infant or toddler form is used with a child older than 36 months the results can be used for planning purposes only.

Answer: When the DECA was developed, the authors conducted focus groups to determine what terms would be most appropriate to label the frequency of behaviors assessed by the DECA.  The terms Never, Rarely, Occasionally, Frequently and Very Frequently were selected.  When the tool was then standardized across the country with over 2,000 raters, raters were not provided with guidance or instruction about how to define these terms.  Rather, the standardization process left the interpretation entirely up to the raters.  Based on the results from the national standardization process, raters did in fact have similar understandings and interpretations of these labels.

Based on our findings from the national standardization process, the authors recommend that raters not be provided with definitions of the frequency terms.  Rather, if there is a concern, the authors recommend making it clear to raters that their interpretation of the frequency terms, whatever that definition may be, should be used consistently when rating children. Also, it may be helpful if raters are not sure about how to most appropriately rate a child, to actually put the frequency labels right into the question when thinking about the item and reflecting on which statement most accurately reflects their observations of the child.  For example, for question #5, the rater might  say, “Maria occasionally controls her anger” or “Maria frequently controls her anger.”  After hearing both statements and reflecting, the rater should feel more confident selecting the appropriate frequency for that particular item.

Answer: We do not adjust for age. This is a prevention tool used for planning therefore, we look at where the child is according to age and plan based on what parent and other information is telling us.  We included children who were born premature in our study sample and there were no statistical differences found in the way the children scored from the rest of the sample set. DECA I/T Program users may look to strategies that align with a younger age for planning purposes within the DECA Infant Toddler Strategy Guide or For Now and Forever, A Family’s Guide to Social and Emotional Health.

Answer: When examining children’s Total Protective Factor scale raw score means and standard deviations for age, trends were found for the infants and not for toddlers.

Answer: Strength is a T-score of 60 or above meaning this is an area where the child was one standard deviation from the norm- heading in a strength direction (high T scores mean the child was doing the strength-based behavior frequently or very frequently.

Typical is a T score from 41-59.  This is the area that about 68% of children fall, it means that compared to others their age the child’s behavior is typical.

Area of Need is the category of T scores 40 or below meaning the child fell one standard deviation or more away from the norm and may need some support to further develop a protective factor.

Answer: If a child has a T score in the range of 40 or below that factor is considered to be “at risk” as it falls one standard deviation form the normative sample mean.  This score alone does not automatically indicated a need for referral.  The data from the DECA-I/T should be used together with other information to make decisions about what children may need.

Answer: Please see the DECA-I/T User’s Guide, page 32, for more detail.  Many states use percentage delays to find sufficient risk for early prevention and intervention services. For instance, a state may require a 25% delay in one or more domains. This approach has been operationalized using assessments that provide an age- equivalent score. For instance, a 36 month old child who receives an age-equivalent score of 27 months would be demonstrating a 25% delay.

The DECA-I/T scores can be used in a similar way. Given that a T score of 50 is considered “average,” a 25% delay would be a score of 37 (50 minus 25% (12.5) is 37.5, which rounds to 37). Children with a T score of 37 on a protective factor scale could be considered 25% delayed. With this approach, the 25% delay concept results in a cut score of about one standard deviation from the mean, which is a value that has been used for many years as a reasonable rough estimate to indicate cause for concern.

Answer: The amount of change noted in children’s scores depends on a number of factors including how much risk and adversity the child is experiencing, the degree of fidelity in which the DECA-I/T Program is being implemented, the consistency of the raters, etc.   However, in general, we typically find that a good program doing a decent job of implementing the DECA-I/T Program sees on average a 3-5 T-score point change across one program year. Another good way to consider this is that a common rule of thumb in the social sciences is that change of only 1 T-score point is negligible or meaningless.  A change of 2, 3 or 4 points is a small change.  A 5, 6, or 7 point change is a medium change, and any change of 8 points or more is a large change.  Usually, social science and education folks are very happy to get a medium change over a one-year period.  Download directions and an Excel template that calculates DECA-I/T score changes.

Answer: Yes, however a number of recommendations apply. Click here to access these recommendations as well as the values required for significance when comparing across Devereux assessments for both parent and teacher raters.

Answer:  The value of the DECA assessments are that they not only provide psychometrically-sound measures of within-child protective factors in individual children and groups of children, but they can also be used for progress monitoring and program evaluation purposes. Progress monitoring consists of administering an assessment such as the DECA multiple times throughout a school year in order to examine how children are responding to a particular intervention or program. The goal of progress monitoring is to obtain feedback during the intervention or program so that the nature or intensity of the intervention or program can be adjusted to maximize the chance of a successful outcome. Progress monitoring may occur multiple times over the year. In contrast, program evaluation refers to examining the progress or change observed over a defined period of time such as a school year to determine overall program effectiveness.  Download a document that will provide guidance on using our assessment to both monitor the acquisition of protective factors of children and to evaluate the impact of intervention.

Answer: Professional Development options for those who work with Infants and Toddlers can be found on our website. You can also contact Debi Mahler, Director of Professional Development, to talk about options for your community onsite: (866) TRAIN-US, or dmahler@devereux.org

Answer: Strategies for the home setting and group setting are provided through two resources, Infant and Toddler Strategies Guide, and For Now and Forever: A Family Guide for Promoting the Social and Emotional Development of Infants and Toddlers. Additionally, a tool for adult resilience called the Devereux Adult Resilience Survey, and accompanying strategies are available through Building Your Bounce, Simple Strategies for a Resilient You – All resources above are found in the DECA I/T Program kit.

Answer:  Download directions and an Excel template that calculates DECA-C score changes.