VALIDATION OF THE GEORGIAN ADAPTIVE BEHAVIOR SCREENING INSTRUMENT

No reliable and valid measure of adaptive behavior is available in the Republic of Georgia.Thus, the Georgian Adaptive Behavior Screening Instrument-Research Version (GABSI-RV) was designed to provide data from which individual educational plans can be designed and monitored.This study's aim was to determine the psychometric features of the GABSI-RV with emphasis on evaluating the discriminatory capacity of the GABSI-RV using clinical (intellectual disability) and non-clinical groups of different ages.Participants were children and adolescents ages 4-18 divided into clinical (N=315); intellectual disability) and non-clinical comparison (N=296) groups.Results showed strong test-retest and inter-rater reliability.Analyses showed high internal consistency and that the measure discriminated across age groups.This measure has strong potential to fill and important gap in Georgia's education and mental health service delivery systems.The strategies deployed in this study have broad applicability for similar efforts in developing countries.