Technical Support for ASEBA® Software Products
Should extremely low scores be considered deviant?
< 1 min read
Answer: Extremely low scores merely reflect the absence of reported problems. The profile compresses the low end of the syndrome scales so that a T score of 50 is the minimum obtainable on any scale. However, nearly all children have at least some problems. On the CBCL/1.5-5, the mean Total Problems score for non-referred children in our normative sample was 33.3. On the C-TRF it was 23.1 for boys and 19.6 for girls. Total Problems scores < 2 were obtained by only 2% of our normative sample on the CBCL/1.5-5. And Total Problems scores of 0 were obtained by 2% of our normative sample on the C-TRF. Such low scores suggest that the respondent has not understood the form, is poorly informed about the child or is not being candid. Total Problems scores o 3 and 4 on the CBCL/1.5-5 are also low enough to be questionable.