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The behavior of children brings them into conflict with their environment when by lying, stealing, destroying or the like, they fail to conform to the laws of society, or when they are so extremely shy and fearful that they are unable to cope with the demands made upon them. There is 'a need for definite knowledge and detailed diagnosis of real causes in behavior cases and a knowledge of how to interpret them'. In an attempt to meet this need, Baker and Traphagen devised the Detroit Behavior Scale which consists of sixty-six factors covering what they feel are the three major causes of behavior maladjustments: (1) physical, sensory, and nervous conditions, (2) temperaments and emotions of children, and (3) the social and environmental forces acting upon the child. This book describes the administration, evaluation and interpretation of the scale in detail, with the idea that it could eventually be used for diagnostic purposes by teachers and social workers. In the authors' words, 'the scale for the analysis of behavior problems … is offered with the hope that it will aid in removing diagnosis and treatment from the realm of subjective opinion. It offers specific numeral scores for definite facts to those who desire them. Many of the factors and causes have been known and discussed in child-study clinics in informal manner. This volume attempts to bring them together in convenient, organized form for practical use.'
The scale consists mainly of an enumeration of the sixty-six factors, with space for evaluation and description of the acquired data. Each factor receives a rating of 1 to 5 according to whether the conditions are found to be very poor (1 point) or very good (5 points). Thus the lowest possible total score would be 66, the highest 330. The median score for a group of 181 children who