Factor Structure of the Devereux Early Childhood Assessment Clinical Form in Low-Income Hispanic American Bilingual Preschool Children

摘要

The Devereux Early Childhood Assessment Clinical Form (DECA-C) is the first instrument to measure the social-emotional resilience of young children from ages 2 to 5 years. This study is an important step toward gathering validity evidence for the teacher-rated DECA-C. This is the first study to investigate the DECA-C factor structure and the first to examine its use with low-income Hispanic American bilingual preschoolers. The one-factor, three-factor, and higher-order three-factor models were tested for the Total Protective Factors domain and the one-, four-, and higher-order four-factor models for the Total Behavioral Concerns domain. Participants comprised 471 low-income bilingual children of Hispanic backgrounds in an urban public school district in the Northeast. Findings from confirmatory factor analyses indicated that all models tested had poor model fit with this sample; however, future research replicating these findings would be necessary for implementation of modifications. In the meantime, the DECA-C shows promise for use in practice with this particular population. Implications for further research are discussed.