Communication and Symbolic Behavior Scales Manual

This user-friendly manual guides professionals through the process of administering, scoring, and interpreting the Communication and Symbolic Behavior Scales (CSBS?), one of the best measures of early communication in children 8–24 months (or up to 72 months if developmental delays are present). The manual includes:

• a concise question-and-answer introduction to CSBS?
• informative summaries that reveal how the communication and symbolic behavior scales were developed
• detailed, easy-to-follow instructions on how to administer the Caregiver Questionnaire, conduct each part of the videotaped Behavior Sample, and interpret the behaviors on the videotape
• clear guidelines on rating, summarizing, and interpreting scores
• technical data about CSBS?, including information about standardization, scaling and norming, reliability, and validity
• helpful tips on planning individualized interventions

Filled with tables, charts, and checklists that summarize key points, clarify technical data, and help users organize the information and material they need, this manual will make it easier for professionals to use CSBS? effectively with the children and families they serve.

This manual is part of CSBS?, a norm-referenced, standardized tool that uses parent interview and direct observation to assess infants, toddlers, and preschoolers at risk for communication delays and impairments. With 22 rating scales that accurately survey children's language skills and symbolic development, CSBS is backed by technical data and compatible with most developmental curricula in use today.

Learn more about the whole CSBS system.

Barry M. Prizant, Ph.D., has more than 25 years experience as a clinical scholar, researcher, and consultant to young children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and related communication disabilities and their families. He is an American Speech-Language-Hearing Association fellow and is a member of the Interdisciplinary Council on Developmental and Learning Disabilities. Formerly, he was Associate Professor of Psychiatry in the Brown University Program in Medicine, Professor in the School of Communication Sciences and Disorders at Emerson College, and Advanced Post-Doctoral Fellow in Early Intervention at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has developed family-centered programs for newly diagnosed toddlers with ASD and their families in hospital and university clinic environments. He has been an invited presenter at two State of the Science Conferences on ASD at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and has contributed to the NIH Clinical Practice Guidelines for early identification and diagnosis of ASD. Dr. Prizant's current research and clinical interests include identification and family-centered treatment of infants, toddlers, and young children who have or are at risk for sociocommunicative difficulties, including ASD.

Amy M. Wetherby, Ph.D., is Professor and former Chair of the Department of Communication Disorders at Florida State University. She received her doctorate from the University of California-San Francisco/Santa Barbara in 1982. She has had more than 20 years of clinical experience in the design and implementation of communication programs for children with autism and severe communication impairments and is an American Speech-Language-Hearing Association fellow. Dr. Wetherby's research has focused on communicative and social-cognitive aspects of language difficulties in children with autism and, more recently, on the early identification of children with communicative impairments. She has published extensively on these topics and presents regularly at national conventions. She is a co-author of the Communication and Symbolic Behavior Scales (with Barry M. Prizant [Applied Symbolix, 1993]). She is the Executive Director of the Florida State University Center for Autism and Related Disabilities and is Project Director of U.S. Department of Education Model Demonstration Grant No. H324M980173 on early identification of communication disorders in infants and toddlers and Personnel Preparation Training Grant No. H029A10066 specializing in autism.