Zur Erhebung des adaptiven Verhaltens von zwei- und dreijährigen Kindern im Sozio-oekonomischen Panel (SOEP)

Abstract

Since the year 2003, SOEP has been systematically adding to its repertoire of survey instruments in the area of early childhood. The present study reports on the instrumental value of a 20-item “mother questionnaire” on the adaptive behavior of their two to three-year-old children (VABS) in the areas of language, everyday skills, motor skills, and social relationships. The survey was first employed in the year 2005. We study aspects of instrumental quality (reliability, validity, sensitivity to change), as well as bivariate and multivariate relationships with other characteristics of the child, the childcare situation, and the household and family. Evaluated from a test statistical perspective, the instrument appears somewhat too “easy”. Independent of this, however, the authors judge the scale to be extremely useful in the wider context of the SOEP data.