Measures of Adaptive Behavior

Adaptive behavior can be defined as the sum of conceptual, social, and practical skills that have been learned and are performed to meet society’s expectations across various living domains, such as home, school, work, social life, and other environmental settings. Adaptive behavior is a required criterion for the diagnosis of intellectual disability (ID), even though for a long time it has been an unstated part of ID construct and evaluation. Our purposes in this chapter are to (1) provide a historical background of adaptive behavior and its application, (2) give information about changes in its nomenclature, (3) review the development of the most reliable standardized tests of adaptive behavior, (4) discuss factors that influence performance on adaptive behavior scales, (5) trace other information-gathering methods that can be used when standardized assessments cannot be performed, and (6) familiarize readers with the average adaptive functioning of the most common genetic syndromes.