Devereux Behavior Rating Scale

The Devereux Behavior Rating Scale School Form is a brief rating scale used when a school team is asking whether a student's emotional and behavioral difficulties are severe enough to meet the federal definition of emotional disturbance. Its content was built around those federal criteria, which is why it appears in special education eligibility work rather than general behavior screening.

Forty items are rated by a teacher or another adult who knows the student. Separate answer forms cover children ages 5 to 12 and adolescents 13 to 18. It takes about five minutes. The publisher is explicit that it works best alongside other findings rather than alone — to help decide placement, or to track whether an educational intervention is working.

Licensing Notes: The kit includes the manual plus 25 Ready Score answer documents for each age band; answer. Reproduction requires Pearson permission.

Learn More: One age note that trips people up: the DBRS is not the same instrument as the older Devereux Elementary School Behavior Rating Scale, which has a different structure and factor set. The DBRS is also distinct from the Devereux Student Strengths Assessment (DESSA), a strength-based tool from the same publisher family — if you are looking for a resilience or protective-factors measure, the DESSA is the one, not this.