DEVELOPING SYMPTOMATIC BEHAVIOR SCREENING TOOL (SYMBEST) FOR CHILDREN WITH BEHAVIOR PROBLEMS : A FUZZY DELPHI METHOD

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to develop a symptomatic behaviour screening tool (SymBest) for early childhood educators to identify children with symptomatic behaviours. The measuring constructs of the screening tool are the child developmental domains with developmental delays as items representing the constructs. Fuzzy Delphi analysis was conducted with 18 participants from diverse backgrounds of clinical and education to gain the expert consensus on the suitability of the constructs and items representing SymBest. The findings showed that the experts have a fair degree of agreement on the constructs and the items suggested to form SymBest. The constructs and items with accepted threshold value, percentage of group consensus and fuzzy score is then organized in sequence priority to form the screening tool.