The Child Behavior Check List for Ages 4-18 (CBCL) was used to determine behavioral changes in children with autism. CBCL was developed by Achenbach and Edelbork to evaluate the competence areas and problem behaviors of children and adolescents in the 4-18 age group in line with the information obtained from parents (Rinehart et al. 2001). CBCL 4-18 was first translated into Turkish by Akçakın and Savaşır in 1983 and a reliability study was conducted (Akçakın 1985).
The 1991 form of CBCL 4-18 was translated into Turkish by Erol et al. (1998) and compared with the 1983 translation form in our country and the differences and similarities were analyzed. In the internal consistency study of the scale, 4488 children and youth were studied and the results showed that the scale was used reliably in the gender and age groups, provinces, districts and villages. The internal consistency of the scale was calculated with Cronbach's alpha coefficient over the scores of 4488 children and adolescents constituting the study sample and the coefficients were found to be; Introversion= 0.82, Extraversion= 0.81 and Total Problem= 0.88. The test-retest reliability of the scale in Turkish was calculated by administering it to fifty mothers twice with a one-week interval, and the correlations were found to be 0.78 for Total Competence and 0.84 for Total Problems, and it was determined that the correlations were high.
The scale consists of twenty competence and one hundred and eighteen problem items. The items related to competence in the scale cover the sports and non-sports activities in which the child and youth are interested and actively participate, and the work they do at home or outside the home. In addition, the child's functions in the social field are also determined. The child's success at school, problems and the quality and quantity of his/her participation in school activities are determined. The scores obtained from activities, sociality and school subscales are summed to obtain a total competence score (Erol et al. 1998).
In the second part of the scale, one hundred and thirteen items describing behavioral and emotional problems seen in children and adolescents were included. Problem behaviors are graded as 0, 1 and 2 according to the frequency of occurrence in the last six months. If the item is not present in the child, it is marked as 0, if it is sometimes or somewhat true for the child, it is marked as 1, and if it is very true or often true, it is marked as 2. Two separate behavioral symptom scores are obtained from the scale, namely internalizing and externalizing, and there are five subscales belonging to these two main sections and three subscales that do not belong to these groups. The introversion (IY) group consists of social introversion, somatic complaints, anxiety, depression, and the externalizing (EO) group consists of the subscale totals of criminal and aggressive behaviors. In addition, social problems, thought and attention problems not included in both groups are also included in the scale. A "total problem score" is obtained from the sum of these subtests. In this study, the internalizing and externalizing dimensions of the scale and total problem scores were evaluated. Total problem scores were expressed as general behavior problem scores (Erol et al. 1998).