| Despite the continual growth of the Latine population in the United States, relatively little research has focused on Spanish-speaking youth. Extant research indicates that Spanish-speaking children and families often receive inadequate mental health services, partially due to caregiverprovider language barriers and a lack of culturally, and linguistically appropriate assessment measures. Assessment of restricted, repetitive behaviors and interests (RRBIs), which are common features of many neurodevelopmental, psychiatric, and neurological conditions, represents one particular area in which validated, feasible psychosocial measures for Spanishspeaking children and their caregivers are needed. To that end, the current study sought to
validate a newly translated, Spanish version of the Repetitive Behavior Scale for Early Childhood (RBS-EC), a 34-item standardized caregiver-report measure of RRBIs in children ages 2–7 years. Participants were 373 Spanish-speaking caregivers recruited through MTurk who had at least one child between 2–7 years of age. The Spanish version of the RBS-EC demonstrated good psychometric properties with good to excellent internal consistency across the different subscales. The Total Composite Frequency scale demonstrated good internal consistency (α = .90), while the Total Composite Interference scale demonstrated excellent internal consistency (α = .91). Additionally, a multi-group confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to compare the RBS-EC’s relative factor invariance between the current Spanishspeaking sample and a previously collected MTurk sample of 300 English-speaking caregivers. The Spanish translation of the RBS-EC was found to be valid and reliable and offers an opportunity to improve the psychological assessment and intervention of early childhood RRBIs among Spanish-speaking populations in the United States. Results from this study provide a valid and culturally relevant measure that can help improve service delivery and evaluation for this otherwise underserved population. |