Objectives: Children with brain injuries need monitoring to address any aberrant effects that the injury may have on behavioral adjustment. Due to the differential demands of the home and school environments, children with an injury may appear to function differently in the classroom versus the home. Delineating the differences between parent and teacher perceptions of behavioral disturbances may allow practitioners to emphasize different interventions and supports in each environment. The purpose of the investigation is to determine how behavioral ratings on the BASC-2 (Reynolds & Kamphaus, 2004) may be discrepant among teachers and parents of children with traumatic brain injuries.

Method: Parents and teachers of 14 children (age 2 years, 6 months to 14 years, 1 month) completed the Behavior Assessment System for Children-2nd Edition (BASC-2) parent and teacher report, respectively. This measure was obtained approximately 6-12~months after the child sustained a traumatic brain injury. The sample was limited to those children suffering a moderate or severe closed-head injury. Furthermore, the sample was mostly male (64.3%) and White (57.1%).

Results: A descriptive command was conducted evaluating the level of behavioral ratings of teachers versus that of parents. Mean ratings show that parents viewed children as having less externalizing problems, internalizing problems, and behavioral symptoms as compared with teachers. Furthermore, parents were more apt to view their child as possessing a greater level of adaptive skills than compared with the child's teacher. This short descriptive pilot study should be viewed as a springboard for more comprehensive studies in the future. Addressing general differences in demands placed on the child between home and school may clarify these differences further.