The Verbal Peer Adult Emotional Scale (VPAE), a behavioral rating scale for measuring the progress of severely maladaptive children, covers four areas: verbal behavior, peer interaction, interaction with adults, and emotional behavior. The 16-item scale is designed for use with children between the chronological ages of two and nine years, who are in a residential, educational, or therapeutic setting for functionally retarded, maladaptive children. The VPAE can be administered and tabulated in less than ten minutes and was developed with the intention that it be administered monthly. It is suggested that a minimum of three raters per child per administration would represent an adequate sampling of behavior. No props are needed in administering the scale and the primary requirement for raters is familiarity with the child and the terminology of the measure. Although the VPAE was developed on a very small population, the reliability and validity data appear to be promising. Spearman Rank Correlation Coefficients between the VPAE and selected variables are presented. The VPAE, the manual--including instructions for scoring and interpretation, and all forms used with the VPAE are included. (EVH)