Children's Aggression Scale (CAS)

Items describe actual acts of aggression versus a wide variety of behaviours that are associated with disruptive behaviours, which in turn facilitates the establishment of treatment planning and treatment monitoring. The Parent Rating Form and the Teacher Rating form yield setting-specific information about a child or adolescent's aggressive acts, as well as information regarding the frequency and severity of those aggressive acts.

Key features:

• Uses a multiple informant approach - the CAS has a Parent Rating Form and a Teacher Rating Form that provide the examiner with information about setting-specific (i.e. home and school, respectively) aggressive acts.
• Assesses the severity and frequency of aggressive behaviors - the CAS captures information about both areas, whereas other measures assess only the presence or absence of an aggressive behaviour. In addition, CAS items are weighted differentially, depending on the severity of the act. This methodology allows for more severe acts of aggression to be weighted more heavily than less severe acts of aggression.
• Items describe actual acts of aggression versus disruptive behaviours - both the Parent Rating Form and the Teacher Rating Form include the following scales: Verbal Aggression, Aggression Against Objects and Animals, Physical Aggression, and Use of Weapons. Clusters for both forms include Provoked Physical Aggression, Initiated Physical Aggression, Aggression Toward Peers, and Aggression Toward Adults. The Parent Rating Form has two additional clusters: Aggression Against Family Members and Aggression Against Non-Family Members. Both forms also include the total score - the Total Aggression Index.
• Applicable in a variety of settings - the CAS can be used as an assessment tool and as a tool to assist in treatment planning and treatment monitoring. It can be used in clinical settings, in educational settings and in forensic/criminal justice settings. The CAS also can be used in research settings for screening participants (i.e. inclusion/exclusion criteria), as the dependent measure, or as an independent or predictor variable.

CAS Components:

The CAS consists of the Professional Manual, the carbonless Parent Rating Form, the carbonless Teacher Rating Form, the Parent Score Summary Form/Profile, and the Teacher Score Summary Form/Profile. The Professional Manual contains administration and scoring information, normative tables, and reliability and validity information, along with four case studies.