Emotional health resources for children and teens
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Support questionnaires, factsheets and videos

Members of the Lifespan Health and Wellbeing Research Centre have produced a number of free resources for children and teens, in collaboration with our partners.

Factsheets

Study stress

Information sheets for Students from the Study Without Stress Program:

NESA have developed a series of informational sheets on Managing Stress and Getting Exam Ready with Professor Viviana Wuthrich’s expertise (author of the Study Without Stress Program):

Child and teen anxiety

Videos

Cool Kids worksheets

Each of the links below contains a worksheet from the Cool Kids or Chilled 2nd Edition Workbooks (Standard Program). These files may only be downloaded and printed for practice tasks by families who own a copy of the program.

Questionnaires

See our more information and options to download questionnaires below.

A–B

The Adolescent Life Interference Scale for Internalizing Symptoms (ALIS-I) is a self-report measure of functional impairment related to anxiety and depression for adolescents. It includes 26 items that assess overall impairment, as well as four subscales covering impairment in the domains of personal withdrawal/avoidance, peer problems, problems with study/work, and somatic symptoms.

English
Relevant references
  • Schniering, C.A., Forbes, M.K., Rapee, R.M. et al. Assessing Functional Impairment in Youth: Development of the Adolescent Life Interference Scale for Internalizing Symptoms (ALIS-I). Child Psychiatry Hum Dev (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10578-021-01241-3

BEACON (Brief Evaluation of Adolescents and Children Online) is a mental health screening tool for students to do in school. It aims to identify students who may be going through a difficult time and need additional support.

English

C–D

The CASE provides a measure of stressful life experiences of relevance to children and adolescents. There are versions to be completed by the young person themselves as well as a carer.

Items for the CASE were designed to parallel a standard clinical interview measure of life events, the PACE [Sandberg, S., et al. (1993). Assessment of psychosocial experiences in childhood: Methodological issues and some illustrative findings. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 34(6), 879 -897.]

EnglishTranslations
Relevant references
  • Allen, J. L., Rapee, R. M., & Sandberg, S. (2012). Assessment of maternally reported life events in children and adolescents: A comparison of interview and checklist methods. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 34, 204-215.
  • Allen, J. L., & Rapee, R. M. (2009). Are reported differences in life events for anxious children due to comorbid disorders? Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 23, 511-518.

The CALIS is designed to assess life interference attributed to fears and worries from child and parent perspectives. The measure targets interference on the child’s life and also on the parent’s/family’s life. The CALIS is designed for children and youth aged approximately 6 to 17 years of age.

Similarly, the CALIS - Preschool version (CALIS-PV) is designed to assess life interference attributed to fear/worry and extreme shyness of preschoolers from a parent perspective.  The CALIS-PV is designed for parents of children aged approximately 3 to 5 years of age.

EnglishTranslations
Relevant references
  • CALIS
    Lyneham, H.J., Sburlati, E.S., Abbott, M.J., Rapee,R. M., Hudson, J. L., Tolin, D. F., & Carlson, S. E. (2013). Psychometric Properties of the Child Anxiety Life Interference Scale (CALIS). Journal of Anxiety Disorders
  • Further information can be obtained from Dr Heidi Lyneham.
  • CALIS - Preschool Version
    Kennedy, S. J., Rapee, R. M., & Edwards, S. L. (2009). A selective intervention program for inhibited preschool-aged children of parents with an anxiety disorder: Effects on current anxiety disorders and temperament. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 48(6), 602-609. doi:1097/CHI.0b013e31819f6fa9
  • Gilbertson T. J., Morgan, A. J., Rapee, R. M., Lyneham, H. J., & Bayer, J. K. (2017). Psychometric properties of the Child Anxiety Life Interference Scale – Preschool Version. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 52, 62–71. doi.org/10.1016/j.janxdis.2017.10.002

The CATS is a developmentally sensitive, general measure of negative self-statements across both internalizing and externalizing problems. Four separate subscales of cognitive content are assessed including physical threat, social threat, personal failure, and hostility. The CATS is designed for children and adolescents aged between 8 and 17 years of age.

EnglishTranslations
Relevant references
  • Schniering, C. A., & Rapee, R. M. (2002). Development and validation of a measure of children’s automatic thoughts: The Children’s Automatic Thoughts Scale. Behaviour Research & Therapy , 40, 1091-1109.
  • Schniering, C. A., & Rapee, R. M. (2004). The Structure of Negative Self-Statements in Children and Adolescents: A Confirmatory Factor Analystic Approach. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 32, 95-109.
  • Schniering, C.A., & Lyneham, H. (2006). The Children’s Automatic Thoughts Scale in a Clinical Sample: Reliability, validity and sensitivity to treatment changes. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 45, 1931-1940.
  • Schniering, C. A., & Lyneham, H. J. (2007). The Children’s Automatic Thoughts Scale in a clinical sample: Psychometric properties and clinical utility.  Behaviour Research and Therapy , 45(8), 1931-1940.
  • Micco, J. A., & Ehrenreich, J. T. (2009). Validity and specificity of the children’s automatic thoughts scale in clinically anxious and non-clinical children.  Cognitive Therapy and Research , 33(5), 532-536.
  • Erogul, A. R. C. (2013). Psychometric properties of the Children’s Automatic Thoughts Scale (CATS) in Turkish children with age and gender differences. Journal of Cognitive and Behavioral Psychotherapies, 13(2), 355-370.
  • Teodoro, Andrade, e Castro (2013) Escala de Pensamentos Automáticos para Crianças e Adolescentes (EAP): adaptação e propriedades psicométricas, Psico-USF,  Bragança Paulista, v. 18, n. 1, p. 89-98, jan./abril
  • Sun, L., Rapee, R.M., Tao, X., Yan, Y., Wang, S., Xu, W., & Wang, J. (2015). Psychometric Properties of the Children’s Automatic Thoughts Scale (CATS) in Chinese Adolescents. Child Psychiatry & Human Development, August, Volume 46, Issue 4, pp 600-608. First online 10 December 2014.

E–R

The MABS is a new parent measure that assesses anxiety in children and adolescents including young people with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The MABS consists of 23 anxiety related questions covering Separation Anxiety, Social Anxiety, Generalised Anxiety, Panic and Specific Phobia.

The proposed factor structure produced a reasonably good fit for the data. Assessment of measurement invariance of the newly developed MABS indicated that 18 of the 23 items functioned similarly across parents of children with ASD versus children without ASD, that is, parents of children with and without ASD responded similarly to these 18 items.

These items can therefore be considered suitable items to assess anxiety in children and adolescents irrespective of presence or absence of ASD.

English
Citation
  • Toscano, R., Hudson, J.L., Baillie, A.J., Lyneham, H.J., & McLellan, L.F., 2020. Development of the Macquarie Anxiety Behavioural Scale (MABS): A parent measure to assess anxiety in children and adolescents including young people with autism spectrum disorder. Journal of Affective Disorders 276, 678-685. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2020.06.076

The Parental Overprotection Measure (POM) was designed to specifically assess ‘overprotective parenting’, conceptualised as a caregiver’s tendency to excessively try to anticipate and protect their child from potential threats. It was originally designed for use with preschool-aged children and hence items are most relevant to younger children. However, it has been successfully used in application with older samples in some studies.

EnglishTranslations

The Personal Experiences Checklist provides a self-report assessment of a young person’s personal experience of being bullied. The measure is suitable for both girls and boys aged 8 to 16 years and it covers the full range of bullying behaviours, including covert relational forms of bullying and cyber bullying. There are four subscales: physical, relational, cultural, and cyber.

English
Relevant references
  • Hunt, C., Peter, L. & Rapee, R.M. (2012). Development of a measure of the experience of being bullied in youth. Psychological Assessment, 24 (1), 156-165.

The PASR is a revision of an earlier measure (Preschool Anxiety Scale, Spence et al., 2001). It is designed to assess symptoms of anxiety and fears in young children (aged 6 and below) as reported by their parents. The measure provides 4 subscales tapping generalised anxiety, social anxiety, separation anxiety, and specific fears.

EnglishTranslations
Relevant references
  • Edwards, S. L., Rapee, R. M., Kennedy, S., & Spence, S. H. (2010). The assessment of anxiety symptoms in preschool-aged children: The Revised Preschool Anxiety Scale. Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology, 39(3), 400-409.
  • Broeren, S., & Muris, P. (2008). Psychometric evaluation of two new parent-rating scales for measuring anxiety symptoms in young Dutch children. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 22, 949-958.
  • A translation - Spence, S. H., Rapee, R. M., McDonald, C., & Ingram, M. (2001). The structure of anxiety symptoms among pre-schoolers. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 39, 1293-1316.

S–Z

The SAS-TR assesses generalised and social anxiety symptoms experienced by a child from their teacher’s perspective. The SAS-TR is designed for children aged 5 to 12 years of age.

EnglishTranslations
Relevant references
  • Lyneham, H.J., Street, A., Abbott, M.J., & Rapee, R.M., (2008). Psychometric Properties of the School Anxiety Scale - Teacher Report (SAS-TR). Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 22 (2), 292-300.
  • Hajiamini, Z., A. Mohamadi, A. Ebadi, A. Fathi-Ashtiani, M. Tavousi and A. Montazeri (2012). The School Anxiety Scale-Teacher Report (SAS-TR): translation and psychometric properties of the Iranian version. BMC Psychiatry 12: 82.
  • Orgilés, M., I. Fernández-Martínez, S. Lera-Miguel, J. C. Marzo, L. Medrano and J. P. Espada (2017). Spanish validation of the School Anxiety Scale—Teacher Report (SAS-TR). Child Psychiatry & Human Development.

The Child RADAR and Youth RADAR are emotional health screening tools designed for use with primary or high school populations. The questionnaires are based on a combination of risk and protective factors associated with the development of mental health difficulties. They consists of six subscales, each with five items, School Connectedness, Family Relations, Academic Success, Peer Acceptance, Sporting Interest, Acceptance of Appearance.

English
Relevant references
  • Burns, J. R., & Rapee, R. M. (2018). School-based assessment of mental health risk in children: The preliminary development of the Child RADAR, Child and Adolescent Mental Health
  • Burns, J.R., & Rapee, R.M. (2016). Screening for mental health risk in high schools: The development of the youth radar. Psychological Assessment, 28, 1220–1231