The Children's Affective Lability Scale: a psychometric evaluation of reliability

Area of Science:

• Child Psychology
• Psychometric Assessment
• Emotional Regulation

Background:

• Affective lability is a key concern in child psychiatry.
• Existing measures may not fully capture emotional dysregulation in children.
• Parental reports are valuable for assessing child behavior and emotional states.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce and validate the Children's Affective Lability Scale (CALS).
• To assess the reliability and validity of the CALS in diverse child populations.
• To establish normative data for the CALS.

Main Methods:

• The CALS is a 20-item parent-report questionnaire.
• Normative data were collected from school-aged children in regular education and psychiatric settings.
• Reliability (internal consistency, split-half, test-retest) and interrater reliability were examined.
• Factor analysis was used to explore the scale's structure.

Main Results:

• The CALS demonstrated excellent internal-consistency, split-half, and test-retest reliability.
• Staff interrater reliability was acceptable in the psychiatric sample.
• In-patient psychiatric samples scored significantly higher on the CALS than out-patient or normative samples.
• Factor analysis identified two components in the normative sample.

Conclusions:

• The CALS is a reliable and valid measure for assessing affect regulation in children aged 6-16.
• The scale effectively differentiates between children with and without psychiatric conditions.
• CALS provides valuable data for clinical assessment and research on child emotional regulation.