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

The Children's Affective Lability Scale (CALS) is a 20-item parent report measure developed to assess affect regulation in children aged 6–16. It was normed with school children in regular education classrooms and with children hospitalized in a psychiatric facility. Internal-consistency reliability, split-half reliability, and two-week test-retest reliability were excellent. Staff interrater reliability in the psychiatric sample was acceptable. Higher CALS scores were observed in an in-patient psychiatric sample than in either an out-patient or a normative sample. A principal components factor analysis yielded two components for the normative sample.