Rating Scales in Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: Use in Assessment and Treatment Monitoring

Rating scales are valuable tools in both assessment and treatment monitoring. However, caution intheir use is indicated because of several types of rater errors. Recent large-scale normative studies providea set of instruments that cover child, adolescent, and adult ages, with separate gender norms andlarge representative samples. By including DSM-IV symptoms for ADHD in a proposed nationwidestandardization of parent, teacher, and self-report scales, it is apparent that the proposed subtypes ofADHD are reasonable; however, item content in this standardization is somewhat broader than thatproposed by DSM-IV. Empirical indexes were created and cross-validated, providing powerful discriminationbetween ADHD and non-ADHD samples. Separate scoring for the traditional DSM subtypesof ADHD allows both categorical and dimensional measures to be used in assessment and treatmentmonitoring.