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The childhood autism rating scale (CARS) is a 15 item measure intended to assist in distinguishing children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) from children with other types of delays. It is an observational scale in which each item is rated from 1 (within normal limits) to 4 (severely abnormal) and ratings include consideration of “peculiarity, frequency, and duration” of the behavior rated (Schopler, Reichler, & Renner, 1988). It yields a total score ranging from 15 to 60. Scores of 30–36.5 suggest mild to moderate Autism and 37–60 suggest severe Autism. However, when used with adolescents and adults, the cut-off has been decreased to 28 (Schopler et al., 1988).
The CARS was initially developed using a sample of 1,606 children, approximately three quarters of whom were male. Sixty seven percent of the sample was white, 30% African American, and 3% was of other racial descent. Within the male and female samples, the age distribution was similar with 56% age...
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References and Readings
Magyar, C. I., & Pandolfi, V. (2007). Factor structure evaluation of the Childhood Autism Rating Scale. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 37, 1787–1794.
Perry, A., Condillac, R. A., Freeman, N. L., Dunn-Geier, J., & Belair, J. (2005). Multi-site Study of the Childhood Autism Rating Scale (CARS) in Five Clinical Groups of Young Children. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 35, 625–634.
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Schopler, E., Reichler, R. J., & Renner B. (1988). The Childhood Autism Rating Scale (CARS). Los Angeles, CA: Western Psychological Services.
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Grissom, M. (2011). Childhood Autism Rating Scales. In: Kreutzer, J.S., DeLuca, J., Caplan, B. (eds) Encyclopedia of Clinical Neuropsychology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-79948-3_1530
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-79948-3_1530
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