The Conners Rating Scale for ADHD is a questionnaire that asks individuals to rate their ADHD symptoms in various settings, including home, work, school, and social life. The questionnaire also measures the severity of ADHD symptoms an individual is experiencing in addition to assessing which settings and domains of life are most affected by symptoms. Answers to the questionnaire are imperative to diagnosing as it helps healthcare professionals understand the extent to which ADHD may impact an individual’s life and general psychological well-being.
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What Is the Conners Rating Scale?
The Conners Rating Scale is a questionnaire with different versions to assess ADHD symptoms in children, ADHD in adolescents, and ADHD in adults. For younger children, there are also parent and teacher rating scales to obtain information from various sources, strengthening the quality of information about an individual’s experience of ADHD symptoms. The benefit of using the Conners Rating Scale is to provide comprehensive information about the severity and nature of ADHD symptoms a child, adolescent, or adult is experiencing.
Questions the Conners Rating Scale asks:
- How often do you struggle with temper outbursts?
- How often do you fail to pay close attention to details?
- How often do you feel restless?
- How often do you fail to follow through on instructions?
- How often do you forget to listen when spoken to directly?
- How often do you struggle to stay seated?
What Does the Conners Rating Scale Measure?
The Conners Rating Scale measures ADHD symptoms such as attention deficits and hyperactivity or impulsivity symptoms. It also asks questions about an individual’s sleep difficulties, social struggles, and emotional experiences. The Conners test focuses primarily on ADHD symptoms and should not be used to diagnose other mental health disorders. However, it may help healthcare providers get some information about other symptoms a client might be experiencing related to anxiety or depression, for example.
The Conners scale measures the following symptoms:
- Hyperactivity
- Inattentiveness
- Social difficulties
- Sleep difficulties
- Impulsiveness
- Emotional difficulties
The Conners Rating Scale Process
If an individual or parent of an individual suspects that they might have ADHD, they will want to seek out a healthcare professional who specializes in ADHD testing to receive a diagnosis. Often providers will use a behavioral questionnaire like the Conners assessment to determine if an individual meets diagnostic criteria to obtain a diagnosis. When diagnosing children with ADHD, obtaining corroborative information from teachers and parents through the Conners Rating Scale’s teacher and parent rating scales is also useful.
Efforts are being made to make the Conners Rating Scale more accessible so that individuals can take the test remotely from home rather than going to a healthcare professional’s office to complete it. Most healthcare providers will have access to scoring the Conners Rating Scale on the computer so that results might be generated immediately after completion. Generally, providers will use multiple sources of information when diagnosing ADHD, such as a semi-structured interview or other general cognitive tests. They may need time to incorporate the Conners Rating Scale test results into a comprehensive report.
Conners ADHD Assessment: Long Vs. Short Form
There are short and long versions of the Conners Rating Scale. The longer version of the Conners Rating Scale may take up to 90 minutes to complete. The advantage of the short form is that it takes much less time to complete (likely less than 30 minutes), but the long version will give more comprehensive information that could help make a more accurate diagnosis of an individual.
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What Do The Conners Rating Scale Results Mean?
The Conners Rating Scale assists healthcare providers in diagnosing an individual with ADHD. There are three primary types, or presentations, of ADHD, currently recognized in the DSM-IV-TR:
- Predominantly inattentive type
- Predominantly hyperactive type
- ADHD combined presentation that includes both inattentive and hyperactive symptoms.
The Conners Rating Scale is designed to assess symptoms within each of the ADHD types. For diagnosis, an adult must meet at least five diagnostic criteria or symptoms in one category, and children under twelve must meet at least six diagnostic criteria in one or more categories to be diagnosed. Adults must also indicate the presence of these symptoms since childhood or before age 12.1
After completing the Conners Rating Scale, it is much more likely that a trained healthcare professional can determine if an individual has ADHD. However, it is highly recommended that any diagnosing healthcare professional use multiple sources of data or information to make a more definitive diagnosis and rule out other mental health disorders as the possible cause of symptoms.2
The scores generated by interpreting the Conners Rating Scale results are standardized, allowing healthcare providers to compare an individual’s score to those of others in the general population within that person’s age group.
Here is a list of T scores and their interpretive meanings:
- 70 – Clinically significant, two standard deviations above the mean or average score in the population. A T-score above 70 generally indicates a clinically elevated score, meaning that person’s level of symptom severity is clinically significant compared to the general population
- 50-70 – Mildly to moderately elevated score, one standard deviation above the mean or average score in the population. A T-score of 60-70 indicates a moderate elevation level and should be interpreted more cautiously, as it is closer to the average.
- 50 – Average score in the population does not indicate clinical significance.
Conners Rating Scale Limitations
The primary limitation of the Conners Rating Scale is that it is only one assessment, and best research practice currently recommends multiple measures and assessment methods be used to diagnose ADHD in children, adolescents, and adults confidently.2 Research conducted assessing the psychometric properties of the Conners Rating Scale has found the test reliable and valid and that it measures what it claims to measure in terms of ADHD symptom severity and the presence of ADHD symptoms.
Other tests recommended in addition to the Conners Rating Scale include:2
- Cognitive tests of general intelligence
- Specific executive function tests
- Response time and sustained attention tests
- Corroborative data from an intake or semi-structured interview
Cognitive and executive function tests in an ADHD testing battery might include:
- Wechsler Adult Intelligence test, fourth edition – WAIS-IV
- Reynolds Adaptive Intelligence Test – RAIT
- Reynolds Intellectual Assessment Scales – RIAS
- Delis-Kaplan Executive Function System Tests
Response time and sustained attention analyses in an ADHD testing battery might include:
- The Test of Variables of Attention – TOVA
- The Evaluate Visual and Auditory Attention Test – IVA-2
- The MOXO d-CPT test of attention
How to Find Professional Support for a Child With ADHD
Finding a neurodiverse affirming therapist or professional to conduct ADHD testing and to administer the Conners Rating Scale generally involves an internet-based search or online therapist directory to find a provider in your area who also accepts your health insurance if the cost of testing is a barrier to treatment. Primary care providers often recommend ADHD testing to individuals seeking diagnosis and treatment. They likely have an agency or list of providers they usually work with they might recommend to patients.
It may also be beneficial for individuals to use the website of their insurance carrier or call the 1-800 number on the back of their insurance card to obtain information on seeking testing that your insurance company will partially cover.
Be cautious of using web-based testing that claims to diagnose ADHD. Often, these tests are not empirically valid or reliable and will not be taken seriously by prescribing providers or behavioral therapists specializing in treating ADHD. It is best to go through a trained healthcare professional with a comprehensive and rigorous testing battery to ensure the accuracy and reliability of diagnosis.
In My Experience
As a mental health professional specializing in ADHD assessment, I firmly believe that a comprehensive approach to evaluation is the most valuable and accurate process for ascertaining a diagnosis of ADHD. No one test can definitively diagnose ADHD.2 I take what clients tell me about their symptoms and integrate that information with results of intelligence, executive function, and sustained attention/response time tests to make the most accurate diagnosis.
The vast majority of individuals I see for testing are genuinely struggling and hope to use testing to relieve psychological and emotional distress resulting from untreated ADHD symptoms. I like to believe that through testing and ultimately through assigning diagnoses and providing treatment recommendations, I can assist individuals in gaining the tools they need to lead a more peaceful and stress-free existence.
I have also overheard beliefs about the rise in the incidence of ADHD diagnosis in recent years, along with other neurological disorders, such as autism spectrum disorder. This is unsurprising considering our ever-shifting understanding and cultural scripts around mental health diagnoses. I try to remember this during the evaluation process, listen to what individuals tell me about their struggles in the intake interview, and assess the results of behavioral rating scales like the Conners Rating Scale. Ultimately, I see my role as being a resource to help people get the treatment they need rather than an additional obstacle or barrier.
Additional Resources
To help our readers take the next step in their mental health journey, Choosing Therapy has partnered with leaders in mental health and wellness. Choosing Therapy is compensated for marketing by the companies included below.
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