Children's Inventory of Anger (ChIA)

The Children’s Inventory of Anger (ChIA) provides a quick measure of anger provocation and intensity form the child’s perspective.

Children’s anger, and their ability to cope with it, are of increasing concern to professionals working in school and clinical settings. This self-report inventory identifies the kinds of situations that provoke anger in particular children—as well as the intensity of their anger response. Yet it contains only 39 items and requires just 10 minutes to complete.

Brief, quick, and inexpensive, the ChIA is one of the few instruments available that provides the child’s perspective on his or her own anger.

Results are expressed as age-stratified standard scores based on a nationally representative sample of more than 1,600 youngsters between 6 and 16.

Test items are written at a third-grade reading level. They can be read aloud to young children or those who are poor readers. Response options are keyed to drawings of four faces, with expressions ranging from happy to furious. The child simply marks the option that shows how angry he or she would be in the circumstances described. This response format seems to help children differentiate degrees of anger.

Efficient and cost-effective, the ChIA is ideal any time you need a quick assessment of children’s anger. It is highly useful in youth programs, in clinical interventions aimed at anger control, and in systematic efforts to assess children’s anger. Because it measures the subjective experience of anger, the ChIA is helpful in treatment planning and program evaluation.