Colorado Adolescent Rearing Inventory
The Colorado Adolescent Rearing Inventory is available free of charge at: http://ibgwww.colorado.edu/cadd/a_drug/links/cari_home.html.
The inventory is composed of questions drawn from the literature and other questions appropriate to these youths. The questions were pilot tested and revised. In this study, the 20–45-minute fully structured interview was given by a trained nonclinician, who first stated, as indicated in the consent form, that abuse-neglect endorsements would be communicated to the appropriate authorities. The interviewer then read the 50 fully structured interview items (examples follow).
The Colorado Adolescent Rearing Inventory presents 15 questions on physical, emotional, and educational neglect (e.g., “Did the adults who were responsible for you always push you to go to school on time, to stay there, and to do your homework?”). Eight questions address caretakers’ “antisocial/cruel” behavior (or “emotional” abuse
[1]). These behaviors include both introduction to crime (e.g., “Did the adults who were responsible for you ever encourage you to break the law or help you break the law? For example, tell you to steal things, or give you drugs to sell [not just to use yourself, but to sell], or do other illegal things?”) and psychological abuse (e.g., “Did any of the adults who were responsible for you ever punish you by confining you in dark places like a closet?”). Thirteen questions concern physical abuse (e.g., “Were you ever purposely kicked?”). Finally, 14 questions address sexual abuse (e.g., “Has anyone rubbed their genitals against yours or had intercourse with you?”). Each section of the inventory requests estimated lifetime days of occurrence as a frequency measure, but analyses of those data are not included in this report.
“Yes” answers to some questions and “no” answers to others are “indicator responses” that suggest abuse-neglect. Each response suggesting abuse-neglect is followed by a structured probe. Probes address the subject’s relationship to the perpetrator, the subject’s age at onset, the duration or frequency of abuse-neglect, injuries received, treatments rendered, support by others, and the living situation at the time (with parents, in a foster home, etc). On the basis of responses to the probes, the Colorado Adolescent Rearing Inventory excludes as abuse-neglect indicators any “fights with other kids, gang fights, or girlfriend/boyfriend fights” but includes abuse by caretaker siblings at least 4 years older than the respondent. Sexual abuse probes exclude events unless any of the following conditions obtained: 1) the victim was younger than 12 years and the perpetrator was more than 2 years older, 2) the victim was age 12–13 years and the perpetrator was more than 3 years older, 3) the victim was age 14–16 years and the perpetrator was more than 4 years older, 4) “you felt uneasy with that, or didn’t want that done, or were forced into it,” or 5) the perpetrator was “responsible for taking care of you, like a teacher, babysitter, camp counselor, or relative.”
Responses to 18 “red-flag” questions reveal flagrant abuse (mostly physical and sexual) that nearly always requires reporting to a child welfare agency (e.g., “Did anyone ever intentionally burn you, for example, with cigarettes, or matches, or scalding water, or a stove top?”). However, for the 32 non-red-flag questions (e.g., “Did the people you lived with always try to keep your house clean and free of insects, rats, or mice?”), the clinician is required to evaluate the responses to the probes and make a clinical judgment about whether abuse-neglect occurred.
The bachelor’s-level interviewers in this study read the instrument’s Manual for Interviewers (available at the previously mentioned web site), watched training videos, and practiced the interview five times with an experienced interviewer. The trainees then did a certification interview in which a trained supervisor acted as a “subject.” Trainees began independent interviewing only if all 50 stem questions (and any probes) in the certification interview exactly matched the supervisor’s concurrently recorded data. Supervisors thereafter reviewed all records to ensure continued compliance with procedures.
Colorado Adolescent Rearing Inventory scores of 0–50 are the number of indicator responses representing the number of different types of abuse-neglect experienced. The scores disregard frequency of the events, clinicians’ judgments about them, or other probe information beyond certain exclusions (e.g., age of sex partner) mentioned earlier.
A 51st question invites subjects to select from a list of 10 possible ways of “how I was affected” by any reported abuse-neglect experiences. Respondents provide a first choice and may provide a second and third choice if desired. Choices (abbreviated here) include “one reason for my taking drugs or alcohol,” “more angry or violent,” “more depressed, nervous, or anxious,” or “didn’t affect me.”
The clinical program hosting the study used responses to the Colorado Adolescent Rearing Inventory to prompt immediate reporting of appropriate cases to child welfare agencies. Separately, for this study, two clinicians (E.A.W., T.J.C.) independently reviewed probes to judge whether they met the legal criteria for reporting suspected abuse-neglect. Those criteria, delineated in the Colorado Child Protection Act of 1987, include physical trauma, malnutrition, failure to thrive, sexual assault or molestation, or a need for services because caretakers failed to provide food, clothing, medical care, or supervision as “a prudent parent would.”