Assesses personality and maturity level.

An adaptation of the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) for children ages 3-10, the Children's Apperception Test (CAT), individually administered by a trained psychologist, assesses personality and maturity level and is often used for clinical evaluation of psychological health. It is designed to reveal conflicts, emotions, attitudes, Stressors, and aggressive tendencies and to assess factors such as control of drives, judgment, and degree of autonomy. The child is shown 10 pictures of animals in various human social contexts and asked to tell a story about each picture and describe how the characters are feeling. There is no numerical score or scale for the test. Results are provided in the form of an examiner's summary of the attitudes, traits, and conflicts illustrated by each of the child's stories.

For Further Study

Books

Knoff, Howard M. The Assessment of Child and Adolescent Personality. New York: Guilford Press, 1986.

O'Neill, Audrey Myerson. Clinical Inference; How to Draw Meaningful Conclusions from Psychological Tests. Brandon, VT: Clinical Psychology Publishing Co., 1993.

Shore, Milton F., Patrick J. Brice, and Barbara G. Love. When Your Child Needs Testing: What Parents, Teachers, and Other Helpers Need to Know about Psychological Testing. New York: Crossroad, 1992.

Wodrich, David L., and Sally A. Kush. Children's Psychological Testing: A Guide for Nonpsychologists. 2nd ed. Baltimore, MD: Brookes Publishing Co., 1990.