What the ADIS-C Actually Looks Like in Practice
The Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule For Children is a semi-structured clinical interview designed to assess anxiety disorders in kids ages 3 to 17. It was developed by Dr. Silverman and Dr. Albano and is published by Psychological Corporation. The instrument covers Separation Anxiety Disorder, Specific Phobia, Panic Disorder, Social Anxiety Disorder, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. There is also a parent-only version that gets administered separately and then compared against the child report. I used this instrument for about six years in a school psychology setting. Here is what actually happens when you sit down to give it. You start with the parent interview, usually before the child arrives or while the child is occupied elsewhere. That section takes roughly 30 to 45 minutes. You then move into the child module, which runs another 45 to 60 minutes depending on how many protocols come back positive. After that you code everything and assign DSM-based diagnoses with a clinician severity rating on a 0 to 8 scale. A full administration usually eats up about two and a half hours split across one or two sessions.
Where to Get the Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule For Children
You cannot download this for free. It is a commercially licensed instrument and the right path depends on your credentials. If you are a licensed clinician, psychologist, or school psychologist working in a clinical or educational setting, you purchase it through Pearson Clinical. The kit includes the child interview book, the parent interview book, the parent supplemental sections, the child and parent DSM-based diagnostic summary forms, and the rating scale booklets. Expect to pay somewhere between $150 and $250 depending on whether you buy individual components or a bundled package. If you are a graduate student, check with your university library or program coordinator before buying your own copy because many programs already have institutional licenses. There are some older PDFs floating around educational forums but those are copyright violations and using them for actual assessment purposes creates liability issues. Stick to the official channels.
How the Interview Actually Unfolds
The structure is modular. Each anxiety disorder gets its own protocol with scripted questions, probes, and follow-up items. You do not have to read everything verbatim but you do need to cover the core diagnostic criteria for each disorder you are evaluating. The interview starts with a general anxiety screen, then moves through each disorder section. For each one you determine whether the child meets full criteria, partial criteria, or no criteria. The clinician severity rating (CSR) runs from 0 to 8 where 0 means no distress and 8 means the disorder is completely incapacitating. Here is a practical detail most manuals do not emphasize enough. The parent interview is not just supplementary filler. It often catches symptoms the child will minimize or not even recognize as problematic. A nine-year-old might not describe her stomachaches as anxiety until the parent interview reveals the pattern of school refusal tied to those physical complaints. I always code the parent report carefully and use it to resolve discrepancies rather than defaulting to the child's self-report alone. The child module includes age-appropriate language and visual aids for younger kids. There are emotion cards and a feeling thermometer you can use during the interview. These are not optional gimmicks. They actually improve data quality with kids who have limited emotional vocabulary. I found that skipping the feeling thermometer with a seven-year-old typically resulted in more vague answers like "I don't know" or "kinda." Using the visual scale pushed responses into more useful ranges.
Get the Full Details
A Real Problem I Ran Into and How I Handled It
The ADIS-C assumes the child can sit through a 45 to 60 minute interview. That assumption breaks down fast with kids who have co-occurring ADHD or attention regulation issues. I had a twelve-year-old boy whose attention span made the full OCD protocol nearly impossible to complete in one sitting. He would agree with answers mid-sentence and then completely forget what section we were in. Running the protocol straight through produced unreliable CSR ratings because he was guessing at the end rather than reflecting. My workaround was splitting the interview into two sessions with a short break in between. I started with the protocols where he showed the strongest symptom presentation, which built engagement before fatigue set in. I also used the structured behavior checklist from the parent interview to cross-reference responses during the second session rather than re-interviewing him. This added a day to the process but the reliability of the resulting diagnostic picture was noticeably better. If you are working in a setting where scheduling multiple visits is difficult, this is a compromise worth making rather than pushing through a low-quality single session.
Common Mistakes That Undermine Diagnostic Accuracy
The biggest error I see is treating the ADIS-C as a screening tool rather than a diagnostic instrument. It is not designed for quick triage. If you are using it to determine whether a child might benefit from a referral, you are wasting a highly structured diagnostic resource. Screen with something like the Spence Children's Anxiety Scale or the SCARED instead and reserve the ADIS-C for cases where you need formal diagnostic confidence. Another pitfall is misusing the parent-child comparison. The manual gives guidance on how to reconcile differing reports between parent and child, but many clinicians either pick one arbitrarily or average the two without justification. The correct approach is to investigate the discrepancy. If a parent rates separation anxiety at a 7 and the child rates it at a 2, you go back and probe both reports separately before assigning any CSR. The discrepancy itself is clinically informative.
Limitations You Need to Know About
The ADIS-C has real weaknesses. It is lengthy, expensive, and requires formal training to administer reliably. Inter-rater reliability is strong when both raters are properly trained, but that training is not trivial. The manual recommends supervised practice administrations before independent use. Without that, your CSR scores will drift and your diagnostic conclusions become questionable. It also does not cover all relevant conditions. There is no module for ADHD, autism spectrum disorder, or learning disabilities. If a child presents with overlapping symptoms, the ADIS-C will not capture the full clinical picture. You need complementary instruments for comprehensive assessment. The parent questionnaire section touches on some externalizing behaviors but barely. Another limitation is cultural validity. The norms and phrasing were developed primarily with Western, English-speaking populations. A child from a different cultural background may interpret questions about social anxiety or separation differently than the manual intends. I have seen this play out with immigrant families where expressions of distress are communicated through somatic complaints rather than emotional language. In those cases the interview can under-identify anxiety unless you adapt your probing strategy.
When to Consider an Alternative
If you are a school counselor working in a busy setting and need something faster, the Spence Children's Anxiety Scale Revised is a reasonable alternative for screening purposes. It takes about ten minutes and has solid psychometric properties. If you need a full diagnostic interview but the ADIS-C budget or training requirements are prohibitive, the K-SADS-PL (Kiddie Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia) covers a broader range of disorders and is widely used in research and clinical settings. The ADIS-C remains one of the most well-validated anxiety-specific diagnostic instruments available for children. It is just not a tool you should reach for casually. Use it when diagnostic precision matters and you have the time and training to do it properly.
