Self-Control Rating Scale (SCRS)

Abstract

The Self-Control Rating Scale (SCRS), developed by Philip C. Kendall and Lauren E. Wilcox in 1979, is an informant-report psychometric instrument designed to assess cognitive and behavioral manifestations of self-control and impulsivity in children. Comprising 33 items rated on a 7-point Likert-type continuum ranging from 1 (“never”) to 7 (“always”), the SCRS measures a child’s capacity for behavioral inhibition, sustained attention, delay of gratification, planfulness, and emotional regulation across ecological settings such as the classroom and home. Informants—predominantly teachers, school psychologists, and parents—rate observable behaviors that reflect either reflective deliberation or impulsive disinhibition. Total raw scores range from 33 to 231, wherein higher aggregate scores indicate greater levels of impulsivity and diminished self-regulatory competence. Across extensive psychometric investigations, the SCRS has demonstrated extraordinary internal consistency, with initial standardization studies reporting a Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of .98, and subsequent clinical replications documenting values consistently between .95 and .97. Test-retest reliability across a three- to four-week interval has yielded stability coefficients of r = .84, with seven-week intervals demonstrating robust stability (r = .71). The instrument possesses strong convergent and construct validity, evidenced by substantial correlations with laboratory behavioral indices of impulsivity (e.g., the Matching Familiar Figures Test and the Porteus Maze Test), direct classroom observational matrices, and established clinician-rated hyperactivity inventories. Although originally conceptualized as a unidimensional assessment of self-control along a bipolar continuum, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses frequently reveal latent subcomponents corresponding to attentional distractibility, motoric disinhibition, and interpersonal/rule-governed compliance. The SCRS remains a premier outcome measure and diagnostic screening tool in pediatric neuropsychology, child clinical psychology, and educational intervention research, particularly within cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) programs targeting executive dysfunction and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).

Keywords

Self-Control Rating Scale, SCRS, impulsivity, behavioral inhibition, executive function, cognitive-behavioral therapy, self-regulation, Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, pediatric assessment, teacher rating scale

Authors

The Self-Control Rating Scale was authored by Philip C. Kendall, Ph.D., ABPP, and Lauren E. Wilcox, Ph.D.

Philip C. Kendall is a Distinguished University Professor and Laura H. Carnell Professor of Psychology at Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. He directs the Child and Adolescent Anxiety Disorders Clinic (CAADC) and is widely recognized as a pioneering architect of evidence-based cognitive-behavioral therapy for youth. Dr. Kendall has authored dozens of seminal books, empirical psychometric scales, and clinical treatment manuals, having served as President of the Society of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology (APA Division 53) and the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies (ABCT).

Lauren E. Wilcox collaborated with Dr. Kendall at the University of Minnesota and Temple University during the foundational development and empirical validation of behavioral rating inventories for childhood cognitive and self-regulatory deficits.

Purpose

The primary clinical and empirical purpose of the Self-Control Rating Scale (SCRS) is to quantify the cognitive and behavioral dimensions of self-regulation versus impulsivity in children aged approximately 5 to 14 years. Prior to the development of the SCRS in the late 1970s, the assessment of childhood impulsivity relied disproportionately on laboratory performance tasks, most notably Jerome Kagan’s Matching Familiar Figures Test (MFFT) and various computer- or apparatus-driven continuous performance protocols. While these laboratory indices offered objective metrics of response latency and error rates, they frequently exhibited limited ecological validity, modest cross-situational generalizability, and fragile predictive associations with real-world functional impairment across classroom, playground, and domestic environments.

Kendall and Wilcox (1979) designed the SCRS to bridge the divide between micro-level laboratory paradigms and macro-level clinical observation. The instrument was intentionally engineered to serve three interrelated functional roles:

• Diagnostic Screening and Identification: The scale enables teachers, clinicians, and primary caregivers to systematically identify children who manifest severe self-regulatory deficits, clinical impulsivity, motoric restlessness, and executive dysfunction indicative of neurodevelopmental conditions such as ADHD or disruptive behavior disorders.
• Treatment Outcome Monitoring: The SCRS was explicitly calibrated to capture behavioral changes resulting from targeted psychological interventions, particularly cognitive-behavioral self-instructional training, verbal self-regulation regimens, contingency management protocols, and pharmacotherapy. Its granular 7-point response matrix provides optimal sensitivity to detect incremental clinical gains over the course of therapeutic regimens.
• Ecological Behavioral Profiling: By querying concrete, situational actions—such as a child’s capacity to deliberately calm down when excited, wait in line patiently, persist on challenging tasks, inhibit inappropriate peer interruptions, and plan toward long-range goals—the scale maps an informant’s observations onto clinically actionable cognitive targets.

In both educational and clinical practice, the SCRS operationalizes self-control not merely as the absence of disruptive conduct, but as the active deployment of cognitive strategies, verbal mediation, and behavioral inhibition. Consequently, it provides researchers and multidisciplinary clinicians with a reliable, ecologically valid standard for characterizing the self-regulatory architecture of school-aged children.

Psychological Construct

The Self-Control Rating Scale is grounded in the operationalization of childhood self-control and its inverse counterpart, impulsivity. Rather than viewing self-control as an abstract moral trait or a purely motivational construct, the SCRS conceptualizes it as a multifaceted, cognitive-behavioral competency involving the orchestration of several distinct executive processes:

1. Behavioral Inhibition and Motor Suppression

At its core, self-control requires the deliberate capacity to suppress prepotent motor impulses and resist dominant action tendencies. Within the SCRS, this dimension is reflected in items assessing whether a child can remain seated when expected (Item 12: “Does the child sit still?”), avoid bursting into uninvited spaces (Item 2: “Does the child butt into games or activities even when he or she hasn’t been invited?”), or inhibit inappropriate physical actions (Item 20: “Does the child grab for the belongings of others?”). Children with deficits in motor suppression exhibit excessive physical restlessness and an inability to modulate physical output in accordance with situational constraints.

2. Cognitive Deliberation versus Cognitive Impulsivity

This component captures the cognitive tempo and reflective processing style a child adopts before formulating responses or executing decisions. In contrast to an impulsive child who blurts out spontaneous answers without calculating consequences, a reflective child engages in internal problem analysis. The SCRS operationalizes this process through markers such as Item 31 (“Does the child think before he or she acts?”), Item 24 (“In answering questions, does the child give one thoughtful answer, or blurt out several answers all at once?”), and Item 6 (“When the child asks a question, does he or she wait for an answer, or jump to something else before waiting for an answer?”).

3. Delay of Gratification and Future-Oriented Goal Striving

Drawing directly from Walter Mischel‘s classic paradigm of delay of gratification, the SCRS measures a child’s willingness to forego immediate, smaller reinforcers in pursuit of larger, delayed outcomes. Item 19 directly translates Mischel’s paradigm into an applied behavioral prompt: “Would the child more likely grab a smaller toy today or wait for a larger toy tomorrow, if given the choice?” Similarly, Item 5 assesses whether the child systematically works toward long-range goals, reflecting temporal horizon extension and resistance to immediate reward discounting.

4. Sustained Attention and Task Persistence

Self-regulatory capacity is inextricably bound to attentional persistence in the face of monotony, frustration, or cognitive strain. Impulsive children exhibit elevated distractibility, task abandon, and task switching. On the SCRS, this is evaluated through Item 8 (“Does the child stick to what he or she is doing until he or she is finished with it?”), Item 25 (“Is the child easily distracted from his or her work or chores?”), and Item 29 (“If a task is at first too difficult for the child, will he or she get frustrated and quit, or first seek help with the problem?”).

5. Emotional and Arousal Modulation

Self-control requires conscious downregulation of physiological and emotional arousal when individuals encounter provocative, overstimulating, or corrective experiences. Item 3 captures deliberate emotional downregulation: “Can the child deliberately calm down when he or she is excited or all wound up?” Item 15 measures self-restraint following authoritative discipline: “When reprimanded, does the child answer back inappropriately?”

6. Interpersonal Rule-Governed Conduct

Finally, the construct encompasses prosocial compliance and adherence to collective structures. The scale assesses rule-abidance, turn-taking, and peer cooperation through Item 7 (“Does the child interrupt inappropriately in conversations with peers, or wait his or her turn to speak?”), Item 11 (“When the child has to wait in line, does he or she do so patiently?”), and Item 22 (“Does the child break basic rules?”).

Theoretical Framework

The conceptual architecture of the Self-Control Rating Scale is derived from the convergence of two major psychological traditions: Soviet developmental neuropsychology and Western cognitive-behavioral psychology.

The Luria-Vygotsky Neurodevelopmental Formulation

The foundational bedrock of Kendall and Wilcox’s paradigm rests upon the developmental formulations of Alexander Luria (1961) and Lev Vygotsky (1962) regarding the regulatory role of speech. Luria postulated that the internalization of voluntary motor behavior advances through three distinct developmental stages:

1. In the initial stage, the child’s behavior is directed and regulated by the overt verbal instructions of adults (external social control).
2. In the intermediate stage, the child regulates their own overt motor execution by speaking aloud to themselves (overt private speech).
3. In the mature stage, overt private speech becomes covert, internalized self-talk (inner speech), which functions as an executive planning and inhibitory mechanism.

Impulsive children are theoretical casualties of an arrest or delay in this internalization trajectory: their internal verbal mediation fails to decelerate motor execution, resulting in uninhibited, non-reflective action. The SCRS was engineered to reflect the presence or absence of this internalized verbal regulation during everyday scholastic and social challenges.

Meichenbaum’s Cognitive-Behavior Modification (CBM)

Building directly upon Luria’s insights, Donald Meichenbaum and Joseph Goodman (1971) pioneered Self-Instructional Training (SIT) to teach impulsive children to employ explicit internal self-statements (“Stop, look, listen, think before acting”). Kendall adopted this cognitive-behavioral intervention framework, recognizing that if therapy trains youth to use reflective cognitive strategies, psychometric assessment must capture the real-world behavioral consequences of that internal dialogue. The SCRS acts as the behavioral mirror of internal self-instructional competency.

Barkley’s Model of Behavioral Inhibition

In contemporary neuropsychology, the theoretical underpinnings of the SCRS closely align with Russell Barkley‘s unified model of ADHD and executive function (Barkley, 1997). Barkley conceptualizes behavioral inhibition as the prerequisite master-system that permits four secondary executive functions to operate effectively: working memory, internalized speech, emotional self-regulation, and reconstitution (analysis and synthesis of behavior). When behavioral inhibition fails, downstream executive functions fracture. The items of the SCRS comprehensively assess the behavioral manifestations across all four of Barkley’s executive domains.

Validity

Extensive empirical investigations across clinical, school, and research samples confirm that the Self-Control Rating Scale exhibits exemplary construct, convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity.

Convergent and Criterion Validity

In their initial validation study, Kendall and Wilcox (1979) administered the SCRS across multiple elementary school cohorts and correlated teacher ratings with established performance-based indicators of childhood impulsivity and attention:

• Matching Familiar Figures Test (MFFT): The SCRS demonstrated significant, substantial correlations with MFFT error scores (ranging from r = .38 to .54, p < .001) and MFFT response latencies (ranging from r = -.32 to -.47, p < .01). Higher SCRS scores (greater impulsivity) reliably predicted faster, more error-prone performance on Kagan’s perceptual matching paradigm.
• Porteus Maze Test: Kendall et al. (1981) demonstrated that SCRS scores correlated robustly with Qualitative (Q) error scores on the Porteus Mazes (r = .45 to .56), confirming that children rated as possessing low self-control make significantly more rule breaks, cutting corners, and pencil lifts on complex planning tasks.
• Direct Classroom Observations: When validated against independent time-sampling behavioral observation matrices in classroom environments, the SCRS correlated significantly with off-task behavior (r = .58), out-of-seat behaviors (r = .62), and disruptive vocalizations (r = .51).
• Conners Teacher Rating Scale: SCRS scores correlate strongly with the Hyperactivity and Conduct Problem subscales of the Conners Teacher Rating Scale (coefficients routinely exceeding r = .70), demonstrating excellent convergent alignment with classic indices of externalizing childhood psychopathology.

Discriminant Validity

The SCRS displays strong discriminant validity when evaluated against intellectual quotient (IQ) and academic achievement measures. Kendall and Wilcox (1979) established that while the SCRS is moderately associated with scholastic achievement due to the disruptive interference of impulsivity on academic work, it maintains a distinct variance profile independent of general cognitive ability (correlations with standard Wechsler Verbal and Performance IQ scores remain modest, typically r = -.15 to -.28). Furthermore, the scale cleanly discriminates between children clinically diagnosed with ADHD/Conduct Disorder and neurotypical classroom controls, yielding massive effect-size separations exceeding Cohen’s d = 1.20.

Predictive and Treatment Outcome Validity

The SCRS is highly sensitive to the effects of clinical and behavioral interventions. In multiple randomized controlled trials of cognitive-behavioral self-instructional training, children receiving active cognitive mediation therapy exhibited statistically significant reductions in SCRS scores compared to attention-placebo and non-treated controls (Kendall & Braswell, 1982). Furthermore, longitudinal tracking confirms that baseline SCRS scores significantly predict future disciplinary infractions, peer sociometric rejection, and elementary-to-middle school academic adjustment difficulties.

Reliability

The psychometric reliability of the Self-Control Rating Scale is among the highest recorded for informant-based behavioral assessment instruments in pediatric psychology.

Internal Consistency

In the original standardization sample of elementary school children, Kendall and Wilcox (1979) documented an unprecedented Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of .98, indicating near-perfect internal homogeneity among the 33 items. Re-evaluations across diverse socio-demographic and clinical cohorts have systematically replicated these exceptional metrics:

• Kendall, Zupan, and Braswell (1981) reported an overall internal consistency of α = .97 across expanded school populations.
• Clinical samples consisting of children diagnosed with disruptive behavior disorders, attention deficits, and learning disabilities have consistently yielded Cronbach’s alphas ranging from .95 to .98.
• Split-half reliability coefficients calculated using the Spearman-Brown prophecy formula routinely exceed r_sb = .96.

Test-Retest Stability

Temporal stability evaluations confirm that the SCRS measures enduring behavioral traits while maintaining adequate sensitivity to developmental and therapeutic change:

• 3- to 4-Week Interval: In the original validation cohort, Kendall and Wilcox (1979) observed a test-retest reliability coefficient of r = .84 (n = 24, p < .001) over a three- to four-week period among non-intervention classroom samples.
• 7-Week Interval: Kendall, Zupan, and Braswell (1981) evaluated temporal stability over an extended seven-week interval, obtaining a stability coefficient of r = .71 (p < .001).

Inter-Rater Reliability

When evaluated across independent informants, inter-rater reliability coefficients vary predictably based on contextual ecology. Teacher-aide and dual-teacher concordance across the same classroom context ranges from r = .72 to .81. Cross-situational concordance (teacher versus parent ratings) falls within expected moderate bounds (r = .40 to .55), reflecting situational variance in behavioral manifestation across structured school and unstructured home environments.

Factor Analysis

The latent dimensionality of the SCRS has been the subject of extensive empirical inquiry, reflecting a classic debate between unidimensional parsimony and multidimensional clinical utility.

Initial Unidimensional Model

In the original psychometric derivation by Kendall and Wilcox (1979), Principal Components Analysis (PCA) without rotation indicated the presence of a single, dominant general factor accounting for approximately 55% to 62% of the total item variance. Every single item exhibited high factor loadings on this unrotated first principal component, with loadings ranging from .49 to .87 (median loading > .70). Items with the highest primary loadings included:

• Item 31 (“Does the child think before he or she acts?”): Loading ≈ .85
• Item 8 (“Does the child stick to what he or she is doing until he or she is finished with it?”): Loading ≈ .82
• Item 25 (“Is the child easily distracted from his or her work or chores?”): Loading ≈ .81
• Item 28 (“Does the child jump or switch from activity to activity rather than sticking to one thing at a time?”): Loading ≈ .84

Based on these findings, Kendall and Wilcox recommended utilizing a single aggregate summary score representing an overarching bipolar continuum from high self-control to high impulsivity.

Multidimensional Structural Models

Subsequent exploratory factor analyses (EFA) utilizing varimax and promax rotations, alongside contemporary Confirmatory Factor Analyses (CFA), have suggested that while the general factor is overwhelming, meaningful sub-dimensions exist beneath the global construct. Studies examining clinical and educational cohorts (e.g., Lennings, 1991) have frequently identified a robust three-factor solution:

• Factor 1: Cognitive/Attentional Impulsivity (Sustained Focus): Accounting for ~38% of the variance, this factor comprises items addressing distractibility, task completion, jumping between activities, and cognitive forethought (Items 4, 6, 8, 24, 25, 26, 28, 31, 32, 33).
• Factor 2: Motoric Disinhibition and Restlessness: Accounting for ~12% of the variance, this dimension groups motoric overactivity and physical impulsivity (Items 2, 11, 12, 16, 18, 20, 23).
• Factor 3: Interpersonal and Social Compliance: Accounting for ~8% of the variance, this factor captures oppositional conduct, rule-breaking, interrupting, and peer cooperation (Items 1, 7, 9, 13, 14, 15, 21, 22, 27, 30).

Modern psychometric consensus supports a bifactor model, wherein an overarching general self-control factor explains the vast majority of common variance (confirming the validity of computing a single total score), while nested sub-factors account for specific stylistic variations that inform differential diagnosis and customized behavioral interventions.

Instrument / Measurement Tool

The Self-Control Rating Scale is a standardized behavioral questionnaire completed by adult observers who possess intimate familiarity with the target child’s typical conduct across naturalistic settings.

• Instrument Type: Informant-report behavioral rating inventory (completed by teachers, teacher aides, parents, or residential youth counselors).
• Target Population: Children and adolescents, primarily aged 5 to 14 years (kindergarten through eighth grade).
• Item Count: 33 discrete behavioral items.
• Response Scale: 7-point Likert scale anchored at the extremes by 1 = Never and 7 = Always. The response continuum captures the relative frequency or characteristic expression of the observed behavior.
• Administration Time: Approximately 10 to 15 minutes.
• Scoring Architecture:
  • Ten items are phrased positively toward self-control (e.g., Item 1, Item 3, Item 5, Item 8, Item 9, Item 11, Item 12, Item 23, Item 27, Item 31), whereas twenty-three items are phrased toward impulsivity/disinhibition.
  • In the standard scoring methodology established by Kendall and Wilcox (1979), positively keyed self-control items are reverse-scored (i.e., 1 becomes 7, 2 becomes 6, 3 becomes 5, 4 remains 4, 5 becomes 3, 6 becomes 2, and 7 becomes 1) so that the entire scale is indexed in the direction of impulsivity/lack of self-control.
  • After reverse-scoring the appropriate items, all 33 ratings are summed.
  • Total Score Range: 33 to 231.
  • Interpretation: Lower aggregate scores (closer to 33) indicate exceptional self-control, reflective deliberation, and executive behavioral regulation. Higher aggregate scores (closer to 231) indicate severe impulsivity, attentional fragmentation, motor restlessness, and executive dysfunction. In normative school cohorts, raw scores exceeding approximately 140–150 typically fall two standard deviations above the mean, warranting comprehensive clinical evaluation for ADHD or externalizing disorders.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Self-Control Rating Scale was officially published in 1979 in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology by the American Psychological Association (APA). Under standard academic publishing conventions, the foundational scale items, scoring rules, and psychometric metrics were released directly in the empirical literature to foster clinical and intervention research.

The SCRS is widely treated as an open-access psychometric instrument for non-commercial educational, clinical, and scholarly research purposes, provided that formal academic attribution is extended to Philip C. Kendall and Lauren E. Wilcox. No per-use administration fee is levied for independent research investigations. Clinical entities, commercial testing platforms, or publishers seeking to reproduce the full assessment within commercial assessment batteries or proprietary diagnostic software must obtain formal copyright clearance and licensing permissions from the American Psychological Association.

References

• Barkley, R. A. (1997). Behavioral inhibition, sustained attention, and executive functions: Constructing a unifying theory of ADHD. Psychological Bulletin, 121(1), 65–94. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.121.1.65
• Kendall, P. C., & Braswell, L. (1982). Cognitive-behavioral self-control therapy for children: A components analysis. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 50(5), 672–689. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-006X.50.5.672
• Kendall, P. C., & Hays, R. C. (1988). Self-control rating scale. In M. Hersen & A. S. Bellack (Eds.), Dictionary of Behavioral Assessment Techniques (pp. 395–396). Pergamon Press.
• Kendall, P. C., & Wilcox, L. E. (1979). Self-control in children: Development of a rating scale. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 47(6), 1020–1029. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-006X.47.6.1020
• Kendall, P. C., Zupan, B. A., & Braswell, L. (1981). Self-control in children: Further analyses of the Self-Control Rating Scale. Behavior Therapy, 12(5), 667–681. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0005-7894(81)80138-0
• Lennings, C. J. (1991). A modification of the Kendall-Wilcox Self-Control Scale for delinquents. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 35(1), 83–91. https://doi.org/10.1177/0306624X9103500110
• Luria, A. R. (1961). The Role of Speech in the Regulation of Normal and Abnormal Behavior. Pergamon Press.
• Meichenbaum, D. H., & Goodman, J. (1971). Training impulsive children to talk to themselves: A means of developing self-control. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 77(2), 115–126. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0030773
• Mischel, W., Ebbesen, E. B., & Raskoff Zeiss, A. (1972). Cognitive and attentional mechanisms in delay of gratification. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 21(2), 204–218. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0032198
• Vygotsky, L. S. (1962). Thought and Language. MIT Press. https://doi.org/10.1037/11193-000

Items of the Scale