Personality Inventory for Youth

The PIY is a valid and reliable self-report measure (appropriate for individuals ages 9-19 years) that assesses emotional and behavioral adjustment, family interaction, and neuro-cognitive and attention-related academic functioning. Excellent response validity checks make the PIY useful in ruling out psychiatric problems.The PIY is composed of 270 items covering nine nonoverlapping clinical scales and 24 nonoverlapping subscales. The 24 subscales reveal specific clinical content, making the PIY an excellent diagnostic tool. In addition, four validity scales help determine whether the respondent is uncooperative or is exaggerating, malingering, responding defensively, carelessly, or without adequate comprehension. Critical Items are sorted into eight problem categories.Written at a 3rd-grade reading level, the PIY can be completed in 45 minutes. The first 80 items of the test can be used as a brief classroom screener to quickly identify students who would most likely show problems if the full inventory were administered. An audiotape is included for poor readers.Standardized on a nationally representative sample of more than 2,300 students in Grades 4-12 and developed using a clinical sample of more than 1,100 students, the PIY provides a reliable and valid measure of child and adolescent psychopathology based on the respondent's own perceptions.

David Lachar, PhD, and Christian P. Gruber, PhD