The clinical utility of the Cognitive Assessment System (CAS) in a child and adolescent psychiatric inpatient population

This study examined 926 child and adolescent cases from an inpatient psychiatric setting in order to assess the clinical utility of the Cognitive Assessment System (CAS). Scores from the four CAS PASS index scores were classified according to a cluster analysis and a rule based method. Both methods suggested that the data was characterized mainly be level effects as opposed to patterns of strengths and weaknesses. For the five weakness groups analyzed, which included four groups with individual PASS weaknesses and a combined Planning/Attention weakness group, significant relationships between WISC-III factor scores, CPT visual omission scores, and WCST variables were frequently found when compared to the control group with flat profiles based on the specific PASS deficit group. This suggests good convergent validity for the CAS as an intelligence measure in a psychiatric population. There were also associations with PASS weaknesses and deficits in academic areas on the WRAT-3, although many of the PASS weaknesses seemed to be related to overall deficits as opposed to specific academic weaknesses. For adolescent cases within the weakness groups, it was notable that the Planning/Attention group had higher scores on the MMPI-A Scale 4, Psychopathic Deviate and the depression content scale. In addition, it was surprising that having a Simultaneous weakness resulted in somewhat lower scores on Scale 8 and the depression content scale of the MMPI-A. This study also found that the CAS significantly predicted achievement as assessed by the WRAT-3, which offers support for the predictive validity of the CAS in a psychiatric population. In addition, Full PASS standard scores predicted Spelling and Arithmetic better than the WISC-III Full Scale IQ. Limitations and directions for future research were discussed, as well as the relevance of this research to the field of School-Clinical Child psychology