Abstract
Aim: The aim of the present study is to evaluate psychometric properties of the ChildrenÂ’s Automatic Thoughts Scale to children and adolescents. Method: A total of 534 children and adolescents aged 9-16 participated in the study. They attended elementary schools in Ankara. Of these participants 276 were girls and 258 were boys. The mean age of the group was 12.30 (SD=1.26).They were attending 4th to 8th grade of the elementary schools.Results: Exploratory and Confirmatory factor analyses confirmed the four factor model suggested by Schniering and Rapee (2002). The four factor model explained 50% of variance.The first factor was social threat and 31.72% of the total variance. Followed by personal failure, hostility and physical treat factors explaining 8.32%, 5.80% and 5.10% of the total variance. Social threat was found to be explaining the higher variance in the present study while personal failure was the first factor explaining higher variance in the original study. Test-rest reliabilities with two weeks interval demonstrated that the ChildrenÂ’s Automatic Thoughts Scale is a reliable instrument(r=.90). Cronbach Alpha was found to be and .94. These reliability and validity analyses supported that ChildrenÂ’s Automatic Thoughts Scalecould be used with Turkish children. Conclusion: ChildrenÂ’s Automatic Thoughts Scale, evaluates the presence and severity of negative cognition in children and adolescents, could be utilized in research and clinical practice. It could also be used in educational settings where the thought content of children and adolescents are important in areas such as friendship, academic success and bullying.