Swanson, Nolan, and Pelham Teacher and Parent Rating Scale (SNAP-IV), Long Form

A parent or teacher rates a child on ninety behaviors. The core items describe inattention (failing to pay close attention to details, not seeming to listen, losing things), hyperactivity and impulsivity (fidgeting, leaving one's seat, blurting out answers) and oppositional behavior (losing one's temper, arguing with adults, deliberately annoying others). The long form adds items about other problems that often accompany attention difficulties, including conduct problems, anxiety, mood, tics and difficulties in the classroom. Each is rated from not at all to very much.

Swanson, Nolan and Pelham developed the SNAP rating scale, named for its authors, to give parents and teachers a common checklist based on the diagnostic criteria for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and oppositional defiant disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).

Ratings are averaged within each group of items. Higher averages describe behaviors that are more frequent and more pronounced as seen by the rater; lower averages describe few such concerns. The report compares groups so that, for example, primarily inattentive difficulties can be distinguished from oppositional ones. Ratings from different adults often differ, and the scale supports clinical assessment rather than replacing it.

The scale is used in pediatric and school assessment and in treatment research to monitor change. On this site, the SNAP-IV core form contains only the twenty-six core items, the Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale (ASRS v1.1) is completed by adults about themselves, and the Wender Utah Rating Scale (WURS-25) asks adults to recall their childhood.

The long form of the Swanson, Nolan and Pelham rating scale, version four, adds items on related problems such as aggression and other disruptive behavior to the core symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and oppositional behavior (Swanson, 1992). Its core attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder ratings converge with clinical diagnoses in schools (Bussing et al., 2008).

Inattention, hyperactivity-impulsivity and oppositional behavior form distinct factors, and ratings from parents and teachers agree only moderately (Bussing et al., 2008).

“Often fails to give close attention to details or makes careless mistakes in schoolwork or tasks”

Illustrative only. During administration items are presented one screen-set at a time; response-key direction is never shown to respondents.

Item responses are summed within each scale (reverse-keyed items recoded first) and expressed as a percent of the maximum possible score. No normative percentile is applied — there is no verbatim-matched published norm for this exact item set.