4 Tools for Diagnosing Anxiety in Kids and Teens

The first thing you need to do to start working with anxiety in the playroom is to get an accurate diagnosis. And while both you, and the kid in front of you, would muuuuch rather dive deep into the playroom, without an accurate diagnosis you run the risk of not being as effective as you can be as a play therapist.
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What does this mean?

• Therapy that doesn’t really seem to move the needle
• Parenting interventions that fall flat 
• Low compliance and buy in 
• Clients that drop off your caseload

Not awesome for you as a play therapist.  Not awesome for the clients and families that you see.

You need effective tools 

What you really need is a power packed toolbox that makes your intakes flow. 

Because honestly?  When you’re comfortable with the process, confident, and aren’t shuffling through 1,000 papers filling the air with “umms” and “ahhs” between your questions your clients feel more comfortable.  Have more hope that you will really be able to help them. 

I wanted to give you my top 4 tools for your diagnostic toolkit for working with anxiety: 

The Essential Play Therapy Diagnosis Guide

If you would rather watch paint dry then wade through 1050 pages of the DSM-5 TR to make sure you didn’t miss anything, same.  BUT when you grab this quick (and free) guide HERE you can narrow down the diagnoses that actually make sense to dive deeper into. The Play Therapy Differential Diagnosis Guide holds your hand to help you sort through the top 10 symptoms that come into your playroom with ease and hone in on accurate diagnoses.  

Anxiety Specific Diagnostic Interview Template 

Within the anxiety category, there are seven main diagnoses that apply to children. AND a lot of the symptoms overlap with subtle differences that differentiate one diagnosis from the other.  Grab my free guide HERE to get the exact questions you need to be asking! 

PROMIS Emotional Distress for Anxiety 

If you need more data to diagnose anxiety, you need the PROMIS Emotional Distress – Anxiety measure. It evaluates self-reported anxiety symptoms, including fear, worry, nervousness, and physical manifestations like a racing heart, over the past 7 days. It can be used for children ages 6–17 and is designed to assess the severity of anxiety symptoms, aiding in clinical decision-making and treatment planning.

Grab the parent measure for children 6-17 from the American Psychiatric Association  HERE!

Grab the child measure from 11-17 from the American Psychiatric Association HERE! 

SCARED Measure 

The SCARED questionnaire is a screening tool used to identify anxiety symptoms in children and adolescents. It includes both parent and child versions, assessing various anxiety disorders such as generalized anxiety disorder, separation anxiety disorder, and social anxiety disorder. This tool is valuable for clinicians to evaluate the presence and severity of anxiety symptoms in youth, guiding appropriate interventions.

You can grab the SCARED measure directly from OHSU’s official site HERE! 


Grab one or all of these tools to help you increase your confidence and accuracy at your next diagnostic assessment session! 

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