Overview
The CAM is a measure of alexithymia completed by a parent or caregiver for use with children and adolescents and designed to be used by clinicians as a screening instrument to help guide treatment. Alexithymia is a condition characterized by a low degree of emotional self-awareness, including difficulty identifying and describing one’s own feelings, difficulty recognising emotional experiences from internal bodily signals, and a thinking style that focuses more on the external reality and less on emotion (Bagby et al., 2020; Nemiah et al., 1976; Taylor et al., 1991).Scoring & Interpretation
The CAM is a 14-Item unidimensional measure of alexithymia. Parents/caregivers are presented with 14 statements and asked 'During the past three months, how often have you observed each of the following behaviors in ______________________ (enter child’s first name). To assist you, it may be helpful to think of typical children of a similar age.' Parents are also informed that 'in this questionnaire, the words feelings and emotions have the same meaning. Responses to the 14 Items are recorded using a four-point scale (0=almost never, 1= sometimes, 2= often, 3= almost always). Individual scores are added to create a total score. Higher scores indicate a greater degree of alexithymic traits.Psychometric Properties
Internal Consistency
The CAM showed strong internal consistency reliability, with coefficient alpha = .92
Test-Retest Reliability
Factor Structure
Factor analysis and item response theory analyses were conducted, resulting in a 14-item unidimensional measure.
Validity
Convergent validity: Correlation analyses were conducted for the total CAM score and the ASC (combined score of the first seven items) measuring difficulty expressing feelings (ASC = observer-rated instrument used to measure alexithymia in children, as rated by a caregiver, Fukunishi et al., 1998). The correlation was .73 (n = 131).
Measurement Invariance
Insufficient sample size to be able to test for measurement invariance.