CEDI
Children's Everyday Difficulties Inventory
This exploratory questionnaire gathers a parent's view of their child's everyday difficulties: fears and worries, sadness and withdrawal, anger and defiance, attention and restlessness, relationships with other children, school, sleep, eating, and screens. It steers the first interview toward what predominates, whether anxiety, defiance, attention problems, bullying, or school refusal.
- Number of questions
- 28 questions
- Estimated duration
- 7 minutes
- Language
- English
- Original name
- Children's Everyday Difficulties Inventory
- Target audience
- Children 6 to 11 (completed by a parent)
- Exploratory questionnaire
- Exploratory questionnaire
Preview of the 28 questions
Scoring & interpretation
Scoring
| Peer relationships | 7 / 16 |
Being left out, teased, or treated violently by other children, loneliness, and conflict during play.
Areas to explore: friendships, what happens at recess, in the cafeteria, and on the way to and from school, any bullying and what the school knows about it.
See also: OBVQ-R.
| Sleep, eating, and screens | 7 / 16 |
Difficulty falling asleep, waking at night, difficult mealtimes, and tension around screens.
Areas to explore: bedtimes and the bedtime routine, screens in the evening, food variety and growth, time spent on screens and what it replaces.
See also: CSHQ, SDSC.
| Anger and defiance | 6 / 16 |
Tantrums, arguments over everyday requests, hurtful words, and challenging rules.
Areas to explore: what triggers the outbursts, how they unfold and end, the parenting strategies already tried, consistency between the adults.
See also: ARI-P, CBCL.
| Sadness and withdrawal | 5 / 16 |
Crying, putting oneself down, loss of interest in play, and withdrawal from shared moments.
Areas to explore: when the mood changed, recent events (separation, bereavement, a move, school difficulties), what the child says about it.
See also: RCADS-P-25, CDI-2.
| School | 5 / 16 |
Learning difficulties, refusing to go to school, physical complaints before school, and conflict over homework.
Areas to explore: grades and comments from the school, absences, what the child dreads at school, a learning evaluation if needed.
See also: SRASR-PAR.
| Fears and worries | 4 / 16 |
Separation anxiety, need for reassurance, avoidance of new things, and intense fears of specific situations.
Areas to explore: the situations feared, what reassures the child, how the adults respond to the child's fears, any recent event (a move, a separation, illness in the family).
See also: SCARED, SCAS.
| Attention and restlessness | 3 / 16 |
Difficulty finishing a quiet activity, following instructions, and staying still, impulsivity.
Areas to explore: the settings where the difficulties appear (home, school, activities), teachers' comments, sleep, the age at which they were first noticed.
See also: SNAP-IV, Conners 3.
No validated clinical or psychometric cutoffs have been established for this test yet. The results should therefore be considered exploratory indicators, meant to support the clinical interview, not diagnostic findings.
Scoring
Each statement is scored from 0 (never) to 4 (very often) based on its frequency over the past few months. Each domain combines 4 statements spread throughout the questionnaire, giving a score from 0 to 16.
Reading the profile
There is no total score. Domains are ranked from most to least elevated, each with a description of what it covers and points to explore in the interview. The profile maps the child's difficulties as the parent observes them. It is common for several domains to be elevated at once; the interview then establishes what is primary and what follows from it (stomachaches before school linked to teasing, for example). When both parents have completed it, the gap between their profiles is also worth exploring.
Clinical cautions
A parent's view does not tell the whole story: the child and the school may describe something different, especially regarding sadness and what goes on between children. The questionnaire does not explore abuse the child may be experiencing: unexplained fears, withdrawal, or sleep problems call for exploring it in the interview.
Limitations
This exploratory questionnaire has not undergone psychometric validation and has no cutoffs. It supports the clinical interview and does not provide a diagnosis.
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