• The Children's Global Assessment Scale (CGAS), a measure of overall severity of disturbance, is an adaptation of the Global Assessment Scale for adults. Data obtained on the CGAS during a pilot study in Puerto Rico demonstrate high interrater reliability and both concurrent and discriminant validity. A discriminant function was generated that highly correlates with other measures of impairment. Use of the CGAS can be of heuristic value to complement other methods of diagnostic categorization.