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Conners Continuous Performance Test 3rd Edition (Conners CPT 3)
Availability
Please visit this website for more information about the instrument: Conners Continuous Performance Test 3rd Edition
Classification
Supplemental- Highly Recommended: Cerebral Palsy (CP), Epilepsy, and Mitochondrial Disease (Mito).*
*Recommended for studies that measure cognitive attention span.
 
Supplemental: Multiple Sclerosis (MS), Neuromuscular Disease (NMD), Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA), and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)
 
Exploratory: Sport-Related Concussion (SRC)
Short Description of Instrument
The Conners Continuous Performance Test Third Edition™ (Conners CPT 3™) measures attention-related problems in individuals aged 8 years and older. By indexing the respondent's performance in areas of inattentiveness, impulsivity, sustained attention, and vigilance, the Conners CPT 3 can aid in the assessment of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) and other neurological conditions related to attention. The Conners CPT 3 provides objective information about an individual's performance in attention tasks, complementing information obtained from rating scales such as the Conners 3®.
 
The Conners CPT 3 can be used in conjunction with the Conners Continuous Auditory Test of Attention™ (Conners CATA™), which assesses auditory processing and attention-related problems in individuals aged 8 years and older. The Conners CPT 3 and Conners CATA can be purchased as a combo kit or individually.
Comments/Special Instructions
The CPT 3™ is a task-based computerized assessment of attention disorders and neurological functioning. Results from the CPT 3™ can clarify the nature of attention deficits, quickly identifying problems with impulsiveness, activation/arousal, or vigilance, for example. Administered in educational, psychiatric, medical, and correctional settings, the CPT 3™ can be used to screen for or diagnose ADHD, monitor treatment, test the effects of medication, or determine optimal drug dosage. New to Version 5 are two very convenient options: minimizing false positives and minimizing false negatives. The former option is useful when you want only very strong evidence of ADHD in order to avoid unnecessary follow-up evaluation. The latter is helpful when you want to identify as many potential attention problems as possible. Appropriate for individuals aged 6 years and up, the CPT 3™ presents target letters on a computer screen. The examinee's task is to press the space bar or click the mouse whenever any letter other than "X" appears. Letters are displayed for 250 milliseconds, at 1-, 2-, and 4-second intervals. Administration time is 14 minutes.
 
This process yields the following information:
 
Response Times
 
Changes in Reaction Time Speed and Consistency
 
Signal Detection Theory Statistics
 
Confidence Index
 
Commission Errors
 
Omission Errors
 
Age Range: 8 years to adult
Scoring and Psychometric Properties
Scoring: Provides t-scores across various indicators of inattention, impulsivity, sustained attention and vigilance.
 
Psychometric Properties: Normed based on samples representative of US population. Test-retest reliability was .67 in normative samples. Discriminative validity evaluation revealed ADHD sample performed more poorly than matched general population sample on most indices of the measure with small to moderate effect sizes (d = 0.10 to 0.49).
Rationale/Justification
Strengths:

The Conners CPT 3™ is a standard in the assessment of sustained visual attention and is used widely for other neurological conditions, notably ADHD. It includes a variety of measures to assess accuracy, target detection, impulsivity, and discrimination of targets from non-targets.
 
Weaknesses:

As a standalone measure, CPT3™ is a weak or poor predictor of ADHD and it is recommended that clinicians use multiple measures for evaluating persons with ADHD. (Callan et al., 2023)

 
Mitochondrial Disease-specific:
Strengths: Progress reports allow repeated administration and comparison of performance across up to 4 administrations thereby allowing comparison for treatment effects or disease fluctuation/progression over time.
References
Key Reference:

Conners Continuous Performance Test 3rd Edition™ (Conners CPT 3™) [Internet]. Multi-Health Systems. 2014. Retrieved 21Jun2016. Available from: https://storefront.mhs.com/collections/conners-cpt-3. Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Multi-Health Systems.
 
Additional References:
Arffa, S. (2010). Test review of the Conners 3rd Edition™ (Conners 3™). In Spies RA , Carlson JF, Geisinger KF (Eds.), The Eighteenth Mental Measurements Yearbook. Lincoln, NE: Buros Institute of Mental Measurements; 2010.
 
Callan PD, Kari Eidnes, Pope TM, Shepler DK, Swanberg SM, Weber SK. B - 46 Diagnostic Utility of Conners CPT-3 for ADHD: a Systematic Review. Arch Clin Neuropsychol. 2023 Oct;38(7):1410.
 
Conners CK. Conners' Rating Scales manual. New York: Multi-Health Systems, Inc.; 1989.
 
Conners CK. Conners' Rating Scales-Revised. New York: Multi-Health Systems, Inc.; 1997.
 
Conners CK, Sitarenios G, Parker JD, Epstein JN. The revised Conners' Parent Rating Scale (CPRS-R): factor structure, reliability, and criterion validity. J Abnorm Child Psychol. 1998 Aug;26(4):257-68.
 
Conners CK, Sitarenios G, Parker JD, Epstein JN. Revision and restandardization of the Conners Teacher Rating Scale (CTRS-R): factor structure, reliability, and criterion validity. J Abnorm Child Psychol. 1998 Aug;26(4):279-91.
 
Edelbrock C, Greenbaum R, Conover NC. Reliability and concurrent relations between the teacher version of the Child Behavior Profile and the Conners Revised Teacher Rating Scale. J Abnorm Child Psychol. 1985 Jun;13(2):295-303.
 
Goyette CH, Conners CK, Ulrich RF. Normative data on revised Conners Parent and Teacher Rating Scales. J Abnorm Child Psychol. 1978 Jun;6(2):221-36
 
Hardy P, Collet JP, Goldberg J, Ducruet T, Vanasse M, Lambert J, Marois P, Amar M, Montgomery DL, Lecomte JM, Johnston KM, Lassonde M. Neuropsychological effects of hyperbaric oxygen therapy in cerebral palsy. Dev Med Child Neurol. 2002 Jul;44(7):436-46.
 
Muriel V, Garcia-Molina A, Aparicio-Lopez C, Ensenat A, Roig-Rovira T. Estimulacion cognitiva en ninos con paralisis cerebral [Cognitive stimulation in children with cerebral palsy]. Rev Neurol. 2014 Nov 16;59(10):443-8. Spanish.

 

Document last updated March 2024