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OCD Test for Kids: the CY-BOCS Explained
Ten ratings for children ages 6 to 17. They cover how much time obsessions and compulsions take up, how much distress they cause, and how hard they are to resist. A clinician asks the questions in conversation and rates the answers from what they hear.
- 10 severity ratings
- Ages 6-17
- Clinician-administered
What counts as an obsession or a compulsion?
An intrusive thought is not a wish. A compulsion can be silent and mental. Ordinary worries and habits are not OCD. Sorting those apart is the first thing a clinician does, and it changes what the scale is rating.
Read the two-minute explainer →Available through care
This questionnaire is published by OCD Scales, LLC, and we don't publish it here. If it is relevant to your child's care, your Emora clinician may use it as part of their assessment.
Find OCD care for your childPublic version of the questionnaire is available from the publisher.
What a CY-BOCS score can and cannot tell you
The CY-BOCS is a clinician-administered interview for obsessive-compulsive symptoms in children and teens.
A clinician asks these questions in conversation, checks what counts as an obsession or a compulsion, and rates severity from the interview.
Wherever it is used, a rating scale is a screen, not an assessment. A clinician reads it alongside a history, an interview, and often a second rater such as a teacher or the other parent before drawing any conclusion.
About the CY-BOCS
The CY-BOCS (Children’s Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale) is the measure clinicians and researchers use most often to rate how severe obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) symptoms are in children. It has 10 ratings. Five cover obsessions, the unwanted thoughts that get stuck. Five cover compulsions, the rituals and repeated behaviors. Each rating asks about the past week: how much time the symptoms take, how much they get in the way at school and with friends, how much distress they cause, how far your child can resist them, and how much control your child feels.
OCD in children often gets missed. Children hide rituals, and they cannot always explain the thoughts behind them. What parents notice first is usually time: long bedtime routines, repeated checking or washing, homework that takes hours because it has to feel exactly right. The CY-BOCS total is read against bands that run from subclinical to extreme. The scale assumes the symptoms are already there and measures how severe they are. It is not a diagnostic test.
The CY-BOCS is meant to be asked, not filled in. A clinician explains what counts as an obsession or a compulsion, checks the answers against examples, and rates severity from that conversation. That is why we do not publish it as a form to complete alone. Childhood OCD responds well to treatment. The first-line approach is exposure and response prevention (ERP), a form of cognitive behavioral therapy, sometimes alongside medication. We offer online care for children and teens with licensed clinicians, usually with a first session within days of sign-up.
How the CY-BOCS is scored
Ten ratings add up to one total, read against bands that run from subclinical to extreme. Five ratings cover obsessions and five cover compulsions. Each one asks about a different thing: time taken, interference, distress, resistance, and control.
The scale assumes obsessive-compulsive symptoms are already there and measures how severe they are. It cannot tell you whether what your child is doing is obsessive-compulsive disorder. A clinician asks these questions in conversation and first checks what counts as an obsession or a compulsion, which changes the ratings often enough to matter. Clinicians then repeat the scale during treatment, where a falling score is how they know exposure and response prevention is working.
Common questions
No. The CY-BOCS is a clinician-administered interview rather than a self-report questionnaire, so a form filled in alone would not mean what the ratings are meant to mean. We do not publish it here; it is available from its publisher, OCD Scales, LLC.
Each of the ten ratings is scored on a five-point scale and added into a total, which is read against bands running from subclinical through mild, moderate, severe and extreme. Clinicians also use the total to track whether treatment is working, not only to describe a starting point.
Same structure, different audience. The Y-BOCS is worded for teens and adults answering about themselves; the CY-BOCS is the children’s version, with wording about school, friends, and home, and the option for a parent to contribute.
Common patterns include contamination fears with excessive washing, checking and re-checking, needing things to feel “just right,” repeated reassurance-seeking, and counting or ordering rituals. Kids often know the behavior does not make sense and hide it, so the time it takes and the distress it causes are better signals than the logic of it.
Yes. Licensed clinicians at Emora treat OCD in children and teens online, with the first session usually within days of sign-up, and covered by most major insurance plans. Treatment typically starts with ERP therapy, with medication support available when recommended.
References
- Scahill, L., Riddle, M. A., McSwiggin-Hardin, M., Ort, S. I., King, R. A., Goodman, W. K., Cicchetti, D., & Leckman, J. F. (1997). Children’s Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale: Reliability and validity. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 36(6), 844-852. https://doi.org/10.1097/00004583-199706000-00023 Official source
CY-BOCS, OCD Scales, LLC.
Keep reading
A screener starts the conversation. Care is the next step.
Therapy, medication support, and testing for kids, teens, and parents. Online and covered by most major insurance plans.