Non-communicating children's pain checklist: better pain assessment for severely disabled children.

Advances in the treatment of pain for children with severe disabilities have lagged behind that for other children. This is due, in part, to a lack of valid assessment tools for their pain. The non-communicating children's pain checklists are observational pain tools that were developed specifically for children with severe disabilities who are unable to communicate verbally. The non-communicating children's pain checklist-revised has been validated for use with a wide range of pain types in the home. The non-communicating children's pain checklist-postoperative version is used for pain following surgery in the hospital setting. Scores for determining the presence of pain have also been developed. They are appropriate for children with varying degrees of physical, cognitive and communicative impairments.