The clinician rating of adult communication (CRAC): a clinician's guide to the assessment of interpersonal communication skill.

This paper reports the results of an initial investigation of the psychometric properties of a new clinical marital communication assessment instrument, the Clinician Rating of Adult Communication (CRAC). The sample consisted of 36 marital communication samples from both maritally satisfied and distressed couples. Reliability results indicated that the CRAC demonstrated high levels of internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and interrater agreement. Support for the validity of the CRAC was found in its correspondence with a marital interaction coding system, its relationship to ratings of marital satisfaction, and its concordance with couples' perceptions of their conflict management behavior. Overall, these findings support the conclusion that the CRAC may provide a useful addition to the measurement armamentarium of the marital clinician and researcher.