The 20-item Parent-Adolescent Communication Scale (Barnes & Olson, 2003) was used to assess adolescents' perceptions of communication with their mother and father. The open (e.g., “My mother/father is always a good listener”) and problem (e.g., “I am careful about what I say to my mother”) communication subscales were combined into a single measure of total adolescent-parent communication for both mothers and fathers. Greater scores indicated greater open and less problematic communication. Response options ranged from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Adolescent-mother (α = .90) and adolescent-father (α = .90) communication scales demonstrated acceptable internal consistency in this sample. This measure has previously shown acceptable reliability and validity (Barnes & Olson, 2003; Rosnati, Iafrate, & Scabini, 2007).
