The GCARS (Koegel et al., 2009) evaluates parent perception of their child’s happiness and interest while the child is
engaged in a target activity. It consists of two Likert-type scales (one for happiness and one for interest) that range from
disinterested and unhappy (score of 0 or 1) to interested and happy (scores of 4 or 5). The GCARS was originally developed by
Koegel and colleagues to measure happiness and interest of children with autism after receiving a social skills intervention.
In this study, the scales were used to measure happiness and interest before and after play skills intervention