PSYC399 Week 2 Lecture 1, Assessment, Diagnosis and Treatment Case Study - Children are often first assessed through school problems - Target behaviour: refusing to come to school, internalizing symptoms - What is her environment at home? - Sleeping problems - What is her social life at school? - Care after her accident? - Motivation behind her pain in school? Extracurricular activities? - Family History Clinical Assessment - Uses systematic problem-solving strategies to understand children with disturbances and their family and school environments - Flexible, ongoing hypothesis testing assesses: - A child's emotional, behavioural, and cognitive functioning; the role of environmental factors; nature, causes and likely outcomes of the problem - Goal: Result in practical and effective interventions - Outcomes of the problems, outcomes if she receives treatment/ outcomes if she does not - For the propose of treatment planning and what would be helpful for the child Idiographic and Nomothetic Approaches - Idiographic: detailed understanding of the child or family as a unique entity - What is causing Terry's behaviour based on her situation - Nomothetic: Emphasizes general inferences that apply to large groups of individuals - Not mutually exclusive, a bit of both to have a good sense of the problem Developmental Considerations: Culture - Ethnic minority youth are at a greater risk of misdiagnosis - Cultural information is necessary to: - Culture-bound syndromes - What is considered abnormal may vary between cultures - African American children more likely to be wrongfully diagnosed with psychosis - Establish relationship with child and family - Motivate family members to change - Obtain valid information - Arrive at accurate diagnosis - Develop meaningful treatment recommendations - Recurrent patterns of maladaptive behaviours and/or troubling experiences associated with different cultures of localities (e.g,, mal de ojo, "evil eye") - Shyness and oversensitivity in Western cultures vs. China Developmental Considerations: Normative Information - Basic information about child development norms is crucial in understanding why a child may be referred to professionals
PSYC399 Week 2 Lecture 1, Assessment, Diagnosis and Treatment - Isolated symptoms show little correspondence with children's overall adjustment - Age inappropriateness and severity and pattern of symptoms typically define childhood disorders - Impairment in the child's functioning is a key consideration Purposes of Assessment - Description and diagnosis - - Summarizes the child's unique behaviours, thoughts, and feelings that together make up the features of the child's psychological disorder Diagnosis involves analyzing information and drawing conclusions about the nature or cause of the problem - Prognosis and treatment planning - Prognosis: the formulation of predictions about future behaviour under specified conditions - Treatment planning and evaluation apply assessment info to generate a treatment plan and to evaluate its effectiveness Assessing Disorders - Clinical assessment- info is obtained from different informants, in a variety of settings, using various methods - The methods need to be reliable, valid, cost-effective, and useful for treatment - Clinical assessment reveals the child's thought, feelings and behaviours - Comprehensive assessment evaluates a child's strengths and weakness across many