Child Psychopathology Family factors Assessment and Diagnosis Reading for today: Chapter 4

Family and society What is the family context of a child? The broader social context is also important Bronfenbrenner’s model Figure 2.7 of text Group activity: Using this model, describe exactly how poverty may have a negative impact on child development and psychopathology

You are conducting an assessment of this girl. What do you want to know about her?

Why do we conduct an assessment? To provide a diagnosis. –What is a diagnoosis? –What is implicit in diagnostic categories? To make a prognosis. –What is a prognosi.s? –Why is this important? To provide treatment planning and evaluation –How is treatment linked to an assessment?

Clinical Interviews The most universally used assessment procedure Information includes developmental and family history Mental status exam assesses a child’s general mental functioning –Orientation to person, time, and place Interviews can be unstructured or semi- structured

Categories of information Family (Immediate and extended) Medical School & work Developmental history Interests and hobbies Traumas and critical incidents Did we cover all of these when asking about the teenage girl?

Behavioral assessment Objective description of the ABC’s of behavior Sometimes different people have different views of a behavior Checklists, frequency counts, rating scales completed by self or other: unreliable but cheap Observations can be structured or iunstructured; in vivo or in clinic Figure 4.2, 4.3, & 4.9: Three examples

Psychological testing Developmental tests screen for risk and delay Intelligence and educational tests –WISC-III assesses verbal and non-verbal intelligence, predicts academic achievement –Achievement tests assess knowledge in an area Projective tests: How to children respond to ambiguous stimuli? Rorschach, drawings Neuropsychological assessment: CNS

Classification and diagnosis