Assessment, Diagnosis, and Treatment Flashcards
What is a clinical assessment?
Using systematic problem-solving strategies to understand children with disturbances and their family and school environments.
When is a clinical assessment meaningful?
They are only meaningful to the extent that they result in practical and effective interventions.
What is a idiographic case formulation?
Obtaining a detailed understanding of the individual child or family as a unique entity.
What is a nomothetic formulation?
Emphasizes broad general inferences that apply to large groups of individuals.
What childhood disorders are more commonly reported in males? (7)
- ADHD, 2. childhood conduct disorder, 3. autism, 4. language disorder, 5. specific learning disorder, 6. enuresis, and 7. intellectual disability.
What childhood disorders are more commonly reported in females? (4)
- Anxiety disorders, 2. eating disorders, 3. adolescent depression, and 4. sexual abuse.
What childhood disorders are more commonly reported in both genders? (4)
- Adolescent conduct disorder, 2. feeding disorder, 3. childhood depression, 4. physical abuse and neglect.
What is relational aggression?
Showing aggression indirectly through verbal insults, gossip, ostracism, getting even, or third party retaliation.
What is the strongest predictor of future psychological-social adjustment problems in girls?
The combination of relational and physical aggression.
What can predict a more maladjusted child?
Forms of social aggression that are not typical of their sex (overtly aggressive girls and relationally aggressive boys).
What are cultural syndromes?
A pattern of co-occuring, relatively invariant (never changing) symptoms associated with a particular cultural group, community, or context.
What usually defines childhood disorders? Rather than what?
The age-inappropriateness, severity, and pattern of symptoms. As well as the extent that the symptoms impair functioning. Rather than individual symptoms.
What are three common purposes of an assessment?
- Description and diagnosis. 2. Prognosis. 3. Treatment planning.
What is a clinical description?
Summary of unique behaviors, thoughts, and feelings that together make up the features of the child’s psychological disorder.
What are the first factors considered in a clinical description?
Intensity, frequency, and severity of the problem.
What are the second factors considered in a clinical description?
The age of onset and the duration of the difficulties.
What are the third and last factors considered in a clinical description?
A full picture of her different symptoms and their configuration (Full profile of strengths and weaknesses).
What is a diagnosis?
Analyzing information and drawing conclusions about the nature or cause of the problem, or assigning a formal diagnostic label for the disorder.
What do you do after finishing the clinical description?
Determine whether the symptoms meet the criteria for a diagnosis of one or more psychological disorders.
What does a taxonomic diagnosis mean?
The focus on the formal assignment of cases to specific categories drawn from a system of classification such as the DSM.
What does a problem-solving analysis meaning of diagnosis mean?
Views diagnosis as a process of gathering that is used to understand the nature of a individual’s problem, its possible causes, treatment options, and outcomes.
What 3 factors influence how children’s symptoms and behavior are expressed and recognized?
Age, gender, and cultural influences.
What is the multi-method assessment approach?
Emphasizes obtaining info from different informants in a variety of setting, and using a variety of methods that includes interviews, observations, questionnaires, and tests.
What types of nonverbal behaviors may the clinician observe in a clinical interview?
Facial expressions, body posture, voice, mannerisms, and motor behaviors.
What are semi-structured interviews?
Interviews with specific questions designed to elicit information in a relatively consistent manner.
What is a behavioral assessment?
A strategy for evaluating the child’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in specific settings, then using the info to form hypotheses about the nature of the problem and what can be done about it. Use “ABC”.
What are target behaviors?
The primary problems of concern.
What is the CBCL and and what does it show?
The Child Behavior Checklist. It is used to create a profile that gives an overall picture of the variety and degree of the child’s behavioral problems.
What is a developmental test?
A test used to assess infants and young children, and are generally carried out for the purposes of screening, diagnosis, and evaluation of early development.
What is screening?
Identifying children at risk, who are then referred for a more thorough evaluation.
How does David Wechsler define intelligence?
The overall capacity of an individual to understand and cope with the world around them.
When conducting a neuropsychological assessment, what are considered verbal and nonverbal cognitive functions?
Language, abstract reasoning, and problem solving.
When conducting a neuropsychological assessment, what are considered perceptual functions?
Visual, auditory, and tactile-kinesthetic.
When conducting a neuropsychological assessment, what are considered motor functions?
Strength, speed of performance, coordination, and dexterity.
When conducting a neuropsychological assessment, what are considered emotionally/executive control functions?
Attention, concentration, frustration tolerance, and emotional functioning.
What is a neuropsychological assessment?
Link brain functioning with objective measures of behavior known to depend on an intact central nervous system.
What is the first approach to diagnosing child psychopathology?
Using a classical classification system, such as the DSM.
What is the second approach to diagnosing child psychopathology?
Using a dimensional classification approach.
What is a dimensional classification approach?
Assuming that many independent dimensions or traits of behavior exist, and that all children possess them to varying degrees.
What is the cultural compatibility hypothesis?
Treatment is likely to be more effective when it is comparable with the cultural patterns of the child and family.
What is the most common clinical interview type?
Unstructured.
How many sessions do clinical interviews last?
About 1-2 sessions.
What are the two types of clinical formulations?
Idiographic and Nomothetic.
What are the three elements a treatment plan should include?
- Improve outcomes relating to child functioning, 2. family functioning, and 3. improve outcomes of societal importance.
What is actuarial decision making?
Statistical decision making. Data driven. Based on objective data.
What factors can influence an accurate diagnosis? (4)
- Experience, 2. beliefs, 3. biases, 4. previous diagnosis.
Why kind of subjective thinking may lead to a poor diagnosis?
Over-weighting certain types of evidence over others (i.e. interviews > observations).
