Ch4 P&T Flashcards
Classification
A system for describing the important categories, groups, or dimensions of disorder
Diagnosis
The method of assigning children to specific classification categories
Categorical classification
Assumes that there are groups of individuals with relatively similar patterns of disorder. With an ideal categorical scheme, each disorder would have its own specific etiology, course, and treatment.
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM)
The DSM was designed as a practical tool for clinicians (Psych Bible)
Reliability
Whether different clinicians, using the same set of criteria, classify children into the same, clearly defined categories
Interrater reliability
When, for example, two or more clinical psychologists, gathering information about one child’s developmental history and current difficulties, come to the same decision about the type of disorder.
Cross-time reliability
when a child is similarly classified by the same clinician at two different points in time.
Validity
Whether the classification gives us true-to-life, meaningful information.
Internal validity
Tells us something important about the etiology of a disorder, or the core patterns of symptoms or difficulties experienced by children with a particular type or subtype of disorder
External validity
Tells us something important about the implications of the disorder. For example, children with specific disorders might be expected to respond favorably to certain interventions
Externalizing dimension
Undercontrolled behaviors such as oppositional or aggressive behaviors that are often directed at others
Internalizing dimension
Overcontrolled behaviors such as anxiety or social isolation that are often directed toward the self
Heterogeneity
The ways in which children with the same disorder or diagnosis [e.g., attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or generalized anxiety disorder] display idiosyncratic sets of difficulties or symptoms.
Comorbidity
The cooccurrence of two or more disorders in one individual
Assessment
The systematic collection of relevant information and is used to solve two kinds of practical problems described by Costello and Angold (1996): (1) differentiating every-day problems or transient difficulties from clinically significant psychopathology, and (2) classifying and caring for those who have been identified as having disorders
Differential diagnoses
Decisions about mutually exclusive categories of disorder. For example, a child would not receive a diagnosis of oppositional defiant disorder and disruptive mood dysregulation disorder because the defining symptoms of the former are subsumed in the larger symptom set of the latter
Diagnostic efficiency
The degree to which clinicians maximize diagnostic hits and minimize diagnostic misses
Standardized tests
Assessments in which the data from a particular child can be compared to data gathered from large samples of children, including typically developing children and children with a variety of diagnoses
Projective measures
Based on the assumption that, given an ambiguous stimulus, individuals’ responses will reflect the projection of unconscious motivations, concerns, and conflicts.
Outcome research
Whether children and adolescents have improved at the end of treatment relative to their pretreatment status and compared to others who have not received treatment
Process research
The specific mechanisms and common factors that account for therapeutic change
