Chapter 4 Classification, Assessment and Diagnosis, and Intervention Flashcards
Classification
A system for describing the important categories, groups, or dimensions of disorders.
Diagnosis
The method of assigning children to specific classification categories.
Categorical classification
A clinical classification approach based on the identification of cooccurring symptoms reflecting distinct disorders.
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM)
Published by the American Psychiatric Association, the DSM, now in its fifth edition, provides a listing of forms of mental illness, along with diagnostic criteria.
Reliability
A measure of whether different clinicians, using the same set of criteria, classify children into the same clearly defined categories.
Interrater reliability
The measure of whether two or more clinicians, gathering information about one child’s developmental history and current difficulties, come to the same decision about the type of disorder.
Cross-time reliability
The measure of whether a child is similarly diagnosed by the same clinician at two different points in time.
Validity
A measure of whether the classification gives true-to-life, meaningful information.
Internal validity
In the context of classification, reflects the degree to which children with the same diagnosis have similar developmental histories and current symptom pictures.
External validity
In the context of classification, external validity reflects the degree to which a diagnosis provides useful information about the implications (i.e., likely outcomes, effective treatments) of a disorder.
Externalizing dimension
In the empirical, dimensional classification system, this dimension involves problematic patterns that are directed outward toward others (e.g., disruptive or aggressive behavior).
Internalizing dimension
In the empirical, dimensional classification system, this dimension involves problematic patterns that are directed inward (e.g., low positive affect or anxiousness).
Heterogeneity
Involves the ways in which children with the same disorder or diagnosis 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 in order to both differentiate everyday or transient difficulties from clinically significant psychopathology and classify a child’s particular disorders.
Differential diagnosis
Decisions about mutually exclusive categories of disorder.
Diagnostic efficiency
The degree to which clinicians maximize diagnostic hits and minimize diagnostic misses.
Interviews
Either structured evaluations or unstructured conversations about adjustment and maladjustment, allowing parents and children to explain their concerns and, more broadly, to tell their stories; they also provide opportunities to start to build the helping relationship, an especially important consideration when a clinician knows that he or she will be working closely with children and various family members.
Standardized tests
Measures such as intelligence tests and some personality tests, in which the data from a particular child can be compared to data gathered from large samples of children, including typically developing children and those with a variety of diagnoses.
Projective measures
Measures such as the Rorschach inkblots and the Thematic Apperception Test that are based on the assumption that, given an ambiguous stimulus, individuals’ responses will reflect the projection of unconscious conflicts.
Observations
A source of valuable information involving careful watching by a clinician. Clinicians usually observe children in clinical settings such as offices, but may also observe children in naturalistic settings such as the home or school.
Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA)
A federal law that defines and governs the provision of special education services.
Outcome research
Studies of whether, at the end of treatment, children and adolescents have improved relative to their pre-treatment status compared to others who have not received treatment.
Process research
Studies of the specific mechanisms and common factors that account for therapeutic change.
Primary prevention
Reducing or eliminating psychopathology-related risks, thereby reducing the incidence of disorder in children.
Universal preventive measures
A type of preventive measure provided for entire populations (e.g., mandatory immunizations for children).
Selective preventive measures
Type of preventive measures; provided for at-risk groups (e.g., Head Start programs for preschoolers from disadvantaged backgrounds).
Indicated preventive measures
A type of preventive measure provided for groups with specific risk factors that include more extensive interventions (e.g., packages of services for families with premature infants).
Secondary prevention
Interventions that are implemented following the early signs of distress and dysfunction, before the disorder is clearly established in the child.
