Deleted Pages 27-33 of Mash and Barkley Week 3, need to reread these pages before the test.

33- Child Self Report

Minimal reliance on childrens self-report information was used in the past due to issues with
reliability, validity and practical issues. But, flexible interview types that are consistent with a
childs developmental level can be useful in giving info about the childs behaviour, thought
process, affect, self-perception and views on environment. The increased use of childrens
questionnaires and checklists pertain to 1) growing recognition that children are in a unique
position to observe themselves, 2) the accumulation of data that suggest childrens emotions and
cognitions directly influence behaviour and often mediate the effects of intervention 3) increased
emphasis on childrens thoughts and feelings as being important targets to treatment, 4) growing
concern for childhood internalizing disorders such as depression and anxiety which require
assessment of childrens self-reported feelings. 5) the development and widespread availability
of a number of psychometrically sound structured and semi structured interview and
questionnaire procedures.
Unstructured Interviews
Format and content of assessment interviews should vary in relation to childs developmental
status, nature of problem, and interview purpose( attempt to gain info about a kids perception of
themselves, obtain samples of how they handle themselves socially, with adults or other kids,
their view of why they are at the clinic, expectations for improvemenent, and comprehension of
the assessment are all important to address with the kid, as is the way kids interpret sig event sin
their lives such as divorce, sexual abuse, as well as their perception of parents, sibs, teachers and
peers).
Semi structured and structured interviews
Unstruc clinical interviews for the purpose of making a diagnosis can be really unreliable
(judgmental errors, lack of clarity regarding decision rules). Struct interviews have been most
often used in research. Realiability of these semi structured interviews from the 1970s and early
80s have undergone changes to refer to more recent DSM criteria. But the reliability of the
interview ma interact with various dimensions, (affective, cog, behavioural) it was found that for
descriptors of internal states, reliability of the interview was related to age, children under ten
little consistency in their interview reports even over brief periods of one or two weeks. Young
kids showed a tendency to change responses from affirmative to negative in interviews only days
apart so the utility of these interviews are not clear at this time. However, more structured
interview formats tend to yield global indices of absence or presence of a disorder as opposed to
more specific information relevant to that child, family and peer group for the purpose of
intervention. But they do free up time.
Few structured interviews have been developed for purposes other than to obtain a formal
diagnosis.
Child Completed Checklist and Questionnaire
The number of child completed questionnaires and checklists in DSA have increased, they are
mostly used with older children and as a method of treatment evaluation. A wide variety of these
measures have been created for the cognitive, affective, and behaviour domain. While may were
just extensions of those used by adults, current ones are based more directly on work with
children.
Self-Monitoring Procedures
Kids use self-monitoring to evaluate the amount of times they call out in class, are off task, etc.
but these have not received a lot of work.
Direct Observations of Behaviour
This involved recording behaviours when they occur. Using trained and impartial observers who
follow clearly defined rules and procedures regarding the timing of observation, and their
contexts. Using previously designated categories that require a minimal degree of inference and
using some procedures to assess reliability.
It has been argued that direct observation is less subject to distortion and bias than are verbal
reports from parents or teachers. It has been reported that abusive mothers, continue to behave in
ways that are not socially desirable, whether they are being watched or not. It seems likely that
observations likely influence the behaviour of those being watched. The utility of observations as
a clinical assessment techinique has yet to be established due to potential unrepresentativeness of
the data, current conceptual emphasis on cognitive and affective variable sin DSA, and the many
practical concerns and demands associated with observational procedures.
Observational Procedures with children and families
A wide range of observational proc. Have been used to assess kids and their families ranging
from single behaviour to single purpose recoding schemes that can be conducted with minimal
amount of observer training. Methodological and practical isssues surrounding the use of direct
observational procedures involve revolve around objectivity and reliability of observations such
as code systems (number, complexity, molecularity of categories), charactersitics of the
behaviours being rated, methods of assessing reliability, observer characteristics (age, sex),
methods of calculating reliability, , reactivity of being observed, and way sin which
observational data should be summarized and interpreted. Sensitivity to these issues is critical
when observing families and children as they have direct bearing on the validity of the findings.
Minimal criteria for an observational code would be that
1) it is objective (2 people classify behaviours in the same way)
2) it has mutually exclusive subcategories,
3) it provides data that are amenable to objective analysis.
Selecting Code Strategies
Use of these codes relates to both content (what categories to include) and structure (number of
categories, temporal base, mechanics for observing and recording). Family behaviours observed
are often those directly reported to be problematic to maintain low levels of inference.
Setting for Observation
Wide range of setting, including clinic, home, and school. Other examples may be institutional
environments, like group homes, living environments for the intellectually disabled,
playgrounds, supermarkets or childrens groups. More specific situations have also provided
structure for observation such as (playtime versus command, observations at mealtime versus
bedtime).
Using and Interpreting Observational Data
Can serve as a basis for making recommendations for treatment, can be used to monitor
treatment outcomes, these observation based treatment recommendations represent informal
hypothesis testing, rather than systematically or empirically derived outcomes. Interpretations of
observational data have often been summarized child behaviour-adult response sequence over
relatively brief time intervals. It is often a pattern of behaviour based on interactional in
immediately adjacent time intervals about which interpretations are made with the assumption
that immediate cues and reactions serve as major controlling events.