Psychological testing is the administration of psychological tests. Psychological tests are administered by trained evaluators. A person's responses are evaluated according to carefully prescribed guidelines. Scores are thought to reflect individual or group differences in the construct the test purports to measure. The science behind psychological testing is psychometrics.
The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) is a standardized psychometric test of adult personality and psychopathology. Psychologists and other mental health professionals use various versions of the MMPI to help develop treatment plans, assist with differential diagnosis, help answer legal questions, screen job candidates during the personnel selection process, or as part of a therapeutic assessment procedure.
School refusal is a child-motivated refusal to attend school or difficulty remaining in class for the full day. Child-motivated absenteeism occurs autonomously, by the volition of the child. This behavior is differentiated from non-child-motivated absences in which parents withdraw children from school or keep them home or circumstances such as homelessness. School refusal is characterized by avoidance and/or emotional distress at the time of attending school.
Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI), developed by Leslie Morey, is a self-report 344-item personality test that assesses a respondent's personality and psychopathology. Each item is a statement about the respondent that the respondent rates with a 4-point scale. It is used in various contexts, including psychotherapy, crisis/evaluation, forensic, personnel selection, pain/medical, and child custody assessment. The test construction strategy for the PAI was primarily deductive and rational. It shows good convergent validity with other personality tests, such as the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory and the Revised NEO Personality Inventory.
The Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) is a medical scale used for measuring symptom severity of patients with schizophrenia. It was published in 1987 by Stanley Kay, Lewis Opler, and Abraham Fiszbein. It is widely used in the study of antipsychotic therapy. The scale is the "gold standard" for evaluating the effects of psychopharmacological treatments.
Attachment measures refer to the various procedures used to assess the attachment system in children and adults. Researchers have developed various ways of assessing self-protective strategies and patterns of attachment. Some methods work across the several models of attachment and some are model-specific.
The Yale–Brown Obsessive–Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS) is a test to rate the severity of obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) symptoms.
The Eating Disorder Inventory (EDI) is a self-report questionnaire used to assess the presence of eating disorders, (a) anorexia nervosa both restricting and binge-eating/purging type; (b) bulimia nervosa; and (c) eating disorder not otherwise specified including binge eating disorder. The original questionnaire consisted of 64 questions, divided into eight subscales. It was created in 1984 by David M. Garner and others. There have been two subsequent revisions by Garner: the Eating Disorder Inventory-2 (EDI-2) and the Eating Disorder Inventory-3 (EDI-3).
The Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) is a widely used caregiver report form identifying problem behavior in children. It is widely used in both research and clinical practice with youths. It has been translated into more than 90 languages, and normative data are available integrating information from multiple societies. Because a core set of the items have been included in every version of the CBCL since the 1980s, it provides a meter stick for measuring whether amounts of behavior problems have changed over time or across societies. This is a helpful complement to other approaches for looking at rates of mental-health issues, as the definitions of disorders have changed repeatedly over the same time frame.
Separation anxiety disorder (SAD) is an anxiety disorder in which an individual experiences excessive anxiety regarding separation from home and/or from people to whom the individual has a strong emotional attachment. Separation anxiety is a natural part of the developmental process. It is most common in infants and little children, typically between the ages of six to seven months to three years, although it may pathologically manifest itself in older children, adolescents and adults. Unlike SAD, normal separation anxiety indicates healthy advancements in a child's cognitive maturation and should not be considered a developing behavioral problem.
The Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) is a brief self-report questionnaire developed in 1977 by Laurie Radloff to measure depressive symptoms severity in the general population. The CES-D consists of 20 questions that asks about various symptoms of depression as they have occurred in the past week, and the majority of the items focus on the affective component of depression. Although initially designed for use in general population surveys, CES-D now serves as a screening instrument in primary care clinics and in research.
The Swanson, Nolan and Pelham Teacher and Parent Rating Scale (SNAP), developed by James Swanson, Edith Nolan and William Pelham, is a 90-question self-report inventory designed to measure attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) symptoms in children and young adults.
The Vanderbilt ADHD Diagnostic Rating Scale (VADRS) is a psychological assessment tool for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms and their effects on behavior and academic performance in children ages 6–12. This measure was developed by Mark L Wolraich at the Oklahoma Health Sciences Center and includes items related to oppositional defiant disorder, conduct disorder, anxiety, and depression, disorders often comorbid with ADHD.
The ADHD Rating Scale (ADHD-RS) is a parent-report or teacher-report inventory created by George J. DuPaul, Thomas J. Power, Arthur D. Anastopoulos, and Robert Reid consisting of 18–90 questions regarding a child's behavior over the past 6 months. The ADHD Rating Scale is used to aid in the diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children ranging from ages 5–17.
The University of California at Los Angeles Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Reaction Index for DSM-5 is a psychiatric assessment tool used to assess symptoms of PTSD in children and adolescents. This assessment battery includes four measures: the Child/Adolescent Self-Report version; the Parent/Caregiver Report version; the Parent/Caregiver Report version for Children Age 6 and Younger; and a Brief Screen for Trauma and PTSD. Questions may differ among the indexes depending on the target age, however the indexes are identical in format. The target age groups for this assessment are children and adolescents between 7-18 and children age 6 and younger. Versions of the UCLA PTSD Reaction Index for DSM-5 have been translated into many languages, including Spanish, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, Korean, German, and Arabic. The DSM-IV version of the UCLA PTSD Reaction Index Index has been updated for DSM-5.
The Pediatric Symptom Checklist (PSC) is a 35-item parent-report questionnaire designed to identify children with difficulties in psychosocial functioning. Its primary purpose is to alert pediatricians at an early point about which children would benefit from further assessment. A positive result on the overall scale indicates that the child in question would benefit from further evaluation. It is not a diagnostic tool. The PSC has subscales which measure inner distress and mood, interpersonal relations and behavior, and attention. The PSC is also used in pediatrics and other settings to measure changes in psychosocial functioning over time. Michael Jellinek, MD, created the PSC and has researched it over more than thirty years in collaboration with J. Michael Murphy, Ed.D. and other investigators. The PSC has been used in more than 200 studies in the US and other countries and has been endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the state of Massachusetts, the government of Chile and many other organizations.
The General Behavior Inventory (GBI) is a 73-question psychological self-report assessment tool designed by Richard Depue and colleagues to identify the presence and severity of manic and depressive moods in adults, as well as to assess for cyclothymia. It is one of the most widely used psychometric tests for measuring the severity of bipolar disorder and the fluctuation of symptoms over time. The GBI is intended to be administered for adult populations; however, it has been adapted into versions that allow for juvenile populations, as well as a short version that allows for it to be used as a screening test.
The Dimensional Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (DOCS) is a 20-item self-report instrument that assesses the severity of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) symptoms along four empirically supported theme-based dimensions: (a) contamination, (b) responsibility for harm and mistakes, (c) incompleteness/symmetry, and (d) unacceptable (taboo) thoughts. The scale was developed in 2010 by a team of experts on OCD led by Jonathan Abramowitz, PhD to improve upon existing OCD measures and advance the assessment and understanding of OCD. The DOCS contains four subscales that have been shown to have good reliability, validity, diagnostic sensitivity, and sensitivity to treatment effects in a variety of settings cross-culturally and in different languages. As such, the DOCS meets the needs of clinicians and researchers who wish to measure current OCD symptoms or assess changes in symptoms over time.
The Kiddie Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia (K-SADS) is a semi-structured interview aimed at early diagnosis of affective disorders such as depression, bipolar disorder, and anxiety disorder. There are different versions of the test that have use different versions of diagnostic criteria, cover somewhat different diagnoses and use different rating scales for the items. All versions are structured to include interviews with both the child and the parents or guardians, and all use a combination of screening questions and more comprehensive modules to balance interview length and thoroughness.
The Achenbach System of Empirically Based Assessment (ASEBA), created by Thomas Achenbach, is collection of questionnaires used to assess adaptive and maladaptive behavior and overall functioning in individuals. The system includes report forms for multiple informants – the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) is used for caregivers to fill out ratings of their child's behavior, the Youth Self Report Form (YSR) is used for children to rate their own behavior, and the Teacher Report Form (TRF) is used for teachers to rate their pupil's behavior. The ASEBA seeks to capture consistencies or variations in behavior across different situations and with different interaction partners.
