Psychological Assessment


Faculty

Regilda A Romero
Department: MD-PSYCHIATRY

Regilda A Romero Ph.D.

Assistant Professor
Melissa S Munson
Department: MD-PSYCHIATRY

Melissa S Munson Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

The purpose of this clinical exposure is to familiarize the residents with formal psychological testing procedures, the content of popular tests, their administration, and the interpretation of resulting reports. Residents join the clinical psychologists as observers.

A. The clinical exposure occurs at institution 1, providing the resident exposure to psychological testing.

B. Faculty consists of seven full-time Psychologists.

C. Residents spend 4-6 hours for new evaluations, which consist of interviews with patient & family and psychological testing. Faculty is available on-site for consultations.

D. This service sees 40% females and 60% males, ranging in age from 3 to 17 years, with the majority being of elementary school age. They consist of 62% Caucasian, 27% African American and 8% Hispanic youths. The children and adolescents seen for psychological testing are mainly referred by Child & Adolescent Psychiatry clinic, about 30% with diagnosis of OCD, 25% for psychological factors affecting medical condition, 15% ADHD, 15% depression and 15% for other presenting problems.  Commonly administered tests include WISC-V, WJ-IV, + DKEFS and ADOS-2.

E. A resident observes at least 1 and up to 4 psychological evaluations. Psychology trainees usually administer these tests.

F. All testing results are presented to the faculty and reports are discussed on an individual basis before being released to the requesting professionals, patient or family.

G. Following are the goals and objectives for this clinical exposure:

Goal: To become familiar with a wide variety of psychological testing procedures employed with children and adolescents.

Objectives

Knowledge

  • The child resident will be able to conceptualize content and process issues involved in interviewing patients for psychological evaluation.
  • The child resident will become familiar with ethical issues involved in psychological assessment.
  • The child resident will know the purposes of a variety of psychological tests (e.g., WISC-V, WJ-IV, and DKEFS)
  • The child resident will have an understanding of issues involved in the diagnosis of intellectual disability and learning disabilities from the perspective of psychological testing.
  • The child resident will become familiar with the topic of cultural diversity in psychological assessment.
  • The child resident will become familiar with integrating caregiver information into the results of the assessment.

Skills

The resident will demonstrate the ability to:

  • Identify patients that would benefit from psychological testing and make appropriate referrals.
  • Understand the components of completed psychological testing reports and where to locate important information related to the referral question.
  • Understand issues relevant to the administration and interpretation of a reasonable sample of highly used psychological tests with children and adolescents, as well as caregiver report forms.
  • Conceptualize and integrate case and test data for a deeper understanding of clinical cases.

Attitudes

The resident will demonstrate:

  • Professionalism by being available in a timely fashion, by reviewing assigned readings in psychological testing and by being well-prepared for the experience.
  • Respect for the roles of clinical psychologists and the contributions provided towards the assessment of patients through psychological testing.
  • Appreciation for the important knowledge provided by faculty through the seminars and rotations in psychological testing of children and adolescents.