Transcript SSE-160 Introduction to Child and Youth Services

SSE-160
Introduction to Child
and Youth Services
Chapter 5
Assessing the Competencies and Difficulties
of Children and Adolescents
Assessing the Competencies
and Difficulties of Children
and Adolescents
• Social work practitioners form assessments that are formal
or informal, written or unwritten, explicit or tacit, objective or
subjective, and specific or global.
• Practitioners assess the social and emotional, cognitive and
language, moral and ethical, and physical and perceptual –
motor domains of development of children and adolescents.
Problem Recognition and
Referral Processes
Johari Window
Parents and Problem Recognition
I see, others don’t see
I see others see
I don’t see, others see
I don’t see
Others don’t see
Problem Recognition and
Referral Processes
• Denial of parental problem(s)
• Denial of child’s problem(s)
• Initial assessment(s) usually done by the intake
department.
• See case excerpt on page 103.
The Perspective of the
Practitioner
• Two models:
Strength  More optimistic
Deficit  More realistic about improvements
• The Deficit Model derives from the perspective of medical
practitioners who attempt to locate pathology to treat
disease.
• The Strength Model tends to accentuate the positive aspect
of children’s development and functioning and assist
youngsters in their overall development.
• The more newly developed Strengths Model involves
focusing on abilities, that is, determining the strengths or
competencies of children and adolescents to build on them.
The Diagnostic Practitioner
Role
• See page 105.
• A balanced perspective might be best to use.
Diagnostic Accuracy
• Social work practitioners are careful in diagnosing
children and adolescents.
• Problems with arriving at an accurate diagnosis:
1. Seeing a problem that does not exist.
2. Not seeing a problem that does exist.
Diagnostic Accuracy
• Diagnostic labels have the potential to stigmatize
children and adolescents.
• Diagnosis is necessary in health and mental health
services, and in some other areas as well, such as
special education.
• DSM IV TR is used to diagnose.
• Diagnoses of children and adolescents vary in terms
of their importance, severity, and prognosis.
• In addition to working with children and adolescents,
social workers are responsible for working with
parents, families, schools and community resources.
Child Development: Norms and
Lags
• A major goal of social work practice is to help youngsters
develop as normally as possible given their social situation.
• Delays or lags are measured in terms of statistical
difference that suggest that particular children are behind
their age group in one or more developmental domains.
• Some parents expect their children to be perfect.
• Social workers attempt to modify expectations of parents
given the developmental status of their child, projected
future development, and intervention programs.
• Social workers are also expected and required to identify
factors, such as child abuse and neglect, that contribute to
or exacerbate developmental delays.
Children at Risk
• Children at risk include:
1. Those who have participated in early intervention
programs for infants and toddlers with special needs
and their families.
2. Children who have speech or learning problems or
sensory impairments.
3. Children who have received special education services.
4. Drop-outs may also experience developmental delays.
5. Migrants and homeless children.
Competencies and Difficulties
of Children and Adolescents
• Practitioners assess children and adolescents in regard to
cognitive and language, physical and perceptual – motor,
social and emotional, and moral and ethical development
(Monkman & Allen-Mears, 1985).
• **Cognitive and language delay are diagnosed more
straight-forwardly in children for whom English is their 1st
language.
Social Interaction and
Emotional Competencies
• Social development refers to youngsters’ ability to
relate to others.
• Emotional development refers to their ability to
experience and express their feelings.
1. A useful tool is the Emotional Development
Interview (EDI) which focuses on six (6)
emotions (Dupont, 1994).
Social Skills
• Two (2) measures are particularly useful regarding social skills
functioning:
1. The Social Skills Rating System (SSRS) is a
psychometrically sound, comprehensive, standardized
measure of the social skills functioning of young children
(Gresham & Elliott, 1990).
2. The Interpersonal Competence Scale (ICS-T) is a set of
brief rating scales for teachers and parents that consist of
items that assess social and behavioral characteristics of
children and adolescents.
3. Another useful instrument, the Psychosocial Assessment of
Childhood Experiences (PACE) is a standardized
investigator – based on interview of children and their parents
(see page 111).
Social Skills
• Social competence refers to the ability of children to reach
their interpersonal goals.
• The Assessment of Social Competence (ASC) instrument
provides a sound measure of social competence for children
who have moderate to profound levels of mental retardation.
• Formal instruments to help assess children’s social and
emotional functioning:
1. Children’s Assertive Behavior Scale (1980). Self-report
2. The School Behavior Checklist (1972). Completed by the teacher
3. Prosocial Tendencies Scale for Children (PTS-C) (1992). Brief
vignettes to stimulate responses descriptive of children’s prosocial
orientation across behaviors and contexts.
Moral and Ethical
Competencies
Moral and ethical development of children, including the sense
of right and wrong, the acquisition of conscience, and the
development of a sense of guilt, varies by socio-demographic
factors, including gender and age.
• Young children who may have limited moral knowledge, as well as
adolescents whose moral knowledge is adequate, may engage in illicit
actions, such as theft.
• The moral and ethical development of children and adolescents is
related to their mental health.
• Clusters of problem behaviors, including a combination of: 1) cruelty to
animals; 2) fire setting; and 3) enuresis are indicative of potentially
serious mental health difficulties.
Cognitive and Language
Competencies
• Delays in cognitive development may hamper language
development and vice-versa.
• Cognitive competencies include the demonstrated ability of
children to think, organize, reflect, analyze, and synthesize
information.
• Bishop (1998), developed a useful “Children’s Communication
Checklist (CCC) to assess social competencies.
• Language competencies refer to children’s ability to express
themselves in verbal and written ways, each of which are
communication methods and abilities subject to assessment.
• Speech and language development are closely related in children.
• Practitioners assess the cognitive and language abilities of their
child and adolescent clients through observations, interviews and
reports.
Physical and Perceptual-Motor
Competencies
• Assessing the physical and perceptual-motor development of
children and adolescents encompasses an awareness of changes
in youngster’s features, including stature, mobility, and skill
development over time.
• Social workers are responsible for assessing the extent of which
children’s physical changes are normative.
• Practitioners who work with families may compare child or
adolescent clients to their siblings.
• Standardized Assessment – see page 122.
• See case excerpt on page 123.