Clinical assessment involves gathering information to understand abnormal behavior and determine how to help an individual. It can follow three models: the info-gathering model focuses on collecting relevant data; the therapeutic model aims to evaluate treatment progress; and the differential treatment model seeks to determine the best treatment approach. Common assessment methods include clinical interviews, intelligence and personality tests, and behavioral observations. Projective tests like the Rorschach inkblot technique and TAT are also used to reveal unconscious thoughts and feelings.

1. Assessment in
Clinical Settings

2. • Tests are focused and specific.
• Clinical “assessment” includes a broad info-gathering
and interpretation.
Assessment vs.Testing

3. • The collecting of relevant information in an effort to reach
a conclusion
• Clinical assessment is used to determine how and why a
person is behaving abnormally and how that person may
be helped
• Focus is idiographic – on an individual person
• Also may be used to evaluate treatment progress
What is clinical assessment?

4. Info-gathering model
Therapeutic model
Differential treatment model
3 Models of HowTesting Is Used by
Clinicians and Counselors

5. Rank Test Rank Test
7.5 Sentence Completion Tests
(all kinds)
9 House-Tree-Person Test
10 Draw-a-PersonTest
11 Wechsler Memory Scale
12 Rotter Sentence Completion
Test
13 Memory for Design's
14 Vineland Social Maturity
Scale
15 Stanford-Binet Intelligence
Scale
1 Wechsler Adult Intelligence
Scale
2 Minnesota Multiphasic
Personality Inventory
3 BenderVisual Motor Gestalt
Test
4 Rorschach Inkblot Test
5 Thematic Apperception Test
6 Wechsler Intelligence Scale for
Children—Revised
7.5 Peabody Picture Vocabulary
Test
Tests most frequently used:

6. Rank Tests Rank Tests
25 Differential Aptitude Tests
26 Gray Oral Reading Test
27 Wechsler-Bellevue
Intelligence Scale
28 Cattell Infant Intelligence
Scale
29 Goldstein-Scherer Tests of
Abstract and Concrete Thinking.
30 Blocky Pictures
16 Strong Vocational Interest
Blank—Men
17.5 Bender Visual Retention Test
17.5 Edward Personal Preference
Schedule
19 Strong Vocational Interest
Blank—Women
20.5 Children's ApperceptionTest
20.5 Progressive Matrices
22 Kuder Preference Record
23 Porteus Mazes
24 Full Range Picture Vocabulary
Test

7. Clinical interview
Assessment of Intellectual functioning
Personality Assessment
Behavioral Assessment

8. • Structured: predetermined set of questions. May be
scored. Leads to diagnosis.
• Nondirective clinical interview: few predetermined
questions, most are ad hoc…flexible, but can lead to
hypothesis confirmation bias (i.e., seeking information
to confirm a predetermined hunch).
• Semi-structured: some predetermined questions, some
open-ended, plus follow-up questions.
The Clinical Interview

9. Neuropsychological Assessment:
• Electroencephalogram (EEG)
• Event-related potential (ERP)
• Imaging techniques; e.g., PET, MRI
Intelligence tests:
Most commonly used tests are:
• Wechsler adult intelligence scale(WAIS-IV)
• Binet-simon intelligence scale
Intellectual functioning

10. WAIS-IV is divided into four major scales, which are
further subdivided into a number of mandatory and
optional(supplemental) subsets:
1. Mandatory subsets arrives at a persons full IQ scale.
2. The supplemental subsets provide additional
information that is valuable, about a persons cognitive
ability.
TheWechsler adult intelligence
scale(WAIS-IV):

11. WORKING MEMORY SCALE:
• digit span
• Arithmetic
• Supplemental subsets: letter
number sequence (16-69 only)
PROCESSING SPEED SCALE:
• Symbol search
• Coding
• Supplemental subsets:
Cancellation(16-69 only)
VERBAL COMPREHENSION SCALE:
• Similarities
• Vocabulary
• Information
• Supplemental subsets:
comprehension
PERCEPTUAL REASONING SCALE:
• Block design
• Matrix reasoning
• Visual puzzles
• Supplemental subsets: Picture
completion, figure weights(16-69
only)
Major scales:

12. Definition: A type of paper and pencil personality
assessment, often in multiple choice or true/false formats,
that assesses personality.
Often used to:
• increase client insight
• identify psychopathology
• assist in treatment planning
Each objective personality test measures different
aspects of personality based on the specific constructs
defined by the test developer.
Objective PersonalityTesting

13. Most widely used personality test.
Developed in 1942, revised last in 1989.
90 minutes to take the 527 items.
Provides six validity scales, ten basic (clinical) scales, and
fifteen content scales.
Commonly used scales: three validity scales and ten basic
scales.
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality
Inventory - 2

14. It is important to understand the meaning of each scale.
A high L (Lie) means the client is having trouble admitting to
his or her faults– makes entire test results suspect.
The Basic Scales are useful in diagnosis and treatment
planning
Look at patterns of responses.
“Clinical significance” is a T score of 65 or greater.
Content Scales, identify 15 specific traits such as anxiety,
fears, anger, cynicism, low self-esteem.
Reliability estimates on the different scales.
Some high inter-correlations in scales, probably because
scales share some items.

15. Second most used objective personality test.
Designed to assess DSM-IV-TR personality disorders and
clinical symptomatology.
Adolescent version also exists.
175 true/false items take 25 minutes.
Has six different major scales:
1. Clinical Personality Pattern Scales
2. Severe Personality Pathology Scales
3. Clinical Syndrome Scales
4. Severe Clinical Syndrome Scales
5. Modifying Indices
6. Validity Index
Millon Clinical Multi-axial Inventory, 3rd
Ed. (MCMI-III)

16. Uses Base Rate (BR): Converts raw score to a more
meaningful standardized score
Sets median for non-psychiatric individuals at 35, and 60
for psychiatric population.
A BR of 75 indicates that some of the features are present
while a BR of 85 indicates that the trait is clearly present.
Reliability ranges from .67 to .90.
Other studies demonstrated predictive validity for the
instrument with DSM-IV-TR diagnoses.

17. Most widely used personality assessment for normal
functioning (for adolescent through adults).
Based on Jung’s work, following characteristics derived:
extroverted or introverted, sensing or intuiting, thinking
or feeling.
Myers and Briggs added judging or perceiving.
Some have questioned the reliability of results
Most agree with results and they seem to correlate with
scores on other tests (e.g., CPI).
The Myers-BriggsType Indicator

18. Describe basic personality characteristics.
Used with normal clients; helpful to further client insight.
Twenty folks scales, 3 vectors
13 “special scales” available with computer scoring,
usually used for career and business-related activities.
UsesT scores. Generally, the higher the better, but some
argue that low scores fit their personality better.
Reliability: .68 - .76.
Some scales correlate too highly with one another
(questionable factor purity).
The California Personality Inventory
(CPI)

19. There are dozens of common objective personality tests.
Some others, include:
• 16 PF: Measures 16 personality factors identified by
Raymond Cattell.
• Taylor-JohnsonTemperament Analysis: Assesses
personality variables that effect social, family, marital,
work, and other environments.
• The Marital Satisfaction Inventory: Assesses the severity
and nature of conflict in a relationship.
• Miller Marriage Satisfaction Rating Scale: Reports how a
couples’ satisfaction compares to another couples’. (On-
line—lack of validity data).
Name Recognition

20. ProjectiveTest

21. Defined:
Type of personality assessment where a client is
presented a stimuli and personality factors are
interpreted.
Often used to identify psychopathology and to assist in
treatment planning.
Much more difficult to measure validity when one is
dealing with abstract responses to vague stimuli, such as
those in projective tests.

22. Story telling
Thematic
ApperceptionTest(TAT)
• Developed in 1938 Henry Murray
• Series of 31 cards with vague pictures
on them.
• 8 to 12 cards generally used during an
assessment
• Examiner asks the client to create and
describe a story that has a beginning,
middle and end.
• Based on Murray's need-press theory:
People driven by internal desires, such
as attitudes, values, goals, etc.
(needs), or external stimuli (press)
from the environment.
• No universally agreed upon scoring
and interpretation method.

23. Rorschach Inkblot
technique

24. Herman Rorschach developed inkblot test in 1921 by
splattering ink on paper and folding them in half.
Chose 10 final cards that have become the Rorschach
inkblot test still used today.
When giving the Rorschach, clinicians show clients cards,
one at a time, and ask them to tell them what they see on
the card.
Rorschach believed images on the inkblots allowed one to
express his or her unconscious.
Difficulty showing adequate validity.
Requires extensive training and practice to use.

25. Expert scoring system uses three components:
Location: where on blot response occurred (e.g.,):
1. whole blot (w), 3. unusual details (Dd),
2. common details (D), 4. white space details (S)
Determinants: how examinee understood what was seen:
form (“that looks just like a bat”)
color (e.g., “it’s blood, because it’s red”)
shading (“it looks like smoke because it’s grayish-white”).
Content: 22 categories, e.g.,: whole human, human detail,
animal, art, blood, clouds, fire, household items, sex, etc.
Specific content can hold meaning.

26. Sentence-completion tasks have become very popular in
clinical assessment.They are simple to administer and
take little time.
Test takers are presented with a series of sentence steins,
such as "My mother..." or "I hate...," which they complete
in their own words.
Although some people view these as self-report tasks,
most clinicians see sentence completion as a projective
technique.Test takers are confronted with ambiguous
stimuli, and the way they respond to these stimuli is likely
to reveal their personal issues.
Sentence completion test

27. Drawing tests try to tap into unconscious. Focus might
vary depending on content of test.
Some popular ones:
• House-Tree-Person
• Kinetic-House-Tree-Person
• Draw-A-Man
• Draw-A-Woman
• Kinetic Family Drawing: Draw a picture of your family
all doing something together.
Projective Drawing

28. The process of measuring and observing a person’s
actual behavior to try and better understand behaviors
and thoughts behind it.
Core of this is naturalistic observation
Self- Monitoring:
One of the component of behavioral assessment, hen a
person is asked to keep a mood journal and track their
moods over the course of a week or month.
Inventories and checklists:
Online popular, in the form of quizzes, also a
component, For instance, the Beck Depression
Inventory(BDI)
Behavioral Assessment:

29. Single-construct tests such as the Beck Depression
Inventory or Beck Anxiety Inventory.
State vs. trait testing such as
Spiel berger’s State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory
(STAXI) and
State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI)
SpecializedTests for Clinical Disorders

30. • Clinical assessment results in making decisions for
clients that will critically affect their lives.
• Such decisions can result in a person being labeled,
institutionalized, incarcerated, stigmatized, placed on
medication, lose or gain a job, have access to their
children, and more.
• Examiners must remember the impact that their
decisions will have on clients and monitor:
• the quality of the tests they use
• their level of competence to administer tests,
• their ability at making accurate interpretations of client
material.
FinalThoughts on Clinical Assessment