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The Influence of Clinical Experience and Assessment Method on the Evaluation of Child Behavior Change

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Abstract

This research examined how people’s ability to detect behavior change in simulated child targets is affected by their clinical experience and the assessment method they use. When using summary assessment methods that are widely employed in research and clinical practice, both inexperienced and experienced clinical staff detected changes in the overall frequency of targets’ aggressive behavior, but were not uniquely influenced by changes in targets’ reactions to social events. When using contextualized assessment methods that focused on conditional reactions, experienced staff showed greater sensitivity than novices to context-specific changes in targets’ aggressive and prosocial reactions to aversive events. Experienced staff also showed greater sensitivity to context-specific changes in their overall impressions of change, but only for aggression. The findings show how clinically experienced judges become more attuned to if…then… contingencies in children’s social behavior, and how summary assessment methods may hamper the detection of change processes.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported in part by a National Service Agency AmeriCorps Grant. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the AmeriCorps program. We would like to thank Dennis Calcutt, Noel O’Connor, Maggie Cochran, Carrington Giammittorio, and Pamela Peterson for their assistance. We are especially grateful to Harry Parad, Director of Wediko Children’s Services, whose support made this research possible.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Cognitive, Linguistic, & Psychological Sciences, Brown University, 190 Thayer Street, Box 1821, Providence, RI, 02912, USA

    Anselma G. Hartley, Jack C. Wright & Catherine McCarthy

  2. Department of Psychology, Connecticut College, Box 5646, 270 Mohegan Avenue, New London, CT, 06320, USA

    Audrey L. Zakriski

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  1. Anselma G. Hartley
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Correspondence to Anselma G. Hartley.

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Hartley, A.G., Wright, J.C., Zakriski, A.L. et al. The Influence of Clinical Experience and Assessment Method on the Evaluation of Child Behavior Change. J Psychopathol Behav Assess 36, 358–370 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10862-013-9401-2

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