Assessment of personality disorders in childhood

Assessment plays a central role in all aspects of clinical work with children and adolescents exhibiting disordered behavior and thought patterns. Assessment provides the basis for the initial diagnosis of a personality disorder; it can also guide the development of a treatment plan and be utilized to monitor intervention efforts over time. Although the DSM-IV indicates that personality disorder diagnosis in children and adolescents should be a "relatively unusual instance," research summarized in the chapters that follow offer evidence suggesting that such diagnoses are warranted in a greater number of instances than currently acknowledged. Like the diagnoses themselves, the assessment of personality disorders in children and adolescents is an emerging field that has not been extensively discussed or researched in the professional literature. Topics discussed in this chapter include personality assessment; psychometric considerations in development and use of personality tests; and an overview of the assessment of child and adolescent personality disorders. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (create)