Essay Topic:

The definition and importance of assessment for clinical psychology.

Essay Questions:

What role does assessment play in terms of clinical psychology? In what way does assessment help the professionals in different spheres of psychology? Why is assessment so important for disabled people?

Thesis Statement:

Assessment is ordinarily conducted in the next spheres: intellect, memory, language abilities, attention, behavior peculiarities, emotional and social maturity according to the age, perceptual-motor abilities, and if it is a child, the present academic achievement are required, too.

Assessment Essay

Introduction: Assessment is an integral part of clinical psychology. This is primarily due to the fact that assessment is an evaluation of a person that is suspected of having a disability, which may even relate to a medically related condition. One of the main priorities of the procedure of assessment is the evaluation of the person’s capability to perform adaptive behavior. The inability of a person to do so is often important in such field of assessment as classification of mental retardation. Assessment is ordinarily conducted in the next spheres: intellect, memory, language abilities, attention, behavior peculiarities, emotional and social maturity according to the age, perceptual-motor abilities, and if it is a child, the present academic achievement are required, too.

Owing to the farsigh of clinical psychology and its implication in different educational establishments and family centers, the procedure of assessment is often conducted when a person is still a child in order to identify his eligibility for special educational and care programs. Assessment, or to understand it better it should be called – individualized evaluation - is the way to determine whether a person is indeed experiencing difficulties and has disabilities in cognitional, emotional or other spheres. The aim of assessment is to identification the disability if it is present and to determine if the person is eligible for special type of development programs according to his diagnosis. In other words assessment is a procedure conducted in order to identify the type of the clinical exceptionality of the adult or a child. The result of the correct assessment procedure should be the choice of the right placement/development program that will provide the progress of the disabled person in different spheres of his life in term of his limitations dictated by the “exceptionality”. The procedure of assessment itself is a multiphase process. It primarily deals with the collection of the information of the assessed person. This information is collected with the diagnostic and treatment purpose. The primary procedure includes an interview and also a set of questionnaires. The interview and the questionnaires are to picture the main area the person has troubles in.

Conclusoin: The assessment can be called a “deep research” in the sphere of the suspected disability including assessment and observational methods. It is important to mention that all the assessment procedures are made individually and in the manner that is suitable and understandable for the person. The procedure includes a number of assessment tests chosen according to the area that is being evaluated. A specialist in the field the test deals with conducts the given assessment test and controls the ability of the person with suspected disability to complete it. The procedure involves both psychological and neuropsychological testing in order to make exact evaluation of the possible disability of the person. As each disability needs to be treated, the procedure of assessment leads to proper treatment decisions in order to provide any progress in the sphere of the person’s disability. The procedure of assessment does not necessarily deal with mentally retarded people, but works in to make sure the suspected disabilities are not disabilities but difficulties and vice versa.