Making Sense of Multiple Assessments With a Treatment-Informed Evaluation Framework

This post is based on the webinar “What Am I Treating? Case Conceptualization and Treatment-Informed Evaluation (TIE) in Childhood Developmental, Behavioral, and Emotional Disorders," presented by Sam Goldstein, PhD. 

Comprehensive evaluations—in which an evaluator considers information provided by different contributors, in varied settings, with multiple assessments—produce a lot of data, possibly even an overwhelming amount of data. Sam Goldstein, PhD, uses a treatment-informed framework to make sense of the volumes of information and to ensure that comprehensive evaluations lead to holistic, effective treatments.  

Downloadable PDF

Using a Treatment-Informed Evaluation Framework

1. Understand the individual’s complex history.
   • The documents available to you may depend on the age of the person you’re evaluating.
   • When possible, review documents and interview parents, teachers, and health professionals to create a rich, vivid picture of the individual.
2. Assess for impairment.
   • As you plan which assessments to use, Goldstein recommends that you consider these test characteristics: sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value. 
3. Assess a broad spectrum of abilities and behaviors. ​
   • Gather information on symptoms, skills, and abilities using valid, reliable, normative measures.
4. Choose narrow-spectrum tools. 
   • Decide on narrow-spectrum measures based on which areas or symptoms are most disruptive to the life or well-being of your client.
5. Assess achievement and social functioning.​
   • Develop an understanding of the individual as a whole—not as a collection of deficits but as an individual with strengths and skills living in environments that offer varying levels of support.
6. Assess resilience-building factors.​
   • Identify protective factors that could enable a child to weather adversity, you should assess home, school, and work environments as well as your client’s own characteristics and abilities.
7. Assess personality.​
   • TIE is based on the principle that relieving symptoms has immediate value, while nurturing assets has long-term value as children move into adolescence and adulthood. 
8. Conduct a clinical interview with the person at the center of the evaluation. 
   • Structured or semi-structured clinical interviews can help you integrate data, refine a diagnosis, tailor interventions to match each person’s needs and goals, and build an alliance that will support positive outcomes.

What’s the key message?   

Comprehensive TIEs can lead to reliable diagnoses. Perhaps more importantly, they can open a child’s world to you, leading to effective, highly individual treatment plans.

Source

Goldstein, Sam. (2022). What Am I Treating? Case Conceptualization and Treatment-Informed Evaluation (TIE) in Childhood Developmental, Behavioral, and Emotional Disorders [PowerPoint presentation].