Assessing Impairment

Impairment and disability are widely used terms, yet considerable disagreement exists as to their relationship—especially when impairment means different things to different professionals in the fields of mental health, medicine, and education. Although diagnostic criteria for various disorders are clearly detailed in the DSM-IV and elsewhere, criteria for impairment remain elusive. And patients with severe limitations but minimal symptoms, or the reverse, further complicate the discussion. The first in-depth treatment of the theory, definition, and evaluation of this core concept, Assessing Impairment: From Theory to Practice cuts through the confusion and cross-talk. Leading scholars and clinicians offer a robust evidence base for a much-needed reconceptualization of impairment within the context of diagnosis and disability, arguing for a wide-ranging quality-of-life perspective. This contextual approach to assessment goes beyond mere symptom counting, resulting in more accurate diagnosis, targeted interventions, and improved patient functioning. Within this concise but comprehensive volume, coverage focuses on key areas including: Current conceptualizations from the DSM-IV and other medical models. Methodologies for measuring symptom severity and impairment. Social/behavioral issues, such as resilience, adaptive behaviors, and family environment. Developmental issues across the life span. Legal and ethical questions and civil rights issues. Impairment and disability as they relate to trauma. The interdisciplinary model proposed in Assessing Impairment gives clinicians vital tools for working with the unique limitations and strengths of every patient. Child, school, and educational psychologists will find it particularly useful, given the critical importance of early detection and the complexity of young people’s lives.

This Second Edition of the book expands on the in-depth treatment of the theory, definition, and evaluation of impairment presented in the original volume. It explores the complex relationships between disabling conditions and impairment, with new data and insights on assessment and potential avenues for treatment. Original and revised chapters critique current models of impairment and offers an integrated model rooted in the contexts of medical, mental health, and cognitive challenges in disability. Leading scholars and clinicians provide updated evidence for a much-needed reconceptualization of impairment within the context of diagnosis and disability. This contextual approach to assessment – a wide-ranging quality-of life perspective – goes beyond symptom counting, resulting in more accurate diagnosis, targeted interventions, and improved patient functioning. Topics featured in this book include: The role of family and cross-setting supports in reducing impairment. Relationships between adaptive behavior and impairment. Legal conceptions of impairment and its implications for the assessment of psychiatric disabilities. Impairment in parenting. The Neuropsychological Impairment Scale (NIS). The Barkley Functional Impairment Scale (BFIS). The Rating Scale of Impairment (RSI). Treatment integrity in interventions for children diagnosed with DSM-5 disorders. Assessing Impairment, Second Edition, is a must-have resource for researchers, clinicians, professionals, and graduate students in clinical child, school, and developmental psychology as well as child and adolescent psychiatry, educational psychology, rehabilitation medicine/therapy, social work, and pediatrics.

Second language learners often produce language forms resembling those of children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI). At present, professionals working in language assessment and education have only limited diagnostic instruments to distinguish language impaired migrant children from those who will eventually catch up with their monolingual peers. This book presents a comprehensive set of tools for assessing the linguistic abilities of bilingual children. It aims to disentangle effects of bilingualism from those of SLI, making use of both models of bilingualism and models of language impairment. The book's methods-oriented focus will make it an essential handbook for practitioners who look for measures which could be adapted to a variety of languages in diverse communities, as well as academic researchers.

Collaborative Assessment is designed to help all professionals who work with visually impaired students understand the impact of visual impairment on assessing students' learning potential. Written by the expert assessment team at the California School for the Blind, this book focuses on evaluating students in a variety of areas, including psychology, speech and language, orientation and mobility, and technology, and provides a framework for developing a cooperative, interactive team of professionals from a variety of disciplines to achieve accurate evaluation of the needs and strengths of students. School psychologists, speech and language pathologists, administrators, teachers, and parents will find this book invaluable. Includes helpful forms and checklists and annotated lists of assessments in each area.

The most recent high-profile advocate for Americans with disabilities, actor Christopher Reeve, has highlighted for the public the economic and social costs of disability and the importance of rehabilitation. Enabling America is a major analysis of the field of rehabilitation science and engineering. The book explains how to achieve recognition for this evolving field of study, how to set priorities, and how to improve the organization and administration of the numerous federal research programs in this area. The committee introduces the "enabling-disability process" model, which enhances the concepts of disability and rehabilitation, and reviews what is known and what research priorities are emerging in the areas of: Pathology and impairment, including differences between children and adults. Functional limitationsâ€"in a person's ability to eat or walk, for example. Disability as the interaction between a person's pathologies, impairments, and functional limitations and the surrounding physical and social environments. This landmark volume will be of special interest to anyone involved in rehabilitation science and engineering: federal policymakers, rehabilitation practitioners and administrators, researchers, and advocates for persons with disabilities.

The current leading cause of visual impairment among children is not a disease or condition of the eyes, but cortical visual impairment (CVI)-also known as cerebral visual impairment-in which visual dysfunction is caused by damage or injury to the brain. The definition, nature, and treatment of CVI are the focus of great concern and widespread debate, and this complex condition poses challenges to professionals and families seeking to support the growth and development of visually impaired children. On the basis of more than 30 years' experience in working with hundreds of children of all ages with CVI, Christine Roman-Lantzy has developed a set of unique assessment tools and systematic, targeted principles whose use has helped children learn to use their vision more effectively. This one-of-a-kind resource provides readers with both a conceptual framework with which to understand working with CVI and concrete strategies to apply directly in their work.

The go-to resource for clinical and forensic practice has now been significantly revised with 85% new material, reflecting the tremendous growth of the field. Leading authorities synthesize the state of the science on symptom feigning in cognitive testing and present evidence-based recommendations for distinguishing between credible and noncredible performance. A wide range of performance validity tests (PVTs) and symptom validity tests (SVTs) are critically reviewed and guidelines provided for applying them across differing cognitive domains and medical, neurological, and psychiatric conditions. The book also covers validity testing in forensic settings and with particular populations, such as ethnic and linguistic minority group members. New to This Edition *Numerous new authors, a greatly expanded range of topics, and the latest data throughout. *"Clinical primer" chapter on how to select and interpret appropriate PVTs. *Chapters on methods for validity testing in visual–spatial, processing speed, and language domains and with cognitive screening instruments and personality inventories. *Chapter on methods for interpreting multiple PVTs in combination. *Chapters on additional populations (military personnel, children and adolescents) and clinical problems (dementia, somatoform/conversion disorder). *Chapters on research methods for validating PVTs, base rates of feigned mild traumatic brain injury, and more.

The most recent high-profile advocate for Americans with disabilities, actor Christopher Reeve, has highlighted for the public the economic and social costs of disability and the importance of rehabilitation. Enabling America is a major analysis of the field of rehabilitation science and engineering. The book explains how to achieve recognition for this evolving field of study, how to set priorities, and how to improve the organization and administration of the numerous federal research programs in this area. The committee introduces the "enabling-disability process" model, which enhances the concepts of disability and rehabilitation, and reviews what is known and what research priorities are emerging in the areas of: Pathology and impairment, including differences between children and adults. Functional limitationsâ€"in a person's ability to eat or walk, for example. Disability as the interaction between a person's pathologies, impairments, and functional limitations and the surrounding physical and social environments. This landmark volume will be of special interest to anyone involved in rehabilitation science and engineering: federal policymakers, rehabilitation practitioners and administrators, researchers, and advocates for persons with disabilities.

When children and adults apply for disability benefits and claim that a visual impairment has limited their ability to function, the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) is required to determine their eligibility. To ensure that these determinations are made fairly and consistently, SSA has developed criteria for eligibility and a process for assessing each claimant against the criteria. Visual Impairments: Determining Eligibility for Social Security Benefits examines SSA's methods of determining disability for people with visual impairments, recommends changes that could be made now to improve the process and the outcomes, and identifies research needed to develop improved methods for the future. The report assesses tests of visual function, including visual acuity and visual fields whether visual impairments could be measured directly through visual task performance or other means of assessing disability. These other means include job analysis databases, which include information on the importance of vision to job tasks or skills, and measures of health-related quality of life, which take a person-centered approach to assessing visual function testing of infants and children, which differs in important ways from standard adult tests.