Assessment of Childhood Behavioral Disorders

Abstract

The purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of some of the common assessment measures for emotional/behavioral problems, and to review whether they have been tested for use with Asian-American youth samples. When psychometric data is lacking for Asian-American groups in the extant literature, we discuss psychometric studies undertaken in Asian countries. Some measures for which psychometric data are available only for Asian populations are also highlighted. Asian-American youths in the USA are quite diverse, consisting of immigrants and first generation individuals who may ascribe more to the values of their country of origin, as well as those youth whose families have been in the USA for several generations and/or those who have adopted a strong affiliation to the mainstream American culture. In comparison, their counterparts who reside in Asian countries may more readily behave in accordance with the values of the indigenous culture. Although the two populations are quite different, learning about how the instrument operates with samples from Asian countries might represent an important step towards understanding how these assessment tools might work for their Asian-American counterparts, particularly those who report a higher cultural affiliation to their indigenous cultures. In addition, such information may help inform the selection of assessment tools and interpretation of results. Finally, we conclude with recommendations of how to utilize these measures and provide suggestions for future research to improve the utility of behavioral assessments for Asian-American youth. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)