Multicultural Evidence-Based Assessment of Child and Adolescent Psychopathology

Abstract

This article presents multicultural ways to advance knowledge of children’s problems, to fashion conceptual and practical mental health tools, and to use these tools to help children. Diagnostically based scales and statistically derived syndromes are scored from parallel forms completed by population samples of parents, caregivers, teachers, and youths in many societies. The scores are incorporated into multicultural norms for evaluating individual children, as rated by different respondents in relation to relevant norms, such as norms for host societies where immigrant children reside and norms for their families’ home societies. Syndrome structures have been supported in 44 societies. Certain age, gender, and SES effects are consistent across many societies. As reported in over 7000 publications from 85 societies and cultural groups, evidence-based assessment provides a common data language for clinicians, trainees, and researchers around the world.