For children, experiencing a traumatic event—such as physical or sexual abuse, neglect, victimization by a peer, the death of a parent, witnessing a violent act, experiencing a natural disaster, and more—can have devastating and lasting psychological effects.
According to the National Children’s Alliance, child abuse victims experience trauma symptoms like fear, sleep disturbances, anxiety, and depression at rates verging on those experienced by war veterans. In addition, they are more likely to perform poorly in school, have behavior problems at home, and, left untreated, have poor long-term mental and physical health.
Getting these children the help and healing they need has historically relied on the results of a forensic interview. However, clinical intake evaluation results can vary based on the clinician’s training and experience, and the time involved in administering and scoring standardized tests often precludes their use in settings like children’s advocacy centers, which see large numbers of children in relatively short periods of time.
The Trauma Symptom Checklist for Children (TSCC) Screening Form and Trauma Symptom Checklist for Young Children (TSCYC) Screening Form were developed based on a critical need for standardized screening measures that can quickly evaluate trauma symptomology and risk in children who have experienced abuse or trauma.
The one-page carbonless screening forms, which are also available in Spanish, take just 5 minutes to administer and score and can be used to assist practitioners in the field with the treatment referral process.
Derived from the full-form TSCC (a 54-item self-report for youth ages 8 to 17 years) and TSCYC (a 90-item caretaker report for children ages 3 to 12 years), both the TSCC and TSCYC screening forms include 12 items and two subscales—General Trauma and Sexual Concerns—that are scored separately. Selected items were best at predicting overall trauma and sexual-related symptomology within their respective normative samples on the full forms.
These new TSCC and TSCYC screening forms are reliable and valid measures that quickly indicate whether a child or youth is at risk for a clinically significant psychological disturbance. This helps clinicians determine the need for follow-up testing and can help children get on the path toward healing.
Reading comprehension is a seemingly simple task. However, teaching, learning, and practicing this skill is not as simple as it would seem—and evaluating it is often just as difficult. The RAND Reading Study Group defines reading comprehension as “the process of simultaneously extracting and constructing meaning through interaction and involvement with written language” (p. xiii).
There have been many assessment formats developed to tap into what (and if) students are comprehending what they read. For instance, the cloze procedure asks readers to fill in a missing word within a sentence. However, test takers may have the tendency to focus on the immediate context of the question instead of the entire passage. Multiple-choice questions, easy to develop and score, may rely on passageless comprehension–that is, the likelihood that an examinee could take an educated guess based on prior knowledge, without reading the entire passage, and still score correctly.
According to the RAND study group, there are four factors that influence reading comprehension: the reader (e.g., his or her skills, knowledge, and preferences); the text (e.g., vocabulary, structure, and reading level); the reading activity (e.g., web site or novel); and reading over time (e.g., cognitive development).
When developing the Academic Achievement Battery Reading Comprehension: Passages subtest, author Melissa A. Messer took these factors into account and developed a valid and reliable reading comprehension test that is accurate and appropriate for all age and grade levels.
The novel approach used to develop this subtest identifies reading comprehension strengths and weaknesses across a wide and grade range. Learn more about the development of this AAB subtest in a new white paper available now on our website.
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This week, PAR staff will be exhibiting at two conferences. Here's a sneak peek into what you will find when you come visit us at the booth!
A group of PAR staff will be attending the 16th American Academy of Clinical Neuropsychology Conference (AACN) in San Diego, California. We will have many products on display, including the Neuropsychological Assessment Battery (NAB). We will be offering conference attendees a 15% discount and free ground shipping, so make sure to stop by and say hi while taking advantage of your conference discount!
Another group of PAR staff members will be heading to the National Career Development Association Conference (NCDA) in Phoenix, Arizona. Not only will we be giving our attendees a 15% discount and free ground shipping, we’ll also be giving out free Self-Directed Search (SDS) sample packs at our booth.
There will be two sessions at NCDA focusing on the revised SDS. "Development and Evaluation of Revised Self-Directed Search Materials and Online Reports" will be presented Friday, June 22, from 11:20 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., and "Using Self-Directed Search and My Next Move for Veterans" will be presented Saturday, June 23, from 10 to 11 a.m.
To see where we will be next, visit our Conferences and Workshops page.
If you’re looking for a test to identify young children who may be at risk for school failure, look to the new YCAT-2. This latest update yields an overall Early Achievement score as well as individual subtest scores for General Information, Mathematics, Reading, Writing, and Spoken Language. Each of the subtests can be administered independently and all can be transformed to standard scores, percentiles, and age equivalents. The YCAT-2 was normed on a representative sample of 846 children representing 25 states and 226 different ZIP codes. Reliability was studied using coefficient alpha, test–retest, and interscorer procedures. The average coefficient alpha for the full normative sample ranges from .85 to .95 for the subtests and is .97 for the overall composite. The YCAT-2 provides extensive validity evidence for content-description validity, criterion-prediction validity, and construct-identification validity. Visit our YCAT-2 product page for additional information or to order the YCAT-2 today!
PAR is proud to announce we have added a white paper on how to use the Autism Spectrum Disorder Decision Tree with the PDD Behavior Inventory to our website. This supplemental resource will help readers use the products for screening and intervention planning.
Customers can find the new white paper under the Resources tab on the PDDBI page or via this direct link.
The PDDBI: Autism Spectrum Disorder Decision Tree (ASD-DT) can help clinicians navigate the challenging path of a possible autism spectrum disorder diagnosis. Using scores from the PDDBI Extended Form, the ASD-DT can help identify an ASD subgroup or a non-ASD diagnosis. The ASD-DT and the PDDBI provide a standardized measure to help clinicians work through many possibilities to provide precise intervention recommendations.
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Let the PDDBI: Autism Spectrum Disorder Decision Tree (ASD-DT) help you find the way when navigating the challenging path of a possible autism spectrum disorder diagnosis. Using scores from the PDDBI Extended Form, the ASD-DT leads you toward a diagnostic category that can help identify an ASD subgroup or a non-ASD diagnosis. The ASD-DT and the PDDBI provide a standardized measure to help you work through many possibilities to provide precise intervention recommendations. The ASD-DT can be purchased on its own or as part of the PDDBI Comprehensive Kit. Learn more today!
Forty years ago this week, Bob Smith started PAR on his kitchen table. There was just one product—scoring keys for the MMPI. Today, PAR carries approximately 500 print and digital products to help psychologists and other mental health professionals in their assessment process. Along the way, PAR has succeeded in more than just publishing quality assessment products to serve our Customers; PAR has created a culture of caring that extends to staff, our community, and the world at large. This weekend, in celebration of this milestone anniversary, PAR staff presented this video to thank Bob and Cathy Smith for everything they have done to make this a truly special place to work. We invite you to share our open letter to our founders.
This Friday, we will be closed in celebration of our 40th anniversary. In honor of four decades in the test publishing business, we present a list of things you may not know about PAR. Check back next week for a recap of our festivities!
1. PAR released its first product in 1978—scoring keys for the MMPI.
2. PAR was started on Bob and Cathy Smith’s kitchen table. That kitchen table is now in the break room of our South Building.
3. Our Customer Support team has a combined 120 years of experience, making them exceptionally well versed on all of our products.
4. PAR’s Distribution Center has a 99.99% accuracy rate, meaning you get exactly what you need, delivered when you need it.
5. We love to give back. We participate in about 50 events annually to benefit community organizations and donate time and financial support to more than 70 organizations per year.
As we celebrate, we do so knowing that our Customers have made the last 40 years possible. Thank you for your loyal support and patronage.
Looking at things from another perspective often makes them clearer. In psychological testing, for instance, rating scales are often used to glean information about a single client from observers who are close to that client, such as parents and teachers. Used in conjunction with a client’s self-report data, observer reports can give clinicians a well-rounded picture of a client’s functioning. This not only helps them narrow down and identify a client’s diagnosis, but it also helps them develop appropriate and effective treatment options.
PAR’s newest assessment instrument, the Personality Assessment Screener–Observer (PAS-O), is an observer report designed to complement the self-report Personality Assessment Screener (PAS). Derived from the gold-standard Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI)—one of the most important innovations in the field of personality assessment—the PAS screens for a wide range of contemporary clinical problems in just 5 minutes.
Using the same 22 items on the PAS, which were selected because they are the most sensitive to a broad range of clinical problems, the PAS-O provides clinicians with information about a client from the perspective of someone close to that client, such as a spouse, parent, or close friend. It can be used to support PAS scores, validate problem areas, and indicate the need for follow-up testing. The PAS-O is the only informant personality assessment normed on score discrepancies, and it was normed on both community and clinical samples composed of dyad pairs. It takes just 5 minutes to administer and features 10 elements representing 10 distinct domains of clinical problems.
Discrepancy scores for the PAS-O can also be calculated using scores from the full PAI rather than the PAS. If self-report ratings from a client are not available due to confusion, thought disorder, or other limitations, the PAS-O can be used in isolation and provides a metric indicating the likelihood that the client would have an elevated PAI score.
Learn more about the PAS-O or purchase your PAS-O Introductory Kit or PAS/PAS-O Combination Kit today!