WELCOME TO CHILD AND ADOLESCENT

PSYCHOPATHOLOGY

Dr. Geoff Goodmanext. 4277

ggoodman@liu.edu

Course Website:

http://myweb.cwpost.liu.edu/ggoodman/home.htm

BASIC COURSE OVERVIEW Please briefly share your academic, professional,

and clinical experiences. What are your expectations for this course?

Syllabus: Did everyone receive a syllabus, books, and

course packs? Class dates

Q–SORT METHODOLOGY Idiographic versus nomothetic method

o Idiographic – Study of the person (Q-methodology)o Nomothetic – Study of the population (Likert scale)

Carl Rogers and Q-methodologyo Profile of the patient’s actual selfo Profile of the patient’s ideal self

Other Useso Attachment research (Attachment Q-Set)o Psychotherapy research (Child Psychotherapy Q-Set)o Personality research (California Child Q-Set)

What Is a Q-Set? Typically, 100 items assessing a particular child Each item is rated on a scale from 1 to 9

o 1 = most uncharacteristic of that childo 9 = most characteristic of that child

The distribution of items is forcedo Each rating is endorsed a specified number of timeso Distribution: 5-8-12-16-18-16-12-8-5 (normal, bell-

shaped distribution) Advantages of Q-sorting

o Controls for response biaseso Makes statistical analysis easier – no skewness or

kurtosis

CALIFORNIA CHILD Q-SET (CCQ)

Assesses the psychological adjustment of a child Examples from the CCQ

o He is an interesting child; people notice him and remember him (item 42)

o He pays attention well and can concentrate on things (item 66)

o He feels unworthy; he has a low opinion of himself (item 77)

TWO WAYS OF USING CPQ Quantifying psychological adjustment of an actual

child from a video recording or a case formulation Quantifying optimal psychological adjustment

o Item placement should reflect how you think an optimally adjusted child should look

o Neutral items or not applicable items should tend toward middle piles

MECHANICS OF Q-SORTING Shuffle cards Make two passes through all the cards

o First pass – divide items into three piles• Left pile – uncharacteristic items• Right pile – characteristic items• Middle pile – neither uncharacteristic nor characteristic or not applicable• Middle pile should be roughly twice as large as left and right piles

o Second pass – further divide each of these three piles into three piles• Left pile – 5, 8 , and 12 items (25 items total)• Right pile – 12, 8, and 5 items (25 items total)• Middle pile – 16, 18, and 16 items (50 items total)• Make adjustments

• Borrowing items from middle pile• Throwing items into middle pile

Other helpful hintso Stagger items when stacking them so that item labels can be seeno Read item descriptions carefully

Mechanics of Q-Sorting (cont.)

Recording your item distributionso Record the item numbers in each pile on the coding sheeto To make item location easier, you can try to write the numbers in

numerical order on the coding sheeto Using the coding sheet, record these items in an Excel or SPSS

spreadsheeto The first column of numbers represents the item numberso In the second column, record the pile number (1-9)o If possible, run a frequency count of your distribution, which

should look like this: • 5-8-12-16-18-16-12-8-5• 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

o I will copy and paste your distribution into a master file, from which I will check the accuracy of your distribution’s frequency count

THE Q-SORT ASSIGNMENTS

Prototypical Q-sorts (beginning and end of course)o What does an optimally adjusted child look like?o Did your knowledge of optimal psychological adjustment

change over time based on your knowledge of child psychopathology?

Work sample Q-sorto What does your Q-sort of an actual child look like?o How correlated is your actual Q-sort with your

prototypical Q-sort?

THE Q-SORT ASSIGNMENTS (CONT.)

Checking adherence to optimal psychological adjustmento Correlation with your prototypical Q-sorto Correlation with the prototypical Q-sort developed by

Jack Block• E-mail me your Excel spreadsheet and label your file with

your last name• Send your file two days before class so that I can give you

feedback in class• I will return Q-sorts with incorrect frequency counts to be

fixed