Around the world, many immigrant and minority children are immersed in mental health, social welfare, and educational systems that are ill equipped to evaluate and help them. This important volume synthesizes an array of international findings to broaden the knowledge base on cultural variations in children's emotional and behavioral problems. Drawing on both empirically based and diagnostically based approaches, the authors examine similarities and differences in the prevalence, patterns, and correlates of particular disorders. They distinguish between culture-specific and more general problems in adaptation, identify instruments and procedures that are particularly suited to multicultural assessment, and discuss the implications for developing more effective services. --- from the publisher Critical Acclaim: "This significant book treats very complicated issues in a succinct, understandable way. To my knowledge, there are no authors at present who have a better understanding of these issues than Achenbach and Rescorla. The main strength of the book is its comprehensive integration of multicultural findings from both empirically based and diagnostically based assessment approaches. In the era of globalization and increasing cultural diversity, this text is sure to be consulted again and again by those concerned with understanding, assessing, preventing, and treating child psychopathology."-Frank C. Verhulst, MD,
Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry "This is an excellent book that combines what are soon to become dominant themes in the field of psychopathology; namely, evidence-based assessment and multicultural perspectives. Culture, diversity, and group identity are not sidelights or afterthoughts, but must be the point of departure for understanding, evaluating, and treating clinical problems; for teaching students; and for training researchers. Broad in its coverage, the book provides a conceptual view of child and adolescent assessment, a review of key measures and their findings, and a statement of important methodological issues in evaluating clinical disorders. The volume's approach and findings will greatly influence views about childhood disorders as well as future research. Achenbach and Rescorla have produced a scholarly, informative, and authoritative text."-Alan E. Kazdin, PhD, Child Study Center, Yale University School of Medicine
"An excellent guidebook for approaching child and adolescent psychopathology from a multicultural perspective. A unique contribution to empirically grounded cross-cultural research, this book will have a profound impact on future research and on clinical practice involving different ethnocultural populations. The integration of the empirical and diagnostic approaches to assessment makes this an essential text for those involved in cross-cultural research and clinical work at any level."
-Héctor R. Bird, MD, Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Columbia University Contents: 1. Why Should We Do Multicultural Research on Children's Problems?
2. The Empirically Based "Bottom-Up" Approach to Psychopathology
3. The Diagnostically Based "Top-Down" Approach to Psychopathology
4. Multicultural Findings on Scores Obtained with Empirically Based Assessment Instruments
5. Multicultural Findings on Correlates of Empirically Based Scale Scores
6. Multicultural Findings on Patterns of Problems in Empirically Based Assessment Instruments
7. Multicultural Findings on the Prevalence of Diagnostically Based Disorders
8. Multicultural Findings on Correlates and Comorbidity of Diagnostically Based Disorders
9. Comparisons of Empirically Based and Diagnostically Based Findings
10. Meeting Challenges Posed by Multicultural Research on Children's Problems
11. Contributions of Multicultural Research to Understanding, Assessing, Preventing, and Treating Child Psychopathology |
