Table Of Contentebook
THE GUILFORD PRESS
Clinical Interviews for Children and Adolescents
The Guilford Practical Intervention in the Schools Series
Kenneth W. Merrell, Founding Editor
T. Chris Riley-Tillman, Series Editor
www.guilford.com/practical
This series presents the most reader-friendly resources available in key areas of evidence-based practice in school
settings. Practitioners will find trustworthy guides on effective behavioral, mental health, and academic inter-
ventions, and assessment and measurement approaches. Covering all aspects of planning, implementing, and
evaluating high-quality services for students, books in the series are carefully crafted for everyday utility. Fea-
tures include ready-to-use reproducibles, lay-flat binding to facilitate photocopying, appealing visual elements,
and an oversized format. Recent titles have companion Web pages where purchasers can download and print the
reproducible materials.
ReCenT VolumeS
Response to Intervention, Second Edition: Principles and Strategies for Effective Practice
Rachel Brown-Chidsey and Mark W. Steege
Child and Adolescent Suicidal Behavior:
School-Based Prevention, Assessment, and Intervention
David N. Miller
Cognitive Therapy for Adolescents in School Settings
Torrey A. Creed, Jarrod Reisweber, and Aaron T. Beck
Motivational Interviewing for Effective Classroom Management: The Classroom Check-Up
Wendy M. Reinke, Keith C. Herman, and Randy Sprick
Positive Behavior Support in Secondary Schools: A Practical Guide
Ellie L. Young, Paul Caldarella, Michael J. Richardson, and K. Richard Young
Academic and Behavior Supports for At-Risk Students: Tier 2 Interventions
Melissa Stormont, Wendy M. Reinke, Keith C. Herman, and Erica S. Lembke
RTI Applications, Volume 1: Academic and Behavioral Interventions
Matthew K. Burns, T. Chris Riley-Tillman, and Amanda M. VanDerHeyden
Coaching Students with Executive Skills Deficits
Peg Dawson and Richard Guare
Enhancing Instructional Problem Solving:
An Efficient System for Assisting Struggling Learners
John C. Begeny, Ann C. Schulte, and Kent Johnson
Clinical Interviews for Children and Adolescents, Second Edition: Assessment to Intervention
Stephanie H. McConaughy
RTI Team Building: Effective Collaboration and Data-Based Decision Making
Kelly Broxterman and Angela J. Whalen
RTI Applications, Volume 2: Assessment, Analysis, and Decision Making
T. Chris Riley-Tillman, Matthew K. Burns, and Kimberly Gibbons
Daily Behavior Report Cards: An Evidence-Based System of Assessment and Intervention
Robert J. Volpe and Gregory A. Fabiano
Clinical Interviews for
Children and Adolescents
Assessment to Intervention
SEC ond EdiTion
STEphaniE h. McConaughy
ThE guiLFoRd pRESS
new york London
To my husband, Stewart, who shares my passion for understanding
other people’s perspectives and communicating effectively,
and my son, David, who was my most enjoyable interviewee
© 2013 The Guilford Press
A Division of Guilford Publications, Inc.
72 Spring Street, New York, NY 10012
www.guilford.com
All rights reserved
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Last digit is print number: 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
McConaughy, Stephanie H.
Clinical interviews for children and adolescents: assessment to intervention /
Stephanie H. McConaughy. — Second edition.
pages cm. — (The Guilford practical intervention in the school series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4625-0841-9 (pbk.: alk. paper)
1. Interviewing in child psychiatry. 2. Interviewing in adolescent psychiatry. I. Title.
RJ503.6.M329 2013
616.8900835—dc23
2012051194
About the Author
Stephanie H. McConaughy, PhD, is Research Professor Emerita of Psychiatry and Psychology
at the University of Vermont. She specializes in research and assessment of children’s behavioral,
emotional, and learning problems and is a member of the research team that developed the Achen-
bach System of Empirically Based Assessment (ASEBA). Dr. McConaughy is the author of over
60 journal articles and chapters and 8 books and assessment manuals. She is a Vermont licensed
practicing psychologist and school psychologist and a nationally certified school psychologist. She
has served on the editorial boards of professional journals in psychology and school psychology and
was an associate editor of the School Psychology Review. Dr. McConaughy’s research has been
funded by the U.S. Department of Education, the National Institute on Disability and Rehabili-
tation Research, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the National
Institute of Mental Health, the Spencer Foundation, and the W. T. Grant Foundation.
v
Preface
People love to talk about themselves. Children are no exception. Yet, without even thinking, adults
often hinder children from speaking for themselves. Ask a child a question in the presence of a par-
ent or another familiar adult and watch what happens. As the child starts to speak, the adult jumps
in to explain what the child thinks or feels, and then continues with his or her own view of the mat-
ter. Other times, when children do manage to express their views, adults counter with their own
versions of what happened and how children should think or feel. This is captured poignantly in
Cat Stevens’s lament in the song “Father and Son” from Tea for the Tillerman: “From the moment
I could talk, I was ordered to listen. . . .” In my practice as a psychologist and researcher, I have
met many children like that son struggling to be heard. These are the ones we call “rebellious,
oppositional, depressed, withdrawn, inattentive, shy, uncommunicative. . . .” Add your own words.
Learning children’s viewpoints is an essential feature of good clinical assessment. I hope this
book will enhance readers’ professional skills for hearing what troubled children have to say and
for integrating their perspectives with those of their parents, teachers, and other significant adults.
To provide a broad focus, this book discusses clinical interviewing within the framework of multi-
method assessment. Readers are encouraged to use other assessment methods along with clinical
interviews to obtain a comprehensive picture of children’s functioning. To illustrate interviewing
strategies, I have included case examples and interview segments based on research and clinical
experience with many children. All of the names used in these cases are pseudonyms, and details
of case material have been altered to protect confidentiality.
Since the first edition of this book was published in 2005, several new developments in
psychology and education have arisen, prompting the writing of this second edition. First was
increased attention to the plight of children who are victims or perpetrators of bullying. In the
past, it was common for parents, as well as teachers, to dismiss bullying and being bullied as a nor-
mal part of growing up. However, a growing research literature has shown that bullying is not part
of normal development and that it can produce serious and lasting harm. Several highly publicized
suicides have also raised awareness of the dire consequences of bullying. As a result, many adults
are paying closer attention to bullying as an important social problem that warrants intervention
vi
Preface vii
and prevention. This second edition reviews relevant research to provide an empirical basis for
interviewing children, parents, and teachers about bullying and victimization and provides guide-
lines and sample interview questions to address these issues. It also discusses the social problems
that confront gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender youth who are frequent targets of bullying.
A second development was the increasing multicultural and linguistic diversity of the U.S.
population and the challenges this presents for communication and understanding. According to
the 2009–2010 U.S. Census, 30–45% of the population identified themselves as non-White, and
18% spoke a language other than English in the home. Sensitivity to cultural and linguistic dif-
ferences is essential for effective communication with children and their parents. In this second
edition I have greatly expanded the discussion of multicultural issues and provided guidelines for
interviewing children and parents from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds.
A third development was the fast-growing use of digital technology for social communication.
As noted in Chapter 4, Pew Internet studies in 2010 and 2011 showed that over 70% of American
adolescents owned a cell phone, over 80% accessed social networking sites, and over 90% used
the Internet. Digital communication has many positive aspects, but it has also given rise to new
social hazards, including “cyberbullying” and “sexting” (transmission of sexually explicit material
via cell phones and the Internet). This second edition discusses research and legal issues regarding
potential social problems in digital communication and how to address such problems in clinical
interviews.
Finally, to facilitate assessment of children’s school and social functioning, this second edition
includes a new reproducible Semistructured Student Interview (McConaughy, 2012; Appendix
3.1), which covers children’s activities and interests, school functioning, peer relations, feelings,
and experiences of bullying or victimization. Questions about bullying and victimization have also
been added to the interview protocols for parents and teachers. As was done in the first edition,
this second edition also discusses the Semistructured Clinical Interview for Children and Adoles-
cents (SCICA; McConaughy & Achenbach, 2001), which is a more comprehensive child clinical
interview for assessing children’s family relations as well as school and social functioning.
In my research and the creation of this book, I have benefited from the help and advice of
many colleagues. I am grateful for the support of the late Kenneth W. Merrell, Founding Editor of
The Guilford Practical Intervention in the Schools Series, who encouraged me to write both edi-
tions of this book. I, along with many in our field, mourn the loss of a valuable friend and colleague.
I am grateful to Natalie Graham, Editor, at The Guilford Press, who provided editorial advice and
support for this second edition, and to Guilford’s editorial staff for their efforts in producing this
work. I am also grateful to David Miller and William Halikias for their special chapters on assess-
ment of suicide risk and risk for violence.
I thank my colleague Thomas Achenbach at the University of Vermont, who has been a friend
and my closest collaborator in over three decades of research on empirically based assessment of
children’s emotional and behavioral problems. Our research to develop the SCICA provided the
foundation for much of the theory and interviewing strategies described in this book. Our research
efforts have been supported by the University of Vermont Research Center for Children, Youth, and
Families (RCCYF); the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development; the National
Institute of Mental Health; the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (U.S.
Department of Education); the Spencer Foundation; and the W. T. Grant Foundation. For their
insightful comments on drafts of chapters for the first edition, I am grateful to Cynthia LaRiviere,
Leslie Rescorla, James Tallmadge, and Robert Volpe. I am also grateful to Guilford’s reviewers
viii Preface
for their suggestions for this second edition. I thank Rachel Berubé at the RCCYF for her help in
locating many of the resource materials for this book.
I am very grateful to the hundreds of children who shared their thoughts and feelings in clini-
cal interviews, along with the many parents, teachers, guidance counselors, principals, and special
educators who contributed to my research and clinical work. This book represents much of what I
have learned from them as a researcher, clinician, and caring adult.
I have tried to write the text in a manner that makes theories and interviewing techniques
easy to understand and apply. Research reviews in the chapters are intended to provide empirical
bases for assessment and intervention planning. The appendices include reproducible forms for
student, parent, and teacher interviews and other assessment protocols. I hope that this book will
meet the needs of many practitioners, including school psychologists, child and adolescent clinical
psychologists, child psychiatrists, social workers, guidance counselors, special educators, behav-
ioral specialists, and other mental health practitioners who interact with children, parents, and
school staff. Graduate students in training programs for the above fields should also find this book
helpful for learning the complexities of clinical interviewing.
