Addressing the Elephant in the Room: Validity of Psychological Assessments Used with Children and Adolescents in India

Abstract

Psychological assessment process involves administration, scoring, interpretation, and report writing. In addition to the human resource, time, and effort required for the training, the assessment process itself requires significant time and effort on the part of trained professionals. This automatically translates into the cost, which sometimes can be significant. Given the significantly limited number of trained psychologists who are in clinical practice in India compared to the extent of the population of the country, the amount of assessment work can take away precious time from the intervention services. On the other hand, a significant number of psychological assessment tests used in India are generally old with outdated norms, are poorly standardized, and are not keeping pace with the global development. Given these issues, mental health profession on the whole, as well as the clients/patients can question the validity of the psychological assessments or some specific assessments. This article tries to discuss some of the issues related to the validity of the psychological assessments in general and in specific domains, such as ability, achievement, and psychopathology. In addition to mentioned issues, the article also tries to suggest possible measures to overcome those limitations.