Click on the following links. Please note these will open in a new window.

Video Resources

Why Our IQ Levels Are Higher Than Our Grandparents?

Learning Objective: 3.1.b. Understand the basic techniques used to assess children and families, such as diagnostic interviewing, behavioral assessment, intellectual assessment, and personality assessment.
This TED Talk with James Flynn considers why IQ has changed in recent years and why we need to continue to revise our understanding of what is intelligent.

Questions to Consider

1. Flynn discusses the implications of Luria’s research. What are these three primary implications?
2. What changes have we seen in performance on tests in the recent decades?
3. What changes have we not seen in recent decades?
    

IQ Tests/Personality Tests/Funny Test Videos

Learning Objective: 3.1.c Define and give examples of reliability and validity.
This link will take you to a YouTube channel of “psychological tests.” Pick one of these tests, watch the video and answer the following questions.

Questions to Consider

1. How might you assess the reliability of this test?
2. How might you rate the validity of this test?
3. Is this a test that you would recommend to others? Why or why not?
    

Audio Resources

Screening Mental Health in Kindergarten Is Way Too Late, Experts Say

Learning Objective: 3.1 Describe the purpose of psychological assessment and the importance of including information from multiple informants and multiple methods.
This 5-minute clip discusses the importance of screening infants and toddlers for risk factors for mental illness and describes a program that does just that.

Questions to Consider:

1. How does Healthy Steps assess young children?
2. Why is it important to look for these sign before school age?
3. What are the strengths and weaknesses of the Healthy Steps model that has a psychologist on site with the pediatrician?
    

Why is Psychiatry’s New Manual So Much Like the Old One?

Learning Objective: 3.2 Describe the DSM-5 approach to diagnosing mental disorders.
This 8 1/3-minute audio story examines what changed—and what did not—between DSM-4 and DSM-5 and the need to examine the underpinnings of the disorders rather than just the appearance of the symptoms.

Questions to Consider:

1. Why does Desmond-Hellman say that the emphasis on signs and symptoms of a disease “could be seen as holding us back”?
2. Why is the diagnosis of mental disorders behind other areas of medicine in this respect?
3. Is looking at the brain to diagnose enough? Do you think that this ought to be sufficient or are there other improvements to diagnosis and classification that need to be made?