Children depression inventory essay samples

Children depression inventory (CDI) refers to a psychological assessment of the impact of depression children as well as young adolescents. The psychological assessment evaluates the symptom of depression among children where they are rate depending on the severity of the disorders. Over the years, the psychological assessment has undergone various developments and currently is in its second edition (Bae 304). At first, the psychological measure was introduced in the united state of America to children who were school going. It was administered to children ages eight years and above whom basically could read comprehend vocabularies. To the end, the paper will focus on examining children depression inventory in detail and discuss the various ways the assessment has been used across the world among children. Various articles with regard to children depression inventory shall be compared and in the paper. In addition, particular attention will be placed on the various ways this measure has been put to use. Most importantly, attention will be put on assessing and establishing the person who qualifies to undertake the assessment depending on the setting as well as give valid reasons as to why the measure is the most appropriate. Finally, a discussion will be made on the target group that the psychological assessment best suits as well as the group of people it cannot be employed.
CDI 2 psychological assessment is more comprehensive such that it can be combined with reliable and verified information from other source with regard to children to help in identifying depressive symptoms. It can also be used to diagnose depress as well as other related disorders. In addition, it is used to monitor the effectiveness of the treatment depressed children undergo.
Various scholars have conducted studies to determine how CDI has been used to assess the intensity of depression among children. In his study, Taylor (1317) focusing on children belonging to low social economic class and those from the from middle social economic class from different parts of the world, indicated that boys from African –American would score high on the CDI 2 compared to boy from other continent for instance Asia. Another resulted that was apparent from the study is that children above 12 years of age scored higher in the CDI 2 compared to children whose age was below 12years. The difference noted was, however, minimal and the findings of the research attributed the difference to different changes that occur during the growth process at this stage of development. Some of the notable development process includes change in the brain structure, and children maturation at this age. The study also established that children at lower ages record a high scale in CDI 2 compare to children in the higher age bracket (Taylor 1320).
Besides, Bae (304) focused on application o CDI 2 among children with diabetic conditions to establish the scale of children depression. It was noted that for children with the diabetic condition, the scale of the result resembled those of children who were depressed. Furthermore, it was also noted that the diabetic children exhibited similar characteristics as emotionally disturbed children because diabetes among them resulted t emotional upheaval which are depressive (Bae 306).
Comparing the findings from the above mentioned studies, it is evident that there is different construct among children that influenced the results. Some of the notable constructs established include ineffectiveness of the children, as well as interpersonal problem from one child to the other. For instance, it was noted that girls score higher compared to boy in these constructs and from the CDI girls distress was higher compared to the boys. While some of the studies concurred with the fact that girls score high compared to boys in the CDI, other researchers were of the opinion that the difference between the two was insignificant.
On the contrary, the studies showed that CDI for boys was higher compared to girls depending on their family set up. Boys who come from single parent family CDI scale is higher compared to those brought up by both parents (Carle, Roger, and David 282). Nevertheless, the scholars agree on the fact that CDI for children from divorced families was noted to be higher than that from parents who have not divorced. Sexually abuse children scale was noted to be higher, as well as children who had difficulties in learning and those who were rejected by their peers.
The people who qualify to conduct the CDI assessment have to be a professional who is trained to conduct as well as interpret the result in the right way. The professional must be able to account for the numerous false negatives that occur during the test as well as manage result that appear to be collect while in real sense they are misleading. In addition to that, the professional must have the capacity to ensure observe ethical issues as they conduct the test. It is also a requirement that they be conversant with the different methods of conducting the test for instance, software scoring, and pen paper administration scoring as well as online administration and scoring.
The person who qualifies to carry out the assessment must be able to put other factors from other sources into consideration to foster good result. This will help the professional in interpreting the results of the assessment. Children depression inventory would be most effective in institution of learning where the psychiatrist or psychologist would help in interpreting assessment result s from children at the formative age. The professional must have the capacity to diagnose the patient accurately given that depression occurs in different forms and the different forms respond differently to various treatments. As a result, accurate diagnosis must be done which requires a professional to ensure the results are reliable and valid.
Various changes occur to children between the ages of 7-17 as their bodies are undergoing the development stages. As a result, if the children are not well guided to develop self acceptance, they may develop self hate. Children between the ages of 7-17 years are in their formative stages where family issue may affect them negative especially if the parent divorces (Carle, Roger, and David 285). Learning institution should therefore help the children settle emotionally to ensure their studies are not affected. Psychological measurement can be used in learning institution to enable do researches as well as predict behavior from children.
The psychological test can be employed to different groups. However, testing techniques to diagnose depression varies from individuals and groups. When the assessment is done on children, observation is the most effective where it is conducted among their peers in the playground which may not be effective when observing adults (Carle, Roger, and David 290). When assessing adult, the most valid assessment test is interviewing where they are given test which they give answers that best describes them. It is therefore effective adolescents where it helps in measuring mood disturbances, enjoyment capacity as well as investigating vegetative symptoms for instance over sleeping, fatigue among others.
In conclusion, the paper has introduced a psychological measure of children depression inventory and explained how it was developed and the edition it has gone through. It also focused on the various ways the assessment has been used and a comparison of the result compared and contrasted. The different ways the child disorder inventory has been used have been discussed as well as established that the qualified people to do the assessment have to be professional who can observe ethical issue and interpret results accurately.

Works Cited

Bae, Yunhee. ” Test Review: Kovacs, M. ” Children’s Depression Inventory 2 (CDI 2)” (2Nd Ed.). North Tonawanda, NY: Multi-Health Systems Inc, 2011.” Journal of PsychoeducationalAssessment 30. 3 (2012): 304-308
Carle, Adam C., Roger E. Millsap, and David A. Cole. ” Measurement Bias Across Gender OnThe Children’s Depression Inventory: Evidence For Invariance From Two LatentVariable Models.” Educational And Psychological Measurement 68. 2 (2008): 281-303
Taylor, Jeremy J. ” The Manifestation Of Depression In The Context Of Urban Poverty: AFactorAnalysis Of The Children’s Depression Inventory In Low-Income Urban Youth.” Psychological Assessment 26. 4 (2014): 1317-1332