Psychodiagnostics Psychological Assessment Report

PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT REPORT 1

Personalia
Name Josefien
Gender Female
Age 12 years and 0 months old
Family Mother Eef (40) HR manager, Father Geert (40) lawyer
School History School grade 8 (last year of elementary school), social difficulties that affect
his academic performance, bullying victim
Setting Psychological Practice Boyer & De Jong
Validity of Report 2 years

Reason for referral

Mother’s complaints that Josefien is fearful and gloomy and has worsen in the last year. She wants
to know if Josefien would cope better with a different level of school as well as if she’s depressed.

Assessment

Hypothesis 1: Formulate the hypothesis related to intelligence level.

Instrument: The WISC-V is an intelligence test used to measure the IQ of children aged 6-16. It
includes scales, each of which consist of more subtests. The 5 scales encompass verbal
comprehension, visuospatial skills, fluid reasoning, working memory and processing speed. The
wide variety of components that are tested contributes to the WISC being a more accurate
assessor of intelligence, rather than traditional definitions scientists used to describe intelligence.
Expectation: Reason of referral doesn’t target the client’s IQ in any way, given that her (apparent)
mood and anxiety disorders don’t relate to her intelligence. If anything, her social anxiety when
speaking in front of a class makes the teacher question her academic abilities. That’s the reason
behind her LWO advice.
Result: As expected, Josefien doesn’t score below average on the IQ test. All categories are
average, one above and one low, which cancel each other out.
Conclusion: The concern that her academic performance was affected by her low IQ is discarded
and must be attained to another reason.

Hypothesis 2: Formulate the hypothesis that you are testing with the CBCL.
Instrument: The CBCL is a diagnostic tool to quantify problem behaviors and skills of children and
adolescents in a standardized manner, and is divided in 2 age ranges: 1,5-5 and 6-18 years old
Expectation: We expect clinical and subclinical results in categories such as depression, (social)
withdrawal and (social) anxiety.
Result: She scores abnormally in anxiety, withdrawal, depression, internalizing behavior and
behavioral problems, as well as deviant from the norm in attention and ADHD.
Conclusion: Her anxiety, depression, withdrawn and internalized attitude together with her
tendency to attention problems are the most probable cause of her academic performance issues
and are explained due to her being not only isolated but also bullied in school, having an
immediate effect on her view of herself, making her depressed and socially anxious. Her scores are
normal for stress, OCD, processing speed, externalizing and rule breaking behaviors, physical,
thinking, and oppositional problems, and oddly in her case in social problems.

Conclusion

1
Josefien’s reason for referral stemmed from a teacher’s and her mother’s concerns about her
academic performance. In addition, and in hindsight of her academic performance decrease, her
mother is worried about Josefien’s mental health. She worries that she may suffer from depression
and (social) anxiety disorders, as she has been a victim of bullying.
Despite the initial thought that she might have a low IQ being discarded by the WISC-V results, the
CBCL hints to emotional struggles. Anxiety, depression, withdrawal, and internalizing behavior stand
out and are heavily related to social isolation and bullying.
Psychotherapy and CBT are recommended to target the anxiety and depression, so she learns how
to cope with her negative feelings, instead of internalizing. This might also be helpful for her to learn
social skills. Maybe group therapy or extracurricular activities, unrelated to the school, would help
her get in contact with a new peer group. This would help her on an emotional level, so she won’t
feel isolated, as well as academically, given that if she learns how to deal with people, she will not
feel anxious when presenting in front of the class. The teachers in the school should also take action
in an anti-bullying program, for example, or any other way to raise awareness about bullying.

Reference List

Wechsler, D. (2014). Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, Fifth Edition (WISC-V).
Achenbach, T. M. (1999). The Child Behavior Checklist and related instruments.