Category Archives: Assessment

New variety of shark sighted in Hawaii waters

Readers may remem­ber my post on “Swimming with Sharks” a few months back–a set of guide­lines and admon­ish­ments to clin­i­cians work­ing in and around the Hawaii Family Court. Well, a new vari­ety of shark has recently been sighted in Hawaii waters. These are main­land foren­sic psy­chol­o­gists who have started com­ing to Hawaii to sell their …

February 24, 2013 – 7:37 pm | By Marvin W. Acklin, Ph.D. | Posted in Assessment, Expert witness, Family law | Comments (0)

Forensic Clinician’s Toolbox I — CST Instruments published in Journal of Personality Assessment

My recent review in JPA got a nice boost from Ken Pope and Karen Franklin. Many thanks. A PDF copy of the arti­cle is avail­able online.

April 14, 2012 – 10:14 pm | By Marvin W. Acklin, Ph.D. | Posted in Assessment, Professional Psychology | Comments (0)

New Developments in Psychopathy

Jennifer Skeem and her col­leagues have chal­lenged the sta­tus quo in recent con­tro­verises con­cern­ing the def­i­n­i­tion and mea­sure­ment of psy­chopa­thy. Is psy­chopa­thy a uni­tary entity (a global syn­drome with a dis­crete under­ly­ing cause) or rather is it a con­fig­u­ra­tion of sev­eral dis­tin­guish­able but inter­sect­ing trait dimensions? Is psy­chopa­thy syn­ony­mous with crim­i­nal behav­ior? Is there a positive-adjustment type of …

January 21, 2012 – 8:02 pm | By Marvin W. Acklin, Ph.D. | Posted in Assessment, Behavior, Psychopathy | Comments (0)

Dummy’s Guide to Forensic Risk Assessment

A risk assess­ment iden­ti­fies risk fac­tors, antic­i­pated level of risk, and nec­es­sary risk reduc­tion and man­age­ment strate­gies. Conclusion lan­guage uti­lizes spec­i­fi­ca­tion of risk fac­tors and risk reduc­tion strate­gies that may mit­i­gate iden­ti­fied risk fac­tors. Risk assess­ments should include both risk like­li­hood and risk reduc­tion. Risk assess­ment assumes prob­a­bil­ity of recur­rence in the absence of risk …

September 17, 2011 – 3:47 pm | By Marvin W. Acklin, Ph.D. | Posted in Assessment | Comments (0)

Is the testimony of experts at child sex abuse trials helpful?

The tes­ti­mony of experts in child sex abuse tri­als is con­tro­ver­sial. There are seri­ous legal con­straints on expert tes­ti­mony con­cern­ing cred­i­bil­ity of the wit­ness, prop­erly the domain of the trier of fact (see US vs. Brooks, a court mar­tial, where my tes­ti­mony was rejected by a mil­i­tary court of appeals as cross­ing the line).  Thus, …

September 5, 2011 – 10:29 pm | By Marvin W. Acklin, Ph.D. | Posted in Assessment, Child Abuse, Expert witness | Comments (0)

Forensic conundrum: Geriatric competency to stand trial evaluations

Does old age ren­der you incom­pe­tent? Incompetent elders have started show­ing up in increas­ing num­bers, in both civil (testamentary/contractual com­pe­tency, guardian­ship pro­ceed­ings) and crim­i­nal are­nas (com­pe­tency to stand trial). We have adopted what we con­sider a pow­er­ful new assess­ment approach to foren­sic neu­rocog­ni­tive assess­ments based on Pearson’s WAIS-IV-WMS-IV-ACS combo and started look­ing at the data. Table A.2 …

September 5, 2011 – 10:10 pm | By Marvin W. Acklin, Ph.D. | Posted in Assessment, Criminal law, Professional Psychology | Comments (0)

Clinical Report: Identification and Evaluation of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

This superb arti­cle sums up the infor­ma­tion com­pre­hen­sively. Available at the American Academy of Pediatrics web­site in pdf. http://tinyurl.com/cy4kbq6

August 16, 2011 – 9:28 am | By Marvin W. Acklin, Ph.D. | Posted in Assessment, Behavior, Criminal law, Expert witness, Family law, Professional Psychology | Comments (1)

Assessment Psychology: A fast evolving discipline and speciality.

The appli­ca­tion of psy­cho­log­i­cal and neu­ropsy­cho­log­i­cal test­ing to human prob­lems is a science-based dis­ci­pline which has exploded with the devel­op­ment of new knowl­edge, tools, tech­niques, and skills. Recognizing these devel­op­ments, the American Psychological Association rec­og­nizes three lev­els of com­pe­tence in pro­fes­sional psy­chol­ogy: gen­er­al­ist, pro­fi­ciency, and spe­cialty. Generalist train­ing would be con­sis­tent with a doc­tor­ate and …

August 15, 2011 – 11:42 am | By Marvin W. Acklin, Ph.D. | Posted in Assessment, Professional Psychology | Comments (0)

Is your psychological assessment specialist qualified?

Typically, assess­ment prob­lems are high stakes sit­u­a­tions, involv­ing some crit­i­cal life issue. Although many psy­chol­o­gists offer assess­ment ser­vices, most do not obtain advanced post-doctoral train­ing in assess­ment psy­chol­ogy. Those who have achieved advanced skill will be rec­og­nized by doc­u­mented recog­ni­tion. This would include board-certification by the American Board of Professional Psychology, American Board of Assessment …

August 15, 2011 – 11:38 am | By Marvin W. Acklin, Ph.D. | Posted in Assessment, Professional Psychology | Comments (0)

Assessing Parental Risk in Child Custody Cases Involving Internet Sexual Behavior

Abstract: One type of claim in par­ent­ing assess­ment (child custody)1 cases is that one par­ent, typ­i­cally the father, is alleged to be engag­ing in improper or com­pul­sive sex­ual behav­ior via the Internet. The sex­ual behav­ior at issue can range from fre­quent sex­u­ally explicit chats with other adults to com­pul­sive view­ing of adult pornog­ra­phy. In more …

December 28, 2010 – 10:54 am | By J. Gregory Turnbull, Psy.D., J.D. | Posted in Assessment, Child Abuse, Child Custody, Expert witness, Family law, Parental assessment | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)