Behavioral Assessment with Adults

Abstract:

Behavioral assessment is an approach to the measurement and understanding of human behavior that requires several conceptual and clinical competencies. Basic conceptual competencies in behavioral assessment include a well-developed knowledge of empiricism, learning theories, idiographic measurement strategies, behavioral change processes, and multivariate causality. Behavioral assessment also requires familiarity with psychometric principles such as norms, reliability, and validity. Basic clinical competencies in behavioral assessment are two-fold. One set of basic clinical competencies subsumes information gathering methods such as interviewing, behavioral observation, self-monitoring, and self-report inventory use. The other centers on the generation of topographical and functional analyses of behavior that can be used to guide treatment design. In addition, the evolution and expansion of the behavioral tradition has created a need for expert-level