Scaling methods to measure psychopathology in persons with intellectual disabilities

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Abstract

Psychopathology prior to the last four decades was generally viewed as a set of problems and disorders that did not occur in persons with intellectual disabilities (ID). That notion now seems very antiquated. In no small part, a revolutionary development of scales worldwide has occurred for the assessment of emotional problems in persons with ID. The first standardized test to emerge was the Psychopathology Instrument for Mentally Retarded Adults (PIMRA) in 1984. Since that time, an impressive number of measures of general psychopathology have emerged for adults and children as well as for persons across the full range of levels of ID. The purpose of this review was to provide a description of available measures, to review papers published on these measures, and to discuss emerging trends in test development. The trends in this body of information for enhancing differential diagnosis of psychopathology in persons with ID are discussed.

Section snippets

History

The first scale for assessing psychopathology for persons with ID appeared in 1983 (Kazdin, Matson, & Senatore, 1983). The authors describe the Psychopathology Instrument for Adults with Mental Retardation (PIMRA). This scale, which is still in widespread use today and has been translated into many languages, was designed by the second author and modeled after structured interviews such as the Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia which were very popular at the time (Endicott &

The scales

Fourteen general measures of psychopathology were located with published studies employing persons with ID. A number of these scales have been studied infrequently. For the purposes of this paper, we are defining infrequently studied scales as those where six or fewer papers have been published. Refer to Table 1 for a list of infrequently studied measures discussed in this paper. The second category is labeled frequently studied scales and is defined as measures with seven or more papers

Final remarks

The development of measures of psychopathology for persons with ID has made great strides in the last three decades. A large number of measures for adults and children have emerged. A few of these measures have been studies extensively in both North America and Europe. One issue that is evident at this point is that no one measure will be sufficient. Measures specific to children and adults with scales for mild and moderate ID as well as other measures for severe and profound ID are needed.

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