Short Answer Questions on Assessments and Treatments of Mental Disorders

1. A classification system such as the DSM-5 is judged by its reliability and validity. Define and discuss both reliability and validity and why they are important criteria for DSM-5.

(312) When answering the question we first need to understand what reliability and validity means and why it is important to include them in the criteria to judge DSM-5. Reliability is the consistency of the assessment measurements throughout the test. Whereas validity is when the test actually measures what it is suppose to measure (Comer, 2013, pp.84). Now that we know what reliability and validity are we can now apply it to DSM-5, but what is DSM-5? DSM-5 is shortened from Diagnostic and Statistical Manual Of mental Disorders and the five shows how much it has changed over the years. This classification wouldn’t be possible without Emil Krapelin who developed the first modern classification system for abnormal behavior which helped form the first DSM. The DSM-5 list approximately 400 mental disorders each one explains the criteria for diagnosing the disorder and key clinical features and sometimes describes features that are often times not related to the disorder. The classification is further explained by the back ground information such as: research finds, age, culture, gender trends, and each disorder’s prevalence, risk, course, complications predisposing factors, and family patterns (Comer, 2013, pp.100).

So without reliability and validity we wouldn’t be able to trust such classification systems such as the DSM-5 because we wouldn’t be able to trust any of the testes they performed throughout their trails because they may not have a standardized technique setup to administer and interpret the results without this the trails could show d...

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...ngs of modern intelligence tests.

Before answering the questions let find out what intelligence test is. It is a test consisting of a series of tasks requiring people to use various verbal and non verbal skills to measure the individual’s intellectual ability. Now that we know what an intelligence test is we can now answer the question better. Three important short comings of intelligence test that have nothing to do with intelligence are: having low motivation or high anxiety which can greatly influence the performance on the test, also IQ test may contain cultural biases in their language and or tasks that may place people of one background above people of another back ground, and members of minority groups may have little experience with this kind of test or may be uncomfortable with examiners of a different ethnic back ground than them (Comer, 2013, pp.107).