Two of cognitive ability assessments identified for comparison are the Comprehensive Test of Nonverbal Intelligence (CTONI) and the Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children. According to Neukrug and Fawcett (2010), the Comprehensive Test of Nonverbal Intelligence (CTONI) is a nonverbal intelligence assessment designed to measure intellectual functioning from ages 6 years, 0 months to 18 years, 11 months. On the other hand, the Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children, Second Edition (KABC-II) is used to measure the cognitive ability for the ages of 3 to 18 years. This model provides choice of theoretical model of intelligence. In the administering of both assessments, ethical issues to consider would be to inform the test subjects of the intensions or purpose of the test, assuring the participants about confidentiality of the test results is very crucial. Where the tests are administered to children below 18 year, it is important to seek the consent of their guardians or parents before administering the tests. Even for participants above the age of 18 years, consent should be sought from the participants.
The KABC-II can vary from 25 to 70 minutes depending on the age range. Because of subsets and scoring, this assessment allows for a choice between theoretical models, one such choice being the Cattell’s model of fluid and crystallized intelligence. Whereas KABC-II has two subsets that inspect visual processing, fluid reasoning, short-term and long-term memory, the CTONI is composed of six subsets that evaluate various nonverbal intellectual capabilities. A sample of 3, 025 U.S population was stratified for gender, race, religion, SES, and special education status during development of CTONI. Good reliability ranging from 0.87 to 0.95 for composite score means was realized for this test. Similarly, the subset reliabilities for this test are in general strong (Neukrug & Fawcett 2010).
One of the pertinent issues that comes out of is case is that of parental responsibility. It is ethically wrong for Shana’s ex-husband to just dump the children on her without support. Although the ex-husband took care of the children single handedly after divorce from his wife, this not enough justification for him to run away from his responsibility. It is true that the ex-husband has still legal custody of the children and therefore should be more responsible with the children. However, now that Shana is well and working, the responsibility of raising the children should not be left to any one parent as the children need them both. The ex-husband is not honest to claim that his new family cannot take care of teenagers.
The 7 year old in the new family will soon be a teenage and he can not keep running for ever. From the look of things, it is clear that Shana got her first child in her teens (actually at 16 years). This could be the reason why she may feel morally inadequate to deal with her daughter Maria who is allegedly spending much of her time with her boyfriend. What she needs to do is to come out clean and explain to her children about her failures and challenges as a teen. She needs to tell them that although this phase in life is a stage where youths want to experiment and discover their own path in life, they do not have to make the same mistakes she did. Although she suspects that her young child is doing drugs, she lacks the moral authority to dissuade him from this destructive behavior considering her own past struggles with alcohol. Again, she needs to use her experience to illustrate to the children the dangers of doing drugs. The first step in helping this family would be to tell her to stop the use of the antidepressant drug (Prozac). This drug was started without any tests being carried out and it is ethically wrong to use it against children just because they cannot object.
A neuropsychological assessment will need to be carried out on Adam to determine whether or not he is suffering from Attention Deficiency Disorder (ADD). According to Neukrug and Fawcett (2010), the Halsted Neuropsychological Test Battery for older children is applicable to children in the age bracket 9 to 14. This test would be very appropriate as a diagnostic tool to identify the root cause of Adam’s behavior and to find out if his brain could be damaged by some kind of disease or even drugs. This test will also measure that change in Adam’s behavior considering that Shana does not think that Adam is posting good grades as claimed by the father. The fact that Shana mentioned that there was mention of suicide by her children is enough reason to perform tests that gauge the mental and emotional stability tests for all the children. The Halsted Neuropsychological Test Battery for older children may be applied to the other children (Jason, Maria). This test may be administered with the aim of rehabilitating the children and reversing not only the suicidal thoughts, but also to reduce the emotional turmoil resulting from family problems.
Helping the family will mean talking to all the people involved in the life of the children. I will start my intervention by initiating family counseling that will involve talking with both the parents. The importance of sharing in the emotional and financial support of the children will be at the center of our discussions. As things stand presently, there is danger of the children feeling unwanted considering that they have been tossed from one parent to the other within a very short period of time. The children are craving for acceptance, love, and a sense of belonging. This can even be demonstrated by the willingness of Joshua to drop out of school in order to keep the family together. He reasons that the financial strain that they exert on the mother may cause them to be separated and therefore through working he might offer financial help that may prevent this. The case of Maria spending much of her time with her boyfriend is also a clear indication that there is a void for love in her life that she intends to fill through her boyfriend. The scientific truth that nature abhors a vacuum is evident here. The parents will be counseled on the need to bound with the children and showing them love. This can be achieved through spending some time with the children and getting involved in their life. Assistance in education matters as Shana suggests is a good starting point.
There are other externalities that need to be included in the treatment program such as the immediate environment. For example, Shana’s children are exposed to alcohol and possibly drugs through their interaction with their grandmother. The children need to be protected from this negative influence. This can be achieved through encouraging the grandmother to indulge in her behaviors away from the eyes of the children or to quit the negative behavior all together. There will be need to perform personality tests on both the mother and the children so as to determine the root cause of their unstable behaviors. Although as the therapist I will need to perform most of the assessments, the school and clinical psychologists may be called upon to help in assessment of these children. The school may be persuades to administer intelligent tests such as Stanford-Binet.
According to Neukrug and Fawcett (2010), the Stanford-Binet test measure verbal and nonverbal intelligence across five factors including: fluid reasoning, knowledge, quantitative reasoning, visual-spatial processing, and working memory. Emotional instability, stress and even drug abuse can have profound effects on the school performance of children. Research has shown that the abuse of drugs such as marijuana (Cannabis sativa) impacts negatively on brains and may even result in memory loss. By administering these intelligence tests and comparing those with results from other students may shade some light on the underlying problems affecting these children. In this way, the memory of the children will be measured to see if the strain in the family is causing them to perform poorly in school. If it is established beyond any reasonable doubt that the mother is completely healed from her addiction, then she may be encouraged to seek custody of her children. However, there is still need to come up with clearly defined roles and responsibilities to determine the level of support that each parent should provide.
In conclusion, it can be seen that proper therapy in this case will require administration of various assessments in order to establish the root cause of the problems. A holistic approach to treatment will be sought through involving all the stakeholders in this case. The most important intervention will be to emotionally support the children through shoeing them love and affection. It is possible that a majority of the problems being exhibited by the children are an indication that they crave for a sense of belonging and that they need to feel wanted. The Stanford-Binet intelligent test and the Halsted Neuropsychological Test Battery for older children will be very crucial in the treatment process of the family in this case.
Reference
Neukrug, E., & Fawcett, R. (2010). Essentials of Testing and Assessment: A Practical Guide for Counselors, Social Workers, and Psychologists. (2nd ed.). Belmont, CA: Cengage Learning.