ABSTRACT
Psychological assessment is a cornerstone of clinical psychology, focusing on the evaluation of behavior, emotion, and cognition in order to characterize a client’s level of functioning. Accurate and rigorous assessment is a necessary precursor to any psychological interventions. Although this applied science is frequently used to identify dysfunction (e.g. psychopathology, maladjustment, or neurocognitive disorders) the assessment tools available to clinicians can also be used to simply describe an individual’s baseline level or even to identify individuals functioning at exceptionally high levels (e.g. giftedness). For practitioners in North America, the field of psychological assessment has developed in a predominantly Eurocentric linguistic and cultural context, making it challenging at times to conduct an accurate evaluation of individuals outside the mainstream. Factors such as language fluency, cultural expression of psychological distress, and differences in acculturation must be considered when conducting clinically useful assessments for diverse populations.
