Applying the developmental perspective in the psychiatric assessment and diagnosis of persons with intellectual disability: part I – assessment

Abstract

In a case vignette, the advantages of developmentally based assessment are emphasized. Emotional development and personality development are viewed as the developmental components that play an important role in adaptive and maladaptive behaviour as well as in the onset and presentation of psychopathology. It is clear that interpretative insight into the totality of the psychosocial aspects of these individuals cannot only be obtained by measuring the level of cognitive development. A wider frame of mind is needed for unambiguous psychiatric diagnostics. Therefore, a replacement of the three dimensional paradigm (bio-psycho-social) by a four dimensional one (bio-psycho-socio-developmental) for the assessment and diagnosis of persons with ID is proposed.