ABSTRACT
Part of the clinician's or teacher's task in the holistic approach to child assessment involves a general case history taking to place the child and his possible disorder in his contemporary and developmental context. Information from this procedure seeks to establish aetiological factors, elements of the child's environment that may be exacerbating a primary cause, be secondary to it, or be maintaining it. The case history findings also provide data for evaluating prognosis and the variables and con straints in progress that intervention will have to be adjusted to. This data may assume added significance in examining children where reliable language and intellectual measures are absent. Standard areas of enquiry in the diagnostic interview include the medical history, motor and sensory milestones and social development. Clinicians have routine questions and expected answers on which judgements of normal/ non-normal development are based. To gain a reliable picture of people from different cultural traditions it is necessary to be aware of normal variations in the patterns of upbringing, socialisation and attitudes to disorders which might otherwise lead the interviewer to erroneous conclusions. It is impossible to cover here all the beliefs of all com munities, and all intracommunal variations. Suffice it to say that it is false to expect cultural homogeneity in ethnic minority groups any more than one would across dominant culture subgroups, and so clini cians' and educationalists' aims should be to acquaint themselves with local beliefs and practices.
