ABSTRACT
Whether one is meeting informally with the teacher of a referred student, conducting a problem identification interview with a parent, or undertaking a diagnostic interview with a child or adolescent, interviewing is a widely used and valuable assessment method. The popularity of interviewing is due to the many advantages it offers to clinicians. Some surveys have indicated that interviewing is the most commonly used assessment method among clinical psychologists (Watkins, Campbell, Nieberding, & Hallmark, 1995), and it is certainly one of the most popular assessment methods in other areas of professional psychology as well. This chapter provides a broad overview of the interviewing of children and adolescents, including problem identification and developmental history interviewing with the parents of children and adolescents. The chapter also makes specific recommendations for procedures and techniques that may be useful in conducting effective interviews.
