Assessment Instruments, Multicultural Clients

Although many attempts have been made to address cultural bias in assessment instruments, such biases still exist .

Unfortunately, although culture speci?c or culturally fair testing procedures are sometimes available, such approaches limit valuable information available to the interviewer. Culture speci?c assessment limits the person’s experience to membership of a particular group, thus missing the uniqueness of the individual; culturally fair assessment instruments tend to wash out the cultural in?uences, thus neglecting the impact culture has on a person’s life . While speci?c information regarding instrumentation is beyond the scope of this article, an interviewer working with a culturally different client should consider the following general questions: Are there other, less culturally bound options to obtain the necessary information? Are there ways to accommodate or ameliorate the cultural differences? Will the use of this assessment procedure help me to understand the individual’s experience as a unique cultural being? Additional guidelines for interviewing culturally different clients are provided in Table 13.1.

Multicultural and Diversity Issues 395396 Interviewing Special Populations Table 13.1. The Dos and Don’ts of Initial Sessions with Multicultural Clients The following are suggestions for interviewers working with clients who come from cultural, racial, ethnic, religious, or life experience backgrounds different from themselves. The applicability and relevance of each suggestion must be evaluated with the particular clinical situation at hand. Our intention is to provide a thought provoking checklist.