Clinical assessment of adolescents in trouble can be an extremely difficult task and one that best involves a broad-based evaluative approach. Multiple factors such as pre-morbid personality characteristics, peer-group influences, family relationships, and school problems can complicate the case and make behavioral descriptions and predictions of future behavior shaky. Forensic professionals are best advised to incorporate information from diverse sources in coming to conclusions about problematic adolescents, particularly information that is obtained from objective external sources. One source of information that can be of great value in appraising adolescent problems is objective personality measurement, particularly with a widely researched instrument like the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI-A). A recent study by Losada-Paisey (1998) (Psychological Reports, 83, 115-122) provided further evidence of the utility of the MMPI-A in assessing adolescent offenders. She conducted an investigation of two groups of adolescent offenders; 21 juvenile males classified as sex offenders and 30 juvenile males who were not sex offenders but were convicted of property, assault and mischief crimes. The subjects were 13 to 17 years of age (mean age 15). She found that the MMPI-A clinical scales were effective at discriminating these general offense groups with the sex offenders showing prominence on scales Pd and Sc, a finding that is highly consistent with research on adult sex offenders.
These findings are important in the juvenile assessment field because they provide additional support to the utility of psychological evaluation in this difficult assessment area. Although the results provide further confidence in the utility of the MMPI-A in this setting, the article could have been more useful if the author had reported the discriminating power of newer adolescent specific scales that have been incorporated into MMPI-A. For example, the Conduct Disorder Scale, the School Problems Scale, the Low Aspirations Scale, the Family Problems Scale and the new substance abuse measures ACK and PRO provide clues as to adolescent's substance abuse problems.
Nevertheless, the results obtained provide clear validational support for the use of the MMPI-A in juvenile correctional assessment. Psychologists and attorneys working in the juvenile justice system can garner some comfort in assessments that incorporate instruments that have well-established research findings to support their use.
Losada-Paisey C. (1998). Use of the MMPI-A to Assess personality of juvenile male delinquents who are sex offenders and nonsex offenders. Psychological Reports, 88, pp.115-122.
