Question

Alexandra and Theo Kazilieris come to see you with their 10-year-old son, Craig. Alexandra describes Craig as having “persistent difficulties in making and keeping friends.” They also say that their son doesn’t seem to use or understand normal verbal or nonverbal cues that they have already seen their 7-year-old daughter, Abigail, using and understanding, even though she has a mild intellectual disability.

Theo describes how Craig seems obsessed with playing with toy trucks, repeatedly playing with the same trucks over and over again, running them up and down the middle of his room, literally for hours on end. Alexandra and Theo say their son seems unaffected by the others in the home and rarely responds to any environmental stimuli in the home.

Questions

In one post, address the following.

1. Discuss how you would go about conducting a psychiatric interview of Craig and his family. Would you involve any other people in the evaluation process? If so, describe who these people are, what information you would want from them, and your rationale.
2. Outline the types of interventions you would use to establish a therapeutic relationship with both the child and his parents.
3. What types of questions would you ask? Discuss your rationale for asking these questions.
4. Based on the information in this case study, what diagnosis might you give to Craig? Give your rationale for the diagnosis.
5. Attach or link to one relevant research or evidence-based practice article and briefly (in no more than 250 words) explain why this article is significant to your evaluation or diagnosis.

Answer 1

1. In this case Craig is being presented with some symptoms that shows difficulty in social orientation and challenges faced by the family in identifying normal learning and speech development of the child. it is seen from the findings that the child Craig is mostly suffering from autism spectrum disorder that is characterized through difficulty in social interaction, and language disabilities. As described by his parents Craig is not respondent to environmental stimuli, is slow and less oriented as other children, repeats his actions and has difficulty keeping friends. For interviewing Craig it is necessary to keep in mind several aspects that are considered for autistic individual. The autistic child is shy and not well in interacting, the interviewer has to identify the level of social comfort for the child and try to interact at that level.

The assessment should include close observations of the actions, language, verbal and non-verbal responses and also the way the child interacts. This interview would include Craig's parents in it to help Craig cooperate well and feel safe during the examination. Moreover, the information regarding his habits, hobbies, school activities, and routine is to be gathered from his parents. these information will help in further identification of the final diagnosis and also allow the interviewer and the team to prepare patient centered care plan.

(please create individual order for other questions)