Traditional approaches to assessment aim to understand the skill deficits, events, trauma or strengths a person possesses (Kaplan & Saccuzzo, 2013). Specific examples of traditional assessments are personality, intelligence and aptitude testing which assess a person’s functioning in a particular area. Traditional assessments aim to identify an underlying problem within the individual that lead to an overt behavior (Kaplan and Saccuzzo).
Cognitive-behavioral assessment focuses on behavior which may include overt behaviors, internal thoughts and/or thought processes (Kaplan & Saccuzzo, 2013). Cognitive-behavioral assessments aim to understand the topography of the behavior in order to bring about behavioral change. Behavioral change is the focal point within a cognitive-behavioral approach because the behavior is what is causing difficulty in the person’s life currently. In order to assess a behavior the antecedent events and consequence events are evaluated as these events may provide insight on why the behavior is …show more content…
Cognitive-Behavioral Treatment
Traditional treatment approaches focus on underlying events that lead a person to elicit a behavior with focus on the previous event (Kaplan & Saccuzo, 2013). Treatment would be targeted toward exploring, understanding and processing the past event that caused the current behavior according to Kaplan & Saccuzzo (2013). Traditional treatments are based on the characteristics of the individual (Kaplan & Saccuzzo, 2013).
Cognitive-behavioral treatment attempts to change to maladaptive behavior by increasing the likelihood that desired behaviors occur in the future (Kaplan & Saccuzzo, 2013). Treatment strategies focus on eliminating the events that are maintain or reinforcing the maladaptive behavior. Treatment is based on the environmental conditions with the cognitive-behavioral approach (Kaplan & Saccuzzo, 2013).
Cognitive-Behavioral Approach