This page collects ChildPsy.org articles in the series The Child: Assessment Before Diagnosis, based on Volume 1, section A of Williams and Hill’s The Art of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
The editorial rule is simple: diagnosis can be useful, but assessment should begin with the child, their development, their setting, and the meaning of the problem in real life.
Start here
- Is This Normal? How to Tell Ordinary Childhood From a Real Problem
- What Adults Miss When They Interpret a Child’s Behavior
- Why Medical Studies Do Not Apply the Same Way to Every Child
- Can We Predict a Child’s Mental Health Future Without Pretending We Know Too Much?
- Is There Art in Child Psychiatry?
Scheduled in this series
- June 24: What It Really Means to Be a Child
- June 27: Teenagers Are Not Broken Adults
- July 3: When a Child’s Behavior Means Different Things at Home and School
- July 15: How Clinicians Think About a Child Without Reducing Them to a Diagnosis
- July 21: The Child Behind the Symptom
Editorial standard
Each article in this series is written in original prose, cites the source chapter, avoids copying textbook language, and links to external evidence or public guidance where relevant.
