Assessment Tools
The history of testing and assessment with racial and ethnic minorities has been controversial, with issues ranging from IQ testing and the publication of The Bell Curve to highstakes testing for college and graduate school admissions. To address these issues, the purpose of this CNPAAEMI monograph on Testing and Assessment provides a critical review of the challenges and controversy associated with testing and assessment with racial and ethnic minorities in the United States. The monograph designates a chapter for each major racial and ethnic group, providing a critical review of the issues and recommendations related to testing and assessment for each population. Each chapter will include sections on historical perspectives, contemporary challenges, culture-specific tools and recommendations, future directions, recommended readings, and/or references.
Assessment of Racial Trauma and Impact of Racism
Many clinicians only recognize racism as trauma when an individual experiences a discrete racist event, such as a violent hate crime. This is limiting given that many people of colo experience cumulative experiences of racism as traumatic, with perhaps a minor event acting as “the last straw” in triggering trauma reactions. Additionally, minority patients may not link current PTSD symptoms to cumulative experiences of discrimination if queried about a single event. Thus, the conceptualization of trauma as a discrete event may be inadequate for diverse populations. For these reasons, it is crucial for clinicians and researchers to develop a more comprehensive understanding of trauma in ethnic and racial minorities. Monica Williams and her lab aims to raise awareness about racial trauma and to quantify the distress experienced by those affected through the use of our newly developed Racial Trauma Scale (RTS), a proposed clinical tool for the measurement of trauma-related symptoms arising from racial maltreatment of people of color (POC).
Assessing Racial Trauma Within a DSM–5 Framework: The UConn Racial/Ethnic Stress and Trauma Survey (Williams et al., 2018). This article aims to provide a theoretical basis for the traumatizing nature of various forms of racism within the 5th edition of the DSM framework for PTSD. It provides a review of the literature and existing measures for the assessment of racial trauma and introduces the UConn Racial/Ethnic Stress & Trauma Survey (UnRESTS), a clinician-administered interview. The UnRESTS is useful to clinicians as an aid to uncovering racial trauma, developing a culturally informed case conceptualization, and including experiences of racism in the diagnosis of PTSD when warranted.