i-psych

Posted on 11th May 2011 @ 10:00 AM

A review of This Much! has been published in the British Psychological Society Faculty for Children & Young People Service and Practice Update (V 9 No. 2).

'This Much' Software

This is an interesting and innovative piece of software that allows children and young people to make subjective descriptions of their experiences via a computerised visual analogue scale that can be customised to measure any experience or feeling - from a fear or phobia to anger, sadness or safety. There are options to change graphics or insert your own to suit the concept and the child, and once a measurement has been made, it can be stored and printed off.

This measurement tool, although simple, is not 'one size fits all' - the clinician can modify it to suit the assessment or therapeutic aims, using unipolar or bipolar scales.Colourful interactive visuals will appeal to children of all ages, making it more engaging than a standard tick-box questionnaire or rating exercise. Pre and post-measurements can be stored, aiding measurement of progress over time and allowing transfer to reports and notes.

The software is easy to install, access and use. David provides clear video-training via a web-link as part of the package. Although developed for children with learning disabilities and developmental disorders, it would be equally useful in the CAMHS clinic or with Looked After Children (who are often wary of written paper questionnaires or tasks that rely on verbal responses). Labels can be altered to suit the child's level of understanding and preferred descriptive language. It would be useful to add multi-racial family figures as those included are recognisably White British.

I would recommend this package as a useful backup tool when assessing children who struggle with verbal expression, when you need to generate comparative ratings to illustrate psychological responses under various conditions or when a visual measure of progress might be useful for the child and family.

Lynne Hipkin

The point about figures of different ethnicity is a good one, and I will look into that in the next version.  To access the videos referred to above, click here, and to download a demo version or manual, click here.