Children
There are particular challenges in carrying out an MSE with young children and others with limited language such as people with intellectual impairment. The examiner would explore and clarify the individual's use of words to describe mood, thought content or perceptions, as words may be used idiosyncratically with a different meaning from that assumed by the examiner. In this group, tools such as play materials, puppets, art materials or diagrams (for instance with multiple choices of facial expressions depicting emotions) may be used to facilitate recall and explanation of experiences.
Read more about this topic: Mental Status Examination
Famous quotes containing the word children:
“If in the earlier part of the century, middle-class children suffered from overattentive mothers, from being “mother’s only accomplishment,” today’s children may suffer from an underestimation of their needs. Our idea of what a child needs in each case reflects what parents need. The child’s needs are thus a cultural football in an economic and marital game.”
—Arlie Hochschild (20th century)
“Children who are not spoken to by live and responsive adults will not learn to speak properly. Children who are not answered will stop asking questions. They will become incurious. And children who are not told stories and who are not read to will have few reasons for wanting to learn to read.”
—Gail Haley (20th century)
“Indeed, there are no easy correlations between parental ideology, class or race and “successful” child development. Many children the world over have revealed a kind of toughness and plasticity that make the determined efforts of some parents to spare their children the slightest pain seem ironic.”
—Robert Coles (20th century)