PARENT PERCEPTION OF CHILD PROFILE (PPCP)

Purpose: Assessment of a parent’s knowledge and understanding of a specific child

Age: Parents undergoing a custody evaluation or involved in family therapy or counseling

Testing Time & Scoring: Typically less than an hour

The PPCP elicits an extensive portrait of a parent’s knowledge and understanding of a specific child. It helps an evaluator or a therapist assess the degree to which a parent’s perceptions: (1) are accurate, (2) compare to other sources, (3) reflect genuine interest in a child. The PPCP also assesses the Irritability Potential of a parent toward a specific child.

The PPCP, in its concern with parental sensitivity, recognizes the importance of the neuroscience research on feelings—the foundation stones of sensitivity. Research by T. Dix, The Affective Organization of Parenting, reflects how the PPCP was developed. The neuroscience research showed that emotions are essential for good parenting. They serve to orient, organize, and motivate how parents approach acts of parenting. “When invested in the interests of children, emotions organize sensitive, responsive parenting. Emotions undermine parenting, however, when they are too weak, too strong, or poorly matched to childrearing tasks. In harmonious relationships, emotions are, on average, positive because parents manage interactions so that children’s and parents’ concerns are promoted. In distressed relationships, chronic negative emotion is both a cause and a consequence of interactions that undermine parents’ concerns and children’s development.”

Feelings influence thoughts, actions, attention, perception, the encoding, storage, and retrieval of information, as well as associative learning for children as well as adults.

Responses are gathered from the parent in a wide variety of important life areas: Interpersonal Relations; Daily Routine; Health History; Developmental History; School History; Fears; Personal Hygiene; and Communication Style.

The PPCP targets skills that reflect a parent’s awareness of just what makes a given child unique.

Child custody judges, as well as clinicians, have increasingly realized the importance of the fact that the parent who is most familiar with all of the many details that make up a child’s life is the one who will best recognize the unique needs of that child. Only a parent who knows the day-to-day details of a child’s life, how he or she thinks, socializes, behaves, performs in school, handles fears and so forth, can plan a life that truly serves the best interests of that specific child.

The PPCP is a “must” for professionals who work with any special needs child. It is also a tool that, more than others, prompts slips-of-the-tongue and side remarks that are far more revealing than what is usually admitted in a formal interview.

The PPCP can be self-administered in a controlled setting or clinician-administered.

Summary of PPCP uses:

• The PPCP provides a way to gather and organize a parent’s stated perceptions of his or her child in a wide variety of critical life-situations—what makes each child unique

• The PPCP, when evaluator- or clinician-administered, affords a parent the opportunity to express attitudes and feelings toward just about every facet of the child’s life, many of them unintentionally. This is what experienced clinicians look for, what they call in the legal system “excited utterances,” or what clinicians would call a useful slip-of-the-tongue.

• The PPCP provides a framework for the evaluator/clinician to assess the accuracy with which a parent perceives a child.

• A main use is to compare the responses of selected respondents, e.g., the two parents; a mother and a foster mother; two grandparents; any two people serving in a parenting role with a particular child.

A RECALL WORKSHEET and a SCORING SUMMARY bring together, quite easily, the information gathered in the questionnaire booklet.

Contains: PPCP Manual, 8 Test Booklets, 8 PPCP Summary Sheets, “Answer” Pen (black), “Other Source” pen (red).

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