In my last post, I discussed some aspects of child custody evaluations and of factors judges may consider in making custody decisions. I noted that determining the best interests of the child requires "developmentally appropriate practice"-- it must be done differently for children of different ages.
I also referred to guidelines for child custody evaluations, as recommended by the American Psychological Association (www.apa.org/childcustody.html ). These guidelines suggest that such evaluations should be done with methods based on good science. Unfortunately, this is often far from the case, not because evaluators deliberately flout the guidelines, but because there is only limited science available. Even where there has been extensive research on a measure, in most cases it was not done with any interest in a person's capacity as a parent, and so may be irrelevant for the purpose of custody decisions.
Let's look at a custody report. The parents (whose names I will not use, of course) are in their forties and are both well-educated and financially comfortable. They have never married, which makes them a bit unusual in the child custody world. Their one child, a little boy, was 15 months old when they separated and is now 3 years old. Each parent is asking for primary custody, after a year or so in which they exchanged physical custody every two weeks or so.
A single child custody evaluator interviewed and assessed both parents and the child's relationships with them. Here are some of the measures the evaluator used:
1. The Rorschach test: This well-known projective test is the one that assesses an adult's responses to a standardized set of inkblots. Although there is a method for evaluating responses and using them to describe the individual's personality, authors such as Dr. Scott Lilienfeld have rejected the usefulness of the Rorschach test for family court proceedings. The Rorschach test has not been shown to determine or predict which of two parents will do a better job with a child, which would presumably be the point of using it in child custody evaluation.
2. The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory: This paper-and-pencil test was developed as a quick way to assess personality traits and to identify emotional disturbances. Although the test was developed in ways that show strong correlations between tests scores and other ways of describing personality characteristics, there is again little information to tell us whether a particular personality make-up will guarantee or preclude successful parenting of a given child--- unless, of course, there is some serious emotional disturbance that would make responsible parenting unlikely.
3. The Adult Attachment Interview: This is a very interesting standardized interview that leads the individual to discuss his or her own past experiences with caregivers. While it is useful to know whether the person recalls actual good or bad experiences, the scoring of the interview focuses on how coherently the individual comments on recollections. A coherent, well-organized account of past events is considered to indicate the adult equivalent of secure attachment and is thought to be a desirable characteristic. Less desirable outcomes include highly disorganized or incomprehensible accounts of memories, or a dismissive refusal to recall or describe past experiences. Research using the AAI has suggested that parents evaluated as showing secure attachment are more likely than others to have securely attached children, and to the extent that secure attachment predicts later good development, this is relevant to child custody evaluations. However, the correlation between parent status and child status is imperfect, and both individuals may respond differently when in the midst of disturbing events like divorce.
4. The Strange Situation Paradigm: This is a standardized measure in which a young child and one parent come into a playroom together and go through a set of episodes that include brief separations and reunions. The child's behavior when reunited with the parent is assessed as indicating secure, insecure, or disorganized attachment. Children may behave differently with each parent, so the measure is considered to focus on the relationship, not on characteristics of either person. Extensive research has shown the advantages of secure attachment for later development. However, there is no evidence about advantages or disadvantages for the child of spending more or less time with the parent to whom he is more securely attached. In addition, the original SSP was formulated specifically for children about 12 months old, and although there are methods for assessing older preschoolers, it remains difficult to decide which method would be correct for children of different ages.
A major problem associated with all these tests is what has been called the "evidence to action chain." Given that a psychologist has set of test results, how is he or she to know what custody arrangement to recommend? And, given that a judge receives a recommendation and reviews a set of test results, how does he or she properly use this evidence to decide what action to take about custody and access? In fact, the tests listed above (and others that are relevant) can help decision-making only in the crudest way. And this, of course, is why we have family court judges and don't put the whole decision in the psychologist's lap.
By the way, in the case outlined above, the evaluator recommended primary custody for the father, but the judge gave it to the mother. We don't know what the reasoning was, but obviously that judge considered factors other than the test results.
