Entering+the+Child's+Mind

__ 10 Important Ideas Followed Through in the Clinical Interview __

1. The child’s thought is the product of a genuine attempt to make sense of the world and to create meaning.

2. Rough plan for the interview, including a list of tasks and questions you will ask.

3. Judgment and reasoning in the child.

4. Investigate children’s understanding.

5. Productive questions should at first be open-ended; questions should encourage the child to describe it as fully and accurately as possible.

6. Make sure that you have readily available all of the equipment which the child might need in the course of the interview.

7. You may wish to use a video camera. It shows the context-- what you were doing, what was going on in the background. It shows facial expressions, movements, body-postures, giving a glimpse at some of the non-verbal means of expression which cannot be captured on audio tape.

8. establish that you are interested in how she solves problems or thinks about things

9.Don’t use fancy words. Instead of, “Now I would like to examine your reading comprehension.

10. Interviewer be prepared both to test hypotheses concerning the child’s thinking and to explore.

11. The major way to encourage such motivation is to praise the child for effort, for engagement, for thoughtfulness.