Generally recognized as the standard work in its field, Behavioral, Social, and Emotional Assessment of Children and Adolescents provides a comprehensive foundation and guide for conducting conceptually sound, culturally responsive, and ecologically-oriented assessments of student social and emotional behavior. It is aimed at graduate students, practitioners, and researchers in the fields of school psychology, child clinical psychology, and special education, but will also be of interest to those in related disciplines such as counseling psychology, child psychiatry, and social work.

Keeping intact many of the same premises and pedagogy of the previous editions, this revised and updated fourth edition has been re-organized to emphasize culturally responsive reflective practice, with added content including updated assessment tools and strategies to be used within a Response to Intervention (RtI) framework.

In addition to updating all chapters to reflect current research and data, authors Sara Whitcomb and Kenneth Merrell move away from a more narrow view of social skills to reflect an expanded notion of strengths-based assessment, which includes such traits as coping skills, resilience, problem-solving ability, emotional knowledge, and empathy. Throughout, they strive to increase professional standards in the practice of psychological and educational assessment of children and adolescents, providing a solid, evidence-based foundation for assessment.