Psychological assessment is a process that primarily involves a descriptive examination of an individual’s cognitive, emotional, and psychological abilities and difficulties, impairments, deficits, competences, and resources. It then provides evaluations about the inner and outer functioning of a person, yielding valuable information for diagnosis, potential intervention, treatment needs, prognosis, and responses to treatment.

Psychologists are involved with the study of individuals and of their characteristics that make them unique and similar to others. Their aim is to understand the way in which these characteristics are organized to make an individual different from others and to make more precise and verifiable evaluations. Psychological assessment and measurement have evolved together, both stemming from the study of individual differences. [Page 830]The concern is to establish similarities and differences in ...