Analysis: Abnormal Psychology

Submitted By jedadja86
Words: 973
Pages: 4

Identifying information
Djamila Lopes
PSY 303 Abnormal Psychology
Instructor Edward Fischer

Identifying information
Peter was born and grew up in Lincoln. He has one sister. Peter has very good memories of his childhood, although his mother suffered from bad health conditions, which led to her death when Peter was sixteen years old. Peter remained close to his father, whom he keeps visiting on a regular basis. His father is now a retired man in his eighties. Peter is twenty-five years old. He is in his third and final year of law school. His educational history has shown that Peter has always done well in language arts and reading classes. He has however been poor in math classes. An evaluation done on Peter showed that he has visual processing deficits and math disability that may have resulted from the meningitis that he had as an infant. The evaluation tests saw him receive the extended time accommodation on exams in the law school.
Peter is currently working as an internal in an office of law, where his main work is to read contracts the whole day. However, he noted that he takes more time in completing his tasks than the time taken by other interns. He also noted that he has a tendency of making editing errors when he forces himself to have the work done. While reading, he often misses essential information, which leaves him in a language that he does not know where it belongs. He is however, more accurate if he takes his time. Peter’s main objective is to do litigation. He reported that he does not have trouble when in court. His main strengths are thinking in his feet and oral expression. Peter said he experienced hard times when he tried to maintain his concentration. Even though he is able to keep focus at first, he has trouble in sustaining and maintaining his concentration. He is distracted by unrelated thoughts, which interrupts his concentration and slows his thinking process. Peter wants to understand why he is not able to understand, formulate, and organize a set of legal facts. He also wants to understand why he takes so long to read anything.
Chief complaint/ presenting Problem
Peter requested to have a comprehensive psycho educational evaluation, which could have helped him to document his history and the nature of his difficulties in learning and the educational accommodations that have been offered to him (Gopaul-McNicol & Armour-Thomas, 2002). Currently, Peter is a third year law student. He is seeking appropriate educational accommodations that will help him do well in the California State Bar exam, which is scheduled for July
Family history
Peter said that he grew up in a troubled family, even though it was intact. Peter took the role of holding his family together at an early age. Peter felt that the role he played in his family made him to mature at a tender age. He believed that this made him develop strong abilities that helped him cope and keep moving forward. His father was an ill-tempered man while his mother was the family nurturer. Peter’s father was born in New York but grew up in Lincoln. Peter is the elder of his sister, who has a learning disability in visual-motor perception, short-term auditory memory, visual memory, and fine motor skills. Her sister has meningitis as a young child and was hospitalized. Her language and speech development were delayed, which made her have problems with stuttering. She did not learn how to read until she was ten years old. Peter’s younger sister attended special education classes since she was in second grade up to high school. This was done on full time basis. She currently uses learning disabilities program in Lincoln Elementary School, where she is a junior. Peter also said that his mother had completed her B.A in time of her death. His father also completed a degree program in architecture. However, the two did not have any difficulties with reading and learning.
Evaluation
Evaluation was