Commentary: Training in Pediatric Psychology: A Survey of Predoctoral Internship Programs

Within the field of professional psychology, there is a growing emphasis on a competency-based approach to the training and evaluation of psychology students (Peterson, Peterson, Abrams, & Stricker, 1997). This movement has led to such recent events as a major multinational conference, which was held to focus on the identification, training, and assessment of core competencies of psychology trainees. In general, competency connotes professional judgment of an individual’s ability or capacity to perform certain activities based on his or her education, training, and experience. Additionally, competency refers to what people know or are able to do in terms of knowledge, skills, and attitudes. Professional competency has been defined further as the “habitual and judicious use of communication, knowledge, technical skills, clinical reasoning, emotions, values, and reflection in daily practice for the benefit of the individual and the community being served” (Epstein & Hundert, 2002). Based on these views, people are considered to be competent professional psychologists when they are able to effectively perform a complex set of tasks and have the capability to transfer their skills and knowledge to new situations. Gleaned from survey data from multiple constituency groups and from a review of the literature, the “2002 Competencies Conference: Future Directions in Education and Credentialing in Professional Psychology” (www.appic.org) identified the following core competencies within professional psychology: scientific foundations and research; ethical, legal, public policy/advocacy; individual and cultural diversity; psychological assessment; intervention; consultation and interdisciplinary relationships; supervision; and professional development. While these core competencies apply to the broad field of professional psychology training, there is a need for professional psychologists who maintain areas of specialization (e.g., pediatric, industrial/organizational, forensic) to articulate the areas of emphasis and core competencies within their respective specialty areas. The recommendations that emerged from a task force commissioned by the Society of Pediatric Psychology (SPP), Division 54 of the American Psychological Association (Spirito et al., 2003), are consistent with the competency-based perspective that is being widely touted both nationally and internationally. Specifically, these recommendations highlight training in life-span developmental psychology; life-span developmental psychopathology; child, adolescent, and family assessment; intervention strategies; research methods and systems evaluation; professional, ethical, and legal issues pertaining to children, adolescents, and families; issues of diversity; the role of multiple disciplines and service-delivering systems; prevention, family support, and health promotion; social issues affecting children, adolescents, and families; consultation and liaison roles; and disease process and medical management. Using these recommendations as a guide, individual training programs and the pediatric psychology field as a whole need to begin to assess what competencies their training curricula already sufficiently emphasize and which competency areas do not receive the necessary exposure and experience for trainees to develop competency. Mackner and colleagues (this issue) should be commended for their efforts to begin this assessment process. To ascertain how closely internship training programs fit with the recommendations from the SPP Task Force, they surveyed internship training directors whose programs, according to the information they provide in the Association of Psychology Postdoctoral and Internship Centers (APPIC) Directory (www.appic.org), offer training in pediatric psychology. As noted by Mackner and colleagues, many sites that identify themselves in the APPIC Directory as offering opportunities in pediatric psychology, when queried, actually do not do so. This finding underscores the importance of truth in advertising by internship training directors. If sites do not offer training that is relatively consistent with the SPP Task Force recommendations described above, it is not appropriate for them to indicate that they offer major or informal/minor/external rotations in pediatrics.