Checkmate Plus specializes in the publication of user-friendly Symptom Inventories for professionals working in mental health (e.g., psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers), education (e.g., school psychologists, special education personnel), and medical settings (e.g., pediatricians, neurologists). These measures are used to evaluate the symptoms of a wide range of DSM-5 emotional and behavioral disorders in four different age groups: early childhood, elementary school, middle and secondary school, and adults. 

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For children and adolescents, Checkmate Plus Symptom Inventories are completed by parents and teachers, but there are also self-report versions for adolescents and adults. They can also used by trained professionals to conduct structured clinical interviews.

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The Symptom Inventories enjoy a wide range of applications in mental health, school, and medical settings to include:

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1. Triage

• Making referrals

• Assigning cases to appropriate clinicians

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2. Diagnostic Assessment

• Guiding clinical interview

• Saving interview time without compromising completeness

• Obtaining observations from multiple informants (school, etc.)

• Highlighting relevant differential diagnosis decisions

• Identifying comorbid conditions

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3. Treatment Plan Documentation

• Specifying target symptoms

• Assessing response to treatment (% decrease in symptoms)

• Comparing symptom severity with normative standards

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4. Quality Assurance

• Documenting presence of symptoms to justify diagnoses

• Documenting improvement in symptoms as a function of treatment

 

5. Outcome Evaluations

• Determining changes in symptom status over time (monitor clinical progress)

• Comparing symptom severity with normative standards (behavioral normalization)

 

6. Conducting Clinical Research

• Selecting participants for inclusion in clinical trials

• Measuring response to intervention

• Monitoring outcomes in follow-up assessments

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Checkmate Plus Symptom Inventories emerged out of a systematic program of research that began over 30 years ago (see Brief History), and which continues to the present time under the direction of Kenneth D. Gadow, Ph.D., a professor of psychiatry and special education at a major research and teaching hospital. He has published hundreds of articles about mental health in a variety of scientific journals including psychiatry, pediatrics, neurology, psychology, and special education.  Dr. Gadow currently works on the validation of Checkmate Plus Symptom Inventories in collaboration with colleagues around the world, and these measures are reported on in hundreds of peer-reviewed scientific articles (see Research Bibliography).

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