Custody Newsletter Volume #1

PARENTS!
Dr. Barry Bricklin and Dr. Gail Elliot---child custody experts---have formulated strategies for parents involved in custody disputes.
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Custody Newsletters # 16 - 17

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WELCOME

Welcome to the Custody Newsletter. Our tone is informal; we WANT contributions based on your clinical experiences, as well as more formal presentations.

Second, we solicit input from members of all professions. This is why it is not mandatory that any specific Reference format be followed, e.g., the bibliographic notation system of the American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association, etc.

In general, we favor brief articles, contributions ranging from one half of a typewritten page to about eight typewritten pages.

THE CUSTODY ASSESSMENT TEAM

Keeping Parents Out of Court
Editor's Introduction

I consider this potentially one of the most important articles ever printed in the Custody Newsletter. While it has much in common with Dr. Robert Strochak's approach (Issue No. 4), there are some important differences. (Dr. Zirkel, the author of this article, has another excellent piece in this issue of the Custody Newsletter)

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Many of us who do custody assessments have wondered about ways to help parents to achieve agreements regarding custody/placement without the pain and expense of protracted litigation. Here in La Crosse, Wisconsin, we have developed a process which has succeed in keeping the vast majority of contested custody cases out of the courtroom. Our approach has come to be known as the "La Crosse model," and is now being adopted by other counties in Wisconsin and in neighboring states.

Initially, all divorcing parents in Wisconsin are required to attend at least one session of mediation. Mediation is waived if there is a prior history of domestic abuse, alcohol or drug abuse, or any other condition which would make mediation impractical. As is the case in many other states, parents in mediation are often able to work together to come up with a good parenting plan without further involvement in the "system."

If mediation fails, a "child centered assessment" may then be requested by either parent or by the mediator. This assessment involves having a child psychologist or therapist evaluate the family and children. The assessor then comes into mediation with the parents, and delivers an opinion regarding what is in the best interests of the children. In many respects, this approach is like the traditional custody evaluation, except that the results are shared directly with the parents in the mediation for their own use. The parents enjoy statutory protection from any of the evaluation results being utilized in subsequent litigation. Many of the more difficult cases are settled in this manner, without the need for any subsequent legal involvement!

If mediation or child centered assessment proves to be unsuccessful in resolving the disputes, the next step is for the parents to go before the Family Court Commissioner, who hears the case. The FCC at that point determines whether further evaluation is needed. If so, a Custody Assessment Team (CAT) is appointed, consisting of a Guardian ad litem (In Wisconsin, the Guardian ad litem is an attorney who has completed special training in child development and family law issues), a family court social worker, and a child development specialist. The child development specialist is usually a child therapist or psychologist with special training in child development, especially as it relates to custody and placement issues.

The parents pay for the cost of the CAT, which is a set fee of $2400. For this fee, the family is subjected to an in-depth evaluation consisting of family interviews, home visits, psychological testing, contacts with other professionals, contacts with other family members as needed, and completion of questionnaires. The process takes about four to five months to complete. The team then meets with the parents and their respective attorneys, and presents them (in both oral and written form) with the final recommendations regarding custody and placement. The parents may either stipulate to the plan, or contest it. If contested, the matter then goes to court hearing, and the members of the CAT are called to testify and present findings as in any other custody hearing.

The effectiveness of this approach is apparent when we discovered that out of the first 50 families going through the CAT process, only two went on to court! The remainder settled out of court, and to date none have re-litigated. The families are spared the cost of the traditional custody battle, where each parent hires his or her own mental health expert. In addition, parents realize that the team approach has the best interests of the children in mind during the course of the evaluation. Finally, having three members (Guardian ad litem, family court social worker, and child development specialist) serves as a kind of check-and-balance system, so that there is little likelihood of bias in making the final recommendations.

There are a number of other components of the process which help guide parents into making collaborative decisions. Wisconsin requires all divorcing parents to attend a four hour workshop covering how to help children through their parent's divorce as well as how to develop a parenting plan which takes the children's developmental needs into account. In La Crosse county, all children of divorcing parents are required to attend a four-hour Saturday morning program covering how to cope with divorce in the family. If a child has participated in a school-based counseling or group program related to divorce, or if the child has received counseling regarding divorce issues, they are exempt from participation in this program.

All parents are given a copy of the handout enclosed with this article, which provides guidelines for developing an effective parenting plan. Parents can either develop this plan on their own or by using the services of a mediator or counselor. Of course, if they are unable to agree, the CAT process is then implemented, as noted above.

Parents are reminded repeatedly that their children will probably do OK with the divorce provided the following factors are present:

1. Parents attempt to resolve their anger and conflicts, and take steps to protect their children from the impact of their disagreements.

2. Both parents remain involved in their children's lives.

3. The placement schedule is designed to take the developmental needs of the children into account.

4. The parents make use of community resources (mediation, counseling, support services) to help them adjust to post-divorce life.

We are now in the process of evaluating which components of the model are most responsible for helping the parents achieve a cooperative relationship and keep their disputes out of the courtroom. A complete manual for guiding the CAT process is also being developed and will be shared with the Newsletter as soon as we are done.

Author:
Kip Zirkel, Ph.D. Family and Children's Center
1610 Madison 1707 Main
La Crosse, WI 54601
La Crosse, WI 54601
608-784-8688 608-785-0001

Improving Interview Data
The following article, by Dr. Bob DeYoung, represents one important purpose behind the formation of the Custody Newsletter. It is exactly the kind of contribution I had in mind when putting the Custody Newsletter together: a relatively short, to-the-point article that would undoubtedly (and stupidly) be turned down by most professional journals, in spite of containing more clinically helpful content than 99 percent or what is usually printed, especially for those who have faith in interview data.

Bob DeYoung, Ph.D., R.C.E., is the Court designated psychologist for Pike and Wayne counties, Pennsylvania. He is a Law Enforcement Instructor in Pennsylvania, as well as the founder and director of The Family Psychology Center in Matamoras, Pennsylvania.

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Custody and Investigation
The arenas of mental health and law enforcement have long experienced a cautious, often misunderstood liaison with one another. It is necessary to note that custody evaluations frequently involve desperate, manipulative individuals who may not have in mind the ultimate goal of seeking a solution in the best interests of the children. As a Court-designated psychologist with a background in law enforcement, I have discovered that some interrogation guidelines and techniques used by police officers and district attorneys can be quite productive during the course of completing custody evaluations. These three guidelines are not typically taught to mental health professionals.

Guideline #1: Separate witnesses and question them individually. Custody, substance abuse, or other forensic evaluations can prompt malingering, collusions or "faking good" in the subjects being assessed. When "significant others" are separated from the main participants and interviewed alone, they may, either unwittingly or otherwise, reveal things they would not otherwise reveal.

Guideline #2: Follow leads. It would be absurd to interview a client completing an evaluation without accruing corroborating or contrasting data from others associated with him/her. Detectives take this common sense approach further, by not only individually interviewing those involved with the client, but in following leads generated by information gained via these interviews. After securing appropriate releases, contact ex--spouses, past and present employers, extended family, in-laws and "out-laws." Be creative. An ex-girlfriend or business associate can often shed significant light on the "facts" as they are given by the initial interviewees. It is suggested that you keep a separate folder including dates of contact, phone numbers, and statements given that can, in turn, supply additional leads. Expanding the field in this manner can not only prove fruitful, but can validate, substantiate and/or refute your observations gained during the basic leads. It should be duly noted that most law enforcement agencies understand that failure to submit to a test casts doubt on a client's credibility, or may in fact constitute actual guilt. This lack of cooperation can be a significant point noted in the evaluation.

Guideline #3: When all the data (evidence) is collected, confront the client with inconsistent or inaccurate information. After completing the individual interviews and compiling information from your leads, it may be productive to schedule another session with the primary client in order to present him/her with these data. Custody, substance abuse, and/or forensic issues can frequently be clarified or corrected when the client is confronted with data that clearly contradict his/her accounts. The "therapeutic moment" is somewhat best served when the client is not well prepared for a comeback to information he/she was not expecting.

It is often necessary to include a disclaimer in the evaluation such as: "Statements and facts provided by family and other individuals are helpful as background. Conclusions, however, are determined by considering facts, test results, professional opinions and information gathered during interviews of the persons being evaluated".

Some attorneys may still object to the inclusion of statements submitted by individuals who are not available for cross-examination. This is dealt with on a case by case basis, and as an individual matter. This "back door" approach of including corroborating statements within an evaluation can, on the other hand, prove quite effective. Upon receiving additional information via telephone interviews and leads, the evaluator can, at the very least, maintain a separate section of records containing such data. This information can possibly be implemented during expert testimony, or the data can simply enhance and direct the evaluator's assessment format or direction.

Professionals within the field of custody understand that an evaluator's role is quite different than that of a therapist. These guidelines may at first appear to go against the grain of a mental health professional trained in empathy and client-centered ideology. The custody evaluator, on the other hand, must implement a pragmatic style in order to gather and assess accurate information that may ultimately profoundly affect the lives of those evaluated. These guidelines may enhance your ability to accomplish this.

Author:
Robert R. DeYoung, Ph.D., CADC
Family Psychology Center
311 Pennsylvania, PA 18336
Phone: 717-491-4117

A Critical Custody Issue

The author of the next article brings up a very critical issue in a comprehensive custody evaluation: obtaining accurate information from respondents who are desperate to make a favorable impression. The editor has written extensively on research-based attempts to compare consciously-sourced data against responses originating from less conscious levels. There are, of course, many other strategies useful to the endeavor of obtaining an accurate picture. In spite of some possibly controversial points e.g., it is always a tenuous jump to conclude that tests which seem to measure some of the same concepts as each other actually do so (e.g., that the Buss-Durkee Hostility Inventory and the MMPI-2 in actuality will achieve good correlations with each other) this is a fine article which hopefully will provide dialogue on this important area.

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ASSESSING DECEPTION: IF IT SOUNDS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE, IT PROBABLY IS!
In dealing with the realities of forensic work over the last ten years, one of the most difficult issues concerns dealing with individuals who present themselves in the best possible light. Most mental health professionals are trained to assist individuals with problems, and specifically to listen to and take clients at their word, at least in most cases. In this way graduate training doesn't adequately prepare professionals to deal with people who practice deception, deceit or manipulation to achieve their goals or outcomes. Two such groups of individuals who may present these realities are sexual offenders and parents in high conflict custody disputes. In both cases, the picture presented by these individuals will be one that puts them in the best possible light, whether that is a realistic or accurate picture or not! It is the job of the assessor to get the most accurate and honest picture of these individuals, warts and all, based on good ethical assessments, diagnosis and information gathering. It is also important to develop some good intuitive skills concerning one's own ability to question those facts that "Sound Too Good To Be True!" Most of this is developed by working with clients, some of whom may not agree that they need your services, but may be forced to participate by some larger system(Criminal, Juvenile or Civil). By working with clients who are forced to participate, but cannot be forced to change, one develops his or her own version of a BS (Male Cow Excrement) Detector, that alerts one to those things that are probably not true. In over twenty years in human services work, I have heard individuals suggest some of the most outlandish things, and they actually thought I would buy them as explanations (No, I do not believe Ed McMahon and the Prize Patrol are at my door; No I don't think that stealing a car or getting picked up for Driving Under the Influence are minor traffic violations!) It is necessary for an assessor to have more than a healthy degree of scepticism, but also to have an open mind that on some occasions Truth is stranger than Fiction!

In addition, it is my opinion that one must attempt to use instruments, tests or questionnaires that give information concerning an individual's problems, level of intellectual functioning, and specific behavioral problems, while also attempting to limit the respondent's ability to skew or falsify the results. I attempt to use a battery of instruments that can support conclusions across multiple instruments, while also using specific tests that have ways of detecting attempts to minimize or deny problems. For example, I may use a specific instrument that measures anger or hostility, such as the State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory or the Buss-Durkee Hostility Inventory. In the cases of both of these instruments, they ask questions concerning anger or hostility in very matter of fact ways, meaning someone attempting to deny a problem with either anger or hostility could potentially manipulate the results by not answering honestly. Neither instrument has any validity scales or way of checking honesty or consistency of responses. If however in addition to these instruments one would use the MMPI or MMPI-2 , both have specific research scales made up of items concerning anger, aggression and hostility. The MMPI or MMPI-2 has very definite internal methods of measuring the consistency of responses, the tendency to deny even usual human foibles, so that a pattern of presenting oneself in the best light, or even being completely dishonest about one's problems, would tend to show up on the validity scales of either. In addition, one could expect that if one responded to the MMPI or MMPI-2 honestly, then if one of the research scales measuring hostility was elevated, some of the scales on the Buss-Durkee Hostility Inventory should also be somewhat elevated. In some cases, the manuals of the instruments report on the validity or agreement between instruments. However, even if the tests measure different aspects or features, one would not expect that the results would be in direct opposition to each other. What I have found is some level of consistency concerning traits or features. If a person is depressed, the Depression scale on the MMPI or MMPI-2 would be somewhat elevated, and the score on the Beck Depression Inventory would also suggest some level of depression, even though the Beck and MMPI may measure different features of depression. If I get no level of depression on the Beck, and an extremely high score on the MMPI Depression scale, I would be interested in checking out how the person was responding, and how he or she had presented in my clinical interview, to see if I picked up some of those "Too Good To Be True" types of responses. There are a number of instruments that have specific measures built in to pick up attempts to manipulate or deceive the assessor. The Parenting Stress Index, a measure used to quantify the stressful qualities of parenting certain children with physical or psychological problems, has developed cutoff scores that research has shown indicates parents attempting to deny or deceive others, and in some cases themselves, into believing there are no problems or stresses. The Substance Abuse Subtle Screening Inventory (SASSI) is a measure that uses a self report side concerning substance or alcohol use, and in addition a side using true/false responses that has questions that do not seem to concern substance abuse. Based on responses generated by samples of both substance abusers and non-abusers, certain patterns of responses were found to be consistent with individuals with abuse or dependency problems, and so attempts to deny or deceive are picked up in a subtle fashion. In addition, the SASSI and the MacAndrew Alcoholism Scale on the MMPI or MMPI-2 have some consistency, so can again be used to compare consistency across instruments. It is this type of effort and approach that must be used when dealing with people who will attempt to lie or minimize their problems. I specifically pay attention to a number of scales on the MMPI or MMPI-2 that I have found contain useful information concerning an individual's attempts to"Fake Good" or dissimulate the results. In addition to the scales considered the normal validity scales on the MMPI or MMPI-2, the L scale or Lie Scale, the F scale or Infrequency Scale and the K scale or Correction Scale, I also use the F-K or Dissimulation Scale (Gough). Dissimulation implies that an individual is attempting to present him- or herself as something other than the true self. This scale attempts to measure a person's conscious attempt to present a false picture, by eliminating negative personality traits or problem behaviors or syndromes. By establishing cutoff scores for this scale, it suggests that scores of specific value and direction are highly indicative of an attempt to present as either healthier or more emotionally disturbed than one may really be. Another piece of information I use is the Goldberg Index. This is a summing of several MMPI or MMPI-2 scales T scores to produce a number that suggests more serious psychopathology in the individual. It is sometimes known as the N/P Index with the N standing for Neurosis and the P standing for Psychosis. The implication of the Goldberg Index is that individuals producing higher Goldberg Index scores are more seriously disturbed and have more significant long term problems/than others.

In the ten years that I have worked with both sexual offenders and couples in contested custody cases, I have come to some interesting impressions and realizations. It is the common belief, on the part of most clinicians, that sex offenders as a group are some of the most deceitful, manipulative, dishonest individuals known to exist in mankind. They are despised because of the manipulations they use to lure and abuse children, and the fact that on many occasions they believe or seem to believe their own deceitful rationalizations concerning their behavior. In comparison, I believe most clinicians would see couples involved in contentious custody cases as normal people who are going through a difficult period of adjustment. What I have found, based on information concerning 10 couples I have had contact with in disputed custody situations and 20 individuals charged with sexual offenses that I have evaluated or treated, would dispute some of those accepted beliefs. In the group of 10 couples involved in the contested custody cases, at least one of the two parents produced scores on the F-K Dissimulation Scale that would indicate one of the parties attempting to "Fake Good" on the MMPI or MMPI-2. On several other of the MMPI or MMPI-2 assessments, both parties activated the "Fake Good" Dissimulation scale, meaning approximately 12 out of the 20 assessments using the MMPI or MMPI-2 contained individuals scoring in the range on the Dissimulation F-K Index, that would suggest a "Fake Good" interpretation. In comparison of the 20 individuals charged with sexual offenses who completed an assessment using the MMPI or MMPI-2, three individuals produced scores that activated the F-K Dissimulation Index and would indicate someone attempting to "Fake Good". In addition, the Goldberg Index of the 20 individuals charged with sexual offenses was quite elevated, showing most of these individuals had serious and long term personality problems and serious emotional disturbance. Interestingly enough, the 10 couples involved in the contested custody cases also had elevated Goldberg Indexes, although not as elevated as the sexual offenders. It has been my experience that individuals involved in contested, highly emotional custody battles may attempt to deceive, lie or manipulate more than individuals charged with serious crimes, who may go to jail or prison! As I had said in an earlier letter to this Newsletter, I have discovered that one can never underestimate the intensity and lengths of a former spouse to discredit the other parent in any way. I believe each person involved in contested custody cases believe him- or herself the "Best Parent" for the child or children, but in addition uses the evaluation process to "punish" the other partner for the ending of the relationship. I see many divorces as re-opening previous traumas and abandonment issues that have not been resolved, and so the custody battle becomes the stage to play out these issues, but it is done in the name of the children rather than the real agenda (revenge).

It is for all the above reasons and complexities that I believe the assessor or evaluator must use instruments that can assist in detecting deception, and become more experienced themselves in picking up on possible "Too Good To Be True" shadings of facts.

REFERENCES
"Beck Depression Inventory," Aaron Beck,The Psychological Corporation,San Antonio, Texas, 78204. Buss,A.H.,& Durkee,A.(1957). An inventory of assessing different kinds of hostility. Journal of Consulting Psychology, 21,343-349. Goldberg,L.R.(1969) The search for configural relationships in personality assessment: The diagnosis of psychosis vs. neurosis from the MMPI. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 4, 523-536. Gough,H. G.(1950) the F minus K dissimulation index for the MMPI. Journal of Consulting Psychology, 14, 408-413. "Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory and Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory -2",The University of Minnesota, National Computer Systems Inc., Minneapolis Mn. "Parenting Stress Index," Richard R. Abidin,Psychological Assessment Resources, Odessa, Florida, 33556. "State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory", Charles D. Spielberger, Psychological Assessment Resources,Odessa, Florida, 33556. "Substance Abuse Subtle Screening Inventory", Glen Miller, SASSI Institute, Bloomington, Indiana 47407.

Author:
Steven J. Sprengelmeyer, MA,MSW,ACSW,DCSW,LISW,
Board Certified Diplomate in Clinical Social Work,
Board Certified Forensic Examiner,
Diplomate, American Board of Forensic Examiners.
Suite 527, Fischer Building, 909 Main Street
Dubuque, Iowa 52001 (319) 557-7599

SOME CRITICAL ISSUES IN FORMULATING CHILD CUSTODY TESTS
Criticisms of the two data-based methods that can assist in custody decision-making (our tests and those of Marc Ackerman), while justified in some instances, require close scrutiny.

This kind of scrutiny would be less important were it not for four key points.

One point, often noted with amazement by non-psychologists, is the manner in which psychologists "peer review" other psychologists (regardless of the category involved e.g., journal submissions, grant requests, books, tests, etc.). The reviews tend to be moralistic, demeaning, and characterized by an absolutistic "I've-got-the-truth" attitude and anyone who disagrees with me is not only WRONG but intentioned by evil. This hurts our field as a whole, and can impair research progress.

The second point to be made is more circumscribed: all of the criticisms of the extant empirical data-based tests are purely subjective. No challenging or contrasting data have, at least as yet, been brought forward.

Third, reviewers who would encourage scientific progress should be aware of the four categories of scientific endeavor, and strengths and deficiencies in each should be evaluated separately. While it is true that weaknesses in any given category cannot be rectified by strengths in the other categories, this kind of review-precision would more fruitfully point out useful future research directions, while not needlessly destroying scientific categories that show promise.

Science can be characterized by the creation (or "discovery") of concepts, the delineation of empirical -equivalents (what one looks for in the "real" sensory world as the parallels or manifestations of a concept), the formation of principles (which define the relationships among concepts), and validation (which is achieved when the relationships between certain empirical-equivalents correspond to what is predicted by a principle).

Both Newton and Einstein created certain concepts which required the passage of more than dozens of years to await validation, i.e., many useful concepts should not be forsaken just because they, or the relationships among them, cannot immediately be validated in ways that satisfy everyone.

The Rorschach test, for example, has been clinically and intuitively believed to represent very good concepts, and hence has lasted an incredibly long time in spite of the fact that there exists much disagreement about how it is faring in the other three categories. (I strongly believe it will go on to exist long after its detractors don't.) And again, pre-modern people probably believed "intelligence" was a useful concept long before there were any intelligence tests.

My point? Reviewers should distinguish among how a reviewed item fares in each of the four categories.

Another point to be made is that reviewers who fail to realize that concurrent validity, while not as strong and useful as "true" predictive validity, is still validity. A hugely misunderstood item in this ballpark is that too many reviewers fail to realize that the relevance of test scores cannot be known by face or content validity, but only in the details of how they were validated. The ultimate question for a decision-maker comes to the posing of the following question: "If all I had to go on to make a decision was the procedure used to formulate the external validating criterion---exactly what the test scores are seeking to predict or be compared to-- would I believe a good decision will be made?"

Finally, reviewers would do well to understand the complexities of seeking to validate a new (or newly "rediscovered") concept.

So far, as I know, I was the first person to take seriously part of the paradigm behind quantum mechanics i.e., something does not exist (literally! physically as well as conceptually) until it impacts a particular observational mechanism i.e., the "meaning" of parental behavior does not exist until it impacts a particular child. This is not just an interactional model. That is, in my view one does not approach this problem by seeking to understand the "functionally utility" of a parent's behavior by considering how it interacts with qualities of a child. In this view, there is no "it." My model is not, therefore, that a parent's "something" is "interacting" with a child's "something." I say this because the "somethings" of each participant are not necessarily stable across different dyadic combinations. An example will be given later.

Whether or not one agrees with these formulations is not immediately on the point I wish to make, which is this. A criticism leveled against the approach described here is that some of the external validating criteria "were of the author's own invention," (as though this was a big no-no in science). But when one is introducing a new concept, it is usually precisely because there are no already existing, agreed-upon ways to measure the empririal equivalents of the new concept (what one looks for in the sensory world of humans that exemplify the concept).

When one is introducing (or rediscovering) a concept, not only will one fail to find any already-existing tests of the concept, but will probably not even find any agreed-upon definitions of it or of its empirical equivalents to begin with. Our main point: it is difficult to validate a new concept by seeking to find correlations between measures of it and already existing measures.

The followintg material is taken from a paper called Critical Child Custody Issues. While it deals with some of the author's tests, the issues involved go far beyond these particular tests---which is why it appears here in the Custody Newsletter.

For example, the first item addresses a key point that I believe is often misunderstood in terms of certain (drawing-based) projective tests. This issue questions whether or not a drawing-based projective test needs to be "adjusted" for visual-motor discoordination, cognitive deficit, etc.

Well, even though the issue is somewhat simpler in a custody context (since you are only comparing a mom-representation with the dad-representation), there is much to be said for the conceptual position (which would apply in any context) that a person's "motor" proficiency is an essential part of that person's ego-apparatus, and hence could possibly influence the total way that person operates in the world i.e., one would not seek to "adjust" for its operation within some measured variable of which it is a component part. (Of course, ultimately this depends on what one seeks to predict. For example, if one were seeking to predict a person's intelligence from a drawing-based tool, one probably would have to adjust for the influence of visual-motor impairment.)

In a book we are currently writing on motor-initiated therapeutic strategies, we capitalize on the fact that the human organism is regulated by highly inter-connected systems (e.g., sensory-based information in words, images, smells, tastes, and muscular-skeletal forms, etc., connected to chemical and other systems, and so forth).

Visual-motor skills are an integral part of this "self-informing" information loop.

It is a controverscial (in my mind, misguided) position to consider "poor visual-motor skills" as somethhing that needs "adjusting," in all conceivable uses of visual-motor skills, if indeed one posits that the poor visual-motor integration could be a key "cause" of how a predicted variable is assumed to operate.

The critical question, then, is really whether e.g., poor visual-motor integration will impact "performance" on what a test seeks specifically to measure. The above point is meant to illustrate that the following article addresses many more critical issues than those immediately connected to test issues.

Q: Do BPS, or especially PORT, responses have to be somehow "adjusted" to allow for poor visual-motor skills?

A: However wonderfully efficient-or impaired-is a child's status at any time, it is this status that will constitute that child's "inner yardstick," the means by which he or she will judge both parents. "Adjustment" would be needed only if the impairment created mother/father bias. In other words, if visually-impaired or cognitively-delayed children were biased in favor of mothers, adjustment would be needed. This is not the case, however. If the child is too impaired to take the BPS and PORT in the first place e.g., the child does not understand the instructions, cannot hold a pencil or stylus, etc., the tests should not be used.

Q: How come the BPS and PORT do not yield "regular statistics" like a standard error of measurement?

A: The "output end" or "score" yielded by the BPS and PORT is "mother" or "father." "Mother" versus "father" is not a continuously distributed score, nor do such scores yield a symmetrical distribution which would be required, for example, to use a Pearson product moment correlation. Hence simple ratio and difference scores are appropriate, and offer the further advantage of being more understandable to judges, attorneys, and parents, who need to absorb the meaning of these scores in very "nervous" surroundings.

Q: Some attorneys have challenged the size of some BPS and PORT sample populations. How do I answer them?

A: First, when considering sample size, one must ask "Compared to what?" and "Adequate for what?" Several points can be made Most simply, data now exist on about 2,000 BPS cases and 1,600 PORT cases (each test yielding validity scores in the 90 percent-agreement-with-external-criteria range). Since BPS and PORT scores are not normally distributed (and hence one would not seek to see how they are distributed in the population), one can use the groups reported in the validity studies as validity-reference groups to yield much the same kinds of information as would a normative group. (Details to follow.)

Second, BPS and PORT scores have been validated many different ways, and so one must wonder how they stack up against the information sources they sometimes have to compete with (when each tells a different story), for example, non-coded interview and observation data, which have not been validated in reference to anything.

Third, and this is a point often lost in the shuffle, as sample sizes increase, the accuracy with which a population mean is being estimated increases, not the accuracy of the measuring instrument.

At any rate, validity data now exist on about 4,000 cases.

One should also ask of a sample size: Is it adequate for my purposes. Later, in discussing non-psychometric aspects of a test's value, we will cover this issue as well.

Q: There's much debate about whether an expert witness should ever address an "ultimate issue." (An "ultimate issue" is simply the main issue a court must finally address. In a custody case, this is usually a parenting plan or deciding which parent should be the primary custodial parent (PCP). How do you feel about this? And what about using a test. such as the BPS or PORT to address an ultimate issue?

A: We have written extensively (in both our textbook, The Custody Evaluation Handbook: Research-Based Solutions and Applications and in the ACCESS manual) that, unless ordered (or "pushed") to do so by a judge, this is exceedingly unwise.

We follow the advice of Wagenaar (1988), who argues that while a judge can reason as follows: Given the evidence, such-and-such is the probability that some hypothesis ("The mother is the better PCP") is true, an expert witness should be directed to the following kind of statement: "If a hypothesis is true, such-and-such is the probability that we would find this evidence."

It is sometimes claimed we believe the BPS and/or PORT should be used by themselves to address an ultimate issue. Since we do not believe a mental health professional should address an ultimate issue in any event, it would be silly to believe we would advocate doing this on the bases of certain test scores alone. Perhaps some critic confused our description of how we validated our tests with a prescription of how they should be used within the psycholegal system.

Note well that the ACCESS method lists 34 critical targets of a comprehensive evaluation, in addition to those addressed by the BPS and PORT. From a practical perspective, when one is asked an "ultimate issue" type of question, one can always ask the presiding judge for guidance e.g., "Your honor, would you like me to answer this question; I know it could involve an 'ultimate issue'?"

Finally, if we are being faulted for the way we validated our tests, (test-based choices for PCP compared to external choices), one would have to wonder how one would validate a test that seeks to assist in making the choice of a PCP without seeing if it can indeed do this, assist in choosing a PCP.

Q: I read that someone said the BPS and PORT can never really be validated since they seek to measure a child's "unconscious perceptions" or "unconscious motivations."

A: Presumably the critic means there are no acceptable or agreed-upon ways to measure "unconscious" dispositions.

But this is not really the issue. As far as validation goes, the above notions are simply used as intervening variables, our idea as to what is happening inside a child as he or she responds to the tests.

The independent criteria used in the validation studies consisted of the choices for PCP arrived at in ways independent of the BPS and/or PORT scores, and had nothing whatsoever to do with "unconscious motivations."

Q: In what specific ways do the BPS and PORT measure a parent's "competence" or "functional abilities?"

A: They don't. We claim there is no such thing. Just as in the world of quantum mechanics where something (literally!) does not exist until it impacts an observational mechanism, we claim a parent's "functional abilities" are best seen as a property of a unique dyadic interaction. It is important that users of the test have a firm understanding of the conceptual foundations of the BPS and PORT, and so in this response we will attempt to summarize our basic constructs. Without such an understanding, it is difficult to grasp which test scores are statistically interpretable and which are not.

In the conceptual world of the BPS and PORT it would make no sense to apply the notion of "parental competence" to a single individual. Just as in physics where it would be impossible to apply the concept of "gravitational attraction" to a single entity, in our conceptual world the notion of parental competence can only be the property of a specific dyad. Parental competence is not something usefully thought of as something that someone "has." There are two problems with assuming parental competence can be usefully conceptualized as the property of an individual. Let us take the case first of a father who has a mildly obsessive-compulsive personality who tends to give long detailed responses to proffered questions. Our PORT-generating research, which gave us ample opportunities to observe children and their parents solving problems together from behind a one-way screen, followed by lengthy interviews, has shown that interactions with a parent like this may be viewed very favorably by some children and not others, for example by a child with good auditory-receptive abilities who additionally assigns the following meaning to them: "Dad cares enough about me to take the time to really explain things." These very same kinds of interactions will be viewed as toxic and destructive by a child with poor auditory-receptive abilities and/or who assigns the following meaning to them: "Dad doesn't trust that I can figure out anything on my own."

However, there are further difficulties with applying the concept of parental competence to a single individual. And that is the fact that the traits or behaviors that a parent might manifest are frequently not stable across different dyads. In the most important part of our validational work, which allowed BPS and PORT choices to be compared to choices arrived at by independent mental health professionals who had access to between two and seven years' worth of family therapy notes, plus consultation with the relevant therapists, two facts emerged very clearly which confirmed what was already believed from the observation sessions. Not only will a child differentially value interactions with each parent in accordance with each parent's attunement to that child's symbol systems (how the child assigns meaning to the world) and information processing strategies (how the child best uses information), but equally important, a parent, who is, say, obsessive-compulsive, will not manifest this obsessiveness equally in all dyadic and/or interpersonal contexts. Further, a parent does not deal with, or handle, each child with the same range of attitudes, styles, and affect patterns.

Let me illustrate this with something that happened to me as a child and which made a lasting impression. I had a grandfather who was extremely quiet; he rarely spoke. However, there was "something" about him that I perceived as exceedingly loving, caring, and supportive. I felt very "loved" in his presence although he never said anything to this effect very directly.

I remember being shocked when someone described this grandfather as "cold and aloof."

What was happening here? Since personality is layered, was I actually able to see things in my grandfather not accessible to the perceptions of this other person? Or was I feeling loved, nurtured and cared for by something that did not in fact exist?

In the view that sees parents as having "functional abilities" one could perhaps test my grandfather. What if in fact this was done, and indeed it was discovered that on the tests my grandfather was revealed as "emotionally cold." But what if there was something specific in my behavior that elicited emotional warmth from him. What if no one else would ever see this? Would it matter to me if no one else were ever to experience this emotional warmth?

What we see here is partly based on "fact" and partly based on epistemology. Factually, I experienced my grandfather as warm, loving and supportive. Factually, many others described him as detached, aloof, cold, and uncaring. From another perspective, the epistemological world to which we subscribe, based in part on the total works of Milton Erickson, in part on neuro-linguistic programming, and in part on research conducted in the 1960's on the PORT and with Sophie Gottlieb on marital communication, we arrive at the premise, aptly phrased by Bandler and Grinder, that "the meaning of a communication is the response it elicits." In other words, in this epistemological world, it makes little sense to try to figure out the meaning of a communication by either the intentions, the qualities, or the "functional abilities" of the sender. In our world then, parental competence is seen as the property of a unique dyad, not as a child's separate "something" interacting with a parent's separate "something." These "somethings" are not stable across different dyads. (Other simple examples: some mothers are warm and supportive when dealing with placid children only to become nervous shriekers when dealing with into-everything, ask-about-everything children; a father may be terribly impatient dealing with young children and agitated and aggressive when dealing with older children.)

It is very important to understand this because it leads to another important conceptual understanding that is needed to grasp the foundations of the BPS and PORT. And that is that each child has a unique inner yardstick with which he or she ascribes values to interactions with others. This inner yardstick is also not necessarily stable across children. We will address this issue in our next response.

Q: One critic has claimed it is impossible to interpret BPS scores since how high a given point score is the amount of "wellness" attributed to a parent by a child has no consistent meaning. You reported in the manual that exceptionally low point scores may be characteristic of children with impaired parents, while higher scores may reflect healthy children or "wishful thinkers."

A: There are several possible sources of confusion in this statement, so the answer will attempt to consider all of them.

First, I must say it surprises me that anyone would seriously challenge the conceptual premises of any tests that achieve a 90 percent validity rate on almost 4,000 cases. But so be it.

The simplest response would be that the statement confuses point scores, which have no statistically interpretable meaning, with item-difference scores, which do. Note well that our main conceptual premise predicted that the parent who could better serve a child in the greater number of life areas would be the better candidate for PCP, not the parent who could better serve a child within some limited area. (The life areas themselves were chosen to conform to the concerns raised in model custody acts, statutory child custody guidelines, and in our own PORT-generating research carried out in the early 60s. Their "weightings" are represented by the number of test items that sample a given area. These weightings are proportioned in reference to the frequency of their appearance in the aforementioned sources.)

It did not surprise us that there was no statistically interpretable between-children meaning to the amount of wellness (the "highness" of the point scores) attributed by a child to a parent. That each child uses a totally unique "inner yardstick" to assign value to parental interactions was already obvious to us from the very first research we did in the custody area, which used semantic-differential scales modeled on those pioneered by Charles Osgood (1957) in his attempts to measure "meaning." It became readily obvious that each child had a unique "inner yardstick," and that these inner yardsticks are dissimilar from child to child.

We experimented with scales such as the following. The child was asked to make markings along the continua lines as he or she thought about a particular parent. We hoped to correlate these markings with other measures of parental competence.

Scary
Comfortable
Ugly
Beautiful
Unhelpful
Helpful, etc.

First, although not directly germane to this point (but to other important conceptual points), is that we abandoned the idea that "parental competence," outside of how this might function in a particular dyad, was a useful concept.

Directly pertinent to this point, we found there were certain children who tended to cluster their responses toward the negative ends of the continua, and other children who did the opposite. These trends were often consistent for these children regardless of what was being measured. Some children, one might say, were consistent "nay-sayers," and others were "yea-sayers." On scales such as these, for an entire population, it is hard to find between-children statistical meanings regarding the highness or lowness of their placements.

Perhaps some of the confusion in the present case was our unexpected finding that if the nay-sayers are really intense nay-sayers (the amount of wellness attributed to both parents is exceptionally low), the children had rather seriously impaired parents. Note first that it was never our intention to view this as indicating any first level inferential conclusion about the "parental competence" of the children's parents. Our hypothesis was that intensely nay-saying children are probably depressed, and if this is the case, their parents are likely impaired. (People who experimented with semantic differential scales offered the same hypothesis.) Note second, that it is not unusual in the world of psychometrics for high scores to not necessarily reflect the converse of low scores. A high score on a self-administered intelligence test probably reflects high intelligence, while a low score may reflect low intelligence or poor motivation, or poor reading skills or high performance anxiety, etc.

If the premise of the critical remark in the above question is asserting that BPS scores are difficult to interpret because of shifting motivations within-the-same-child, one would expect to see this reflected in BPS data and in our earlier-obtained semantic differential data. Such is not the case. In any event, such a scenario could only be critical if it were differentially evoked by one parent or the other.

The only statistically meaningful score yielded by the BPS (and PORT) is the Item-difference score. This is related to other measures. In one study, it was highly related to the certainty-of-judgment of psychologists who independently of BPS or PORT data, chose the better PCPs based on two to seven years' worth of family therapy notes plus consultation with relevant therapists. It is also related to test-retest reliability (details given later).

Q: I have been challenged in court with the following question and would like to know how you would answer if you were asked this question: "Doctor, how do you know the BPS (or PORT) didn't favor the mother simply because she was the person who brought the child to your office?"

A: There are two areas to think about in considering the issues raised by this question: one involves science and the other involves strategies.

What data that are available suggest the POC will not shift in relation to who brings the child. (When heavy-duty alienation or outright threats and bribery enter the picture, the situation becomes more complex. However, these factors are complex regardless of who brings the child. In such situations, the evaluator must rely on the less consciously-sourced responses obtained, and must be wary of the more consciously-sourced responses.)

From a tactical perspective--and we mean much more here than "winning" a case--we must consider what is called in the literature "perceived procedural fairness."

From this perspective, we want to motivate the parents to believe in, and support (!), any proffered plan.

For all of the above reasons, including the scientific, we always have both parents bring a child in for BPS and/or PORT testing.

But note well: the issues surrounding a test-retest change of a test score are complex. There are three sources of change: while two involve measurement-related error items, the third occurs when there has been a genuine change in the variable(s) being measured. Evaluators must be alert for when a test-retest change in a test score is not an error.

Q: I'm not sure I understand clearly how the BPS and/or PORT address the issue of whether neither parent is a good choice for PCP.

A: This points up why we always suggest that the tests be used as part of the entire ACCESS method (A Comprehensive Custody Evaluation Standard System). There are 34 critical targets to consider in addition to those addressed by the BPS and PORT. While courts are reluctant to decide that neither parent is adequate, and tilt toward the least-detrimental-alternative solution, this scenario is sometimes an issue. If the parents seem seriously inadequate in data derived from interviews, observations and traditional tests, the PORT will frequently manifest signs of distortion in reference to these severely impaired parents (slash marks through figures, grossly distorted hands, marked slanting of figures, etc.). One must depend on a great deal of convergent information, derived from multiple sources, to reach a conclusion as serious as "neither parent is adequate."

Q: I wonder how you think about BPS and PORT reliability. I remember reading in one of the manuals that there was no reason to expect the test scores to remain stable.

A: Here's the entire sentence, and boy, do I wish I had never written it the way I did, because it has been the source of some confusion: "There are no reasons to expect the measurements reported to exhibit any particular degree of stability, since they should vary in accordance with changes in the child's perceptions."

Our intention was never to say that critical test scores (Item-difference scores, upon which predictions are made) are widely (or unpredictably) unstable over time. It was our intention to say that as psychological variables go, there was no reason to expect the optimality of a child--parent dyad to be as stable, say, as intelligence or other personality traits, e.g., introversion.

It was our way of calling attention to the fact that the evaluator must be hyper-vigilant to the many factors that could legitimately cause a score that predicts a parent-of-choice to change (i.e., the change is not based on the use of a "rubber yardstick," that is, due to an error of measurement). These factors might include. the presence of a new stepparent; a new boy- or girlfriend; a new step-sibling; a change in location, abuse; etc. Whereas with "intelligence" there are few things that might cause a score to shift (e.g., brain trauma; greatly changed environmental opportunities), this is not the case with the optimality of parent-child dyads. Note well, that the notion of "reliability" does not really address the issues referred to above. An EKG for example, yields data that are quite reliable, but these numbers do not alert the physician to a situation in which quick retesting would be wise (e.g., the person will soon be subjected to extraordinary stress). In any applied science, an evaluator must know how to recognize when some (measured) variable may be expected to change.

Dr. Gail Elliot and I recently gave the PORT to a 4-year old boy around the inception-time of a custody dispute. Things had not yet "heated up" to the antagonistic level typically reached in such situations. Sad to say, the evaluation process itself can make things worse, as each parent tries to "win" by making the other parent look bad. (In our textbook on custody issues, we call this the "negative incident model," in which each parent unconsciously-- and consciously!--seeks to build a longer list of horror stories to tell the judge than the other person can tell. Things are manipulated to make the opponent seem the scoundrel. Our book suggests several ways to mitigate against the negative incident model.)

At any rate, the initial PORT revealed the father to be the better candidate for PCP.

On retesting, one month later, the PORT showed a near tie.

What had happened was that the father was engaging in rather vicious and unrelenting alienation strategies, and it was turning the boy against him, as the child became more and more aware, as revealed in both the PORT unconscious as well as conscious indicators, of what the father was doing.

Most, if not all, of the other tests (the PASS, PPCP, etc.) did show the father to be quite superior to the mother in parenting skills (his attunement to the child was vastly superior to the mother's), and this is probably why he was the POC on the initial PORT. But as he launched increasingly vicious attacks against the mother, his overall value to the child began to plummet.

An evaluator must be aware of, and be able to distinguish, between test scenarios that reflect genuine changes in the measured variable from those that suggest an error of measurement.

Parenthetically, it is probably the belief on the part of prospective researchers that the psychological "life" of a child in a post-divorce world is so negatively and wildly unstable (e.g., new parental boy- and girlfriends, new stepparents, relocation, etc.) that has discouraged them from attempting to carry out predictive, as opposed to concurrent, external criteria validational studies (see Schutz et. al., 1989; Ackerman and Schoendorf, 1992; Bricklin, 1995). We do not believe this limitation is based on the true state of affairs, i.e., one can discover markers strong enough to achieve a respectable level of predictability.

Reliability data for the BPS and PORT will be given later.

Q: What is the most up-to-date information on normative data? How comfortable can I feel about the degree to which PORT and BPS data can be generalized?

A: Since the "output-end" of the BPS and/or PORT is "mother/father," the tests do not yield a continuous scoring variable (e.g., as "intelligence") the distributions of which one seek in selected populations.

This was based on a theoretical hypothesis (which has been validated with many different samples) that asserts if there is an Item-difference score greater than zero in the way a child values his or her interactions with a parent in critical life areas, the parent who can better serve the child in the greater number of these areas is the better "match" for the child. Since the test scores have continually achieved strong validational confirmation with large samples of cases, it makes statistical sense to see the sample populations as validity-reference groups which can tell us much the same kinds of things we would ask of normative groups.

The original samples (n = 200) for the Perception-of-Relationships Test (PORT) were carried out on a group with a mean age of 7.76 (SD = 2.39; the standard error of the mean is 0.17). Boys and girls were equal in number. The original sample was exclusively Caucasian of lower-middle to upper-middle socioeconomic status . Subsequently, data have been gathered on 1,400 cases; the mean age is approximately 8. About two percent are non-Caucasian, and somewhat less than one percent of the children are from very wealthy families.

The mean age for the Bricklin Perceptual Scales (BPS) (n = 110) was 8.67 (SD = 2.19; the standard error of the mean is 0.21). Additional data have been gathered on 1,890 cases. The mean age is about 9. The other descriptive data are the same as for the PORT.

BPPS and PORT data can be considered quite generalizable for the following reasons.

First, as the sample size has continually increased, the same validity figures (about 90 percent agreement with relevant external criteria) have been achieved with no need to substantially revise the scoring instructions.

Second, the validity-reference groups are composed of subjects ideal from the perspective of direct relevance to a decision-maker; they are composed of children referred for custody evaluations; the very kind of children the tests will be used with in real-life cases.

Q: What is the most up-to-date reliability information currently available?

A: Test-retest data for the PORT (n = 21) over a 6 month interval, suggests that if the Item-difference score is 1 or 0, there is a 10 percent chance the parent-of-choice (POC) could shift on retesting. If the score is 2 or more, there is less than a 2 percent chance of shift.

Test-retest data for the BPS (n = 20 over a 1 - week interval, using adolescent psychiatric patients, and n = 33 over a 6-month interval using custody cases), suggest that when the Item-difference score is 1 or 2, there is a 10 percent chance of POC-shift, and less than a 2 percent chance for larger scores.

More reliability data (of considerable importance) will be detailed along with validity information.

Q: Could you summarize in one place all of the validity data on the PORT and BPS of which you are aware?

A: Each sample listed below shows how either PORT or BPS candidates for PCPs compare to those arrived at by psychologists based on methods completely independent of PORT and BPS data. Following the independent external-criterion method, we will present the sample size, and then the percentage of agreement between PORT or BPS choices for PCP, and those arrived at independently by the other methods Here is a list of studies relating to the PORT:

Structured task problem-solving by children with access to both parents, observed from behind a one-way screen by two psychologists--n = 30, 90 percent;
Courtroom judges (1964-1981), based on all data available--n = 45, 89 percent;
Agreement with BPS choices (1964-1981)-- n = 23, 83 percent;
Courtroom judges (1981-1985), based on all data available--n = 42, 95 percent;
Agreement with BPS choices (1981-1985)-- n = 30, 90 percent;
Two psychologists, based on family therapy notes plus consultation with relevant therapists with families seen over two to five year intervals (1980-1985)-- n = 30, 93 percent;
Courtroom judges (1986-1990), based on all data available--n = 76, 93 percent;
Independent psychologists based on all clinical and life-history data available (1992-1995)-- (n=1,038,) 89 percent;
Independent psychologists based on all clinical and life history data available (1995-1997)-- n = 67, 89 percent.

Here is the BPS list:

Agreement with PORT choices (1964-1981)-- n = 23, 83 percent;
Two psychologists, based on family therapy notes plus consultation with relevant therapists with families seen over two to seven year intervals (1980-1983)-- n = 21, 100 percent;
Courtrooms judges (1980-1983)-- n = 36, 94 percent;
"Would" questionnaire choices (a "disguised" semi-projective test, asking what Mommy/Daddy would do in a certain situation e.g., "You get a bad mark on a test") (1980-1983)-- n = 23, 87 percent;
PORT choices (1981-1985)-- n = 30, 90 percent;
Courtroom judges based on all available information (1984-1990)-- n = 179, 96 percent;
Independent psychologists based on all clinical and life-history data available (1988)-- n = 141, 97 percent;
Independent psychologists based on all clinical and life-history data available (1992-1995)--n=1,765, 88 percent;
Independent psychologists based on all clinical and life-history data available (1995-1997)-- n = 67, 87 percent.

An important point can be made about reliability based on this validity information. Both the BPS and PORT continually yield scores that achieve about a 90 percent agreement rate with various independent criteria, on about 4,000 cases. Note that although reliability measures for a test can be higher than the test's validity measures--a test can be perfectly reliable and have "zero" validity- the converse is not true. A test that shows consistently good validity data must yield reliability scores that are at least as high as the validity scores.

Here is another way to look at this. Based on 4,000 cases, in about 10 percent of instances the test scores are incorrect. This 10 percent range includes test-retest changes in scores attributable to three sources. One source includes errors due to a "rubbery yardstick," i.e., instabilities in the measuring instrument. Another source would include errors in the linkage between the variable being measured and the criterion variable, while the third would embrace changes due to actual shifts in the measured variables. Hence some part of this 10 percent range, but not exceeding it, represents genuine error of measurement.

Q: Isn't it the case that the psychometric attributes of a test are sometimes overplayed in establishing its real value? What about ideographic uses, for example, all the idiosyncratic responses we often see?

A: The value of a test to a decision-maker (hereafter abbreviated DM) indeed depends upon many things, especially the relevance of its scores to the particular decisions the DM seeks to make. Later, we will argue how the relevance of a test's scores is often sought in all the wrong places.

First, let us offer a few brief remarks about ideographic versus nomothetic procedures. This controversy often omits a critical (validational) piece. The ideographic process (essentially comparing a person's responses to other of his or her own responses) as opposed to a nomothetic process (comparing a person's responses to those of a normative group) is often misstated as comparing a normative (psychometric) process against one that depends on an evaluator's "clinical skills." This is not an accurate conceptualization of the differences between the approaches, and is similar to the usual misunderstanding of Paul Meehl's criticism (see Grove and Meehl, 1996) of the "clinical method" as opposed to a "formal" method. Meehl does not claim we cannot depend on e.g., clinical interview or observation data but instead must use "psychometric" or actuarial data. What he refers to is the manner in which any collected data are aggregated for the purpose of making predictions. He argues that formal models are superior to "intuitive" models wherein the decision-rules for aggregating the data are unspecified (or vaguely specified), and not validated.

Hence, whether one uses ideographic or normative information, one should be able to assert the bases for using it to make testable assertions (predictions).

Another way of saying this is that regardless of how one obtained one's data, one should be able to show some sort of scorecard that demonstrates the validity of one's assertions.

The only value of a test score is in the increase in confidence it can give to a DM in predicting the differential likelihoods of important future situations and indeed, the psychometric properties of a test should never, by themselves, be considered an adequate index of this value. Several other areas must be considered.

The first concerns the relevance of the score for the particular outcome the DM seeks to predict (or, at least, "understand"). Hence, the DM must have a fairly clear idea of what this target is, so it can be known if the conceptual world the DM wants to predict is the same conceptual world the test elucidates. A point often overlooked here is that this conceptual world can only be found in how the test scores were validated and not under such headings as "content validity" or "face validity." Fairly literally, the only thing a test is, is what it (consistently) predicts.

Hence, in a custody evaluation situation, if the DM seeks to predict which of two parents would make the better PCP, he or she must begin with a fairly clear idea of what this means. If the answer is "the parent better able to serve in the child's best interests," the DM must have some idea of a definition of "best interests" as well as some notion of indices of it. Once these steps are carried out, the DM can search for test data relevant to these conceptual targets. That which is sought cannot be found in psychometric numbers, but in the (often buried) details of how a given set of test scores was validated. THE IMPORTANT CRITICAL QUESTION FOR THE DM EVENTUALLY BECOMES: "If all I had to go on to choose a PCP were the procedures used in the external-criterion validational studies to which the test choices were compared, would I be comfortable with the PCPs selected?" It is in these details that answers to questions about relevance are to be found. We will return to this issue below.

The second point that must be considered in weighing the value of test data is how the test data compare with competing sources of information. In a custody case, for example, a DM may have to wonder about how to compare test data which has modest accuracy against information (e.g., uncoded answers to interviewer questions) with either totally unknown or poor accuracy (Ekman, 1992; Ekman, O'Sullivan, 1991; Grove and Meehl, 1996). For some interesting thoughts on this, plus a rethinking of the bromide that one should never rely on the results from a single test, see Cizek, 1994

Let us give a brief example of the importance of the above points.

The BPS and PORT were validated against choices arrived at in a variety of other ways. One of these ways involved the decisions of psychologists who had access to family therapy data plus consultation with relevant therapists in which the data were gathered over intervals of two to seven years. If you could choose a PCP based on weekly meetings with a family over a two to seven year interval, would you feel fairly comfortable you could make a decent choice about the optimality of a parent-child congruence? Or would you prefer measurements, even if based on calibration to huge groups, where the criteria of inclusion in these groups were relatively few markers (e.g., airline pilots, psychiatric patients, etc.)? Data from huge groups (in which differences in selected means between groups are almost guaranteed), do not always yield better information than that which can be obtained from much smaller groups in which the members are known far more thoroughly. It is of no value to measure a property of dubious relevance with great accuracy. And, note once again, it is the measurement of the population mean that increases in accuracy as the sample gets larger; the accuracy of the measuring instrument stays the same.

References
Ackerman, M. J., and Schoendorf, K. (1992). The Ackerman-Schoendorf Parent Evaluation of Custody Test. Los Angeles: Western Psychological Services. Bricklin, B. (1995). The Custody Evaluation Handbook: Research-Based Solutions and Applications. New York: Brunner/Mazel. Bricklin, B. and Elliot, G.E. (1 995). ACCESS: A Comprehensive Custody Evaluation Standard System. Furlong, PA: Village Publishing, Inc. Butcher, J. N., Dahlstrom, W. G., Graham, J. F., Tellegen, A. M., and Kaemmer, B. (1989). MMPI-2: Manual for Administration and Scoring. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Cizek, G. J. (1994). In defense of the test. American Psychologist, 49(6), 525-526. Dilts, R. B. (1983). Applications of Neuro-linguistic Programming. Cupertino, CA: Meta Publications. Ekman, P. (1992). Telling Lies. New York: Norton. Ekman, P., and O'Sullivan, M. (1991). Who can catch a liar? American Psychologist 46(9), 913-920. Gordon, R. M. The MMPI/MMPI-2-2, and MMPI-A. (1997). Seminar, Philadelphia, PA. February 22, 1997. Grove, W. M., and Meehl, P. E. (1996). Comparative efficiency of informal (subjective, impressionistic) and formal (mechanical, algorithmic) prediction procedures: The clinical-statistical controversy. Psychology. Public Policy and Law 2(2), 293-323. Osgood, C.E., Suci, 0.J., and Tannenbaum, P.H. (1957). The Measurement of Meaning. University of Illinois Press. Schutz, B. M., Dixon, E. B., Lindenberger, J. C., and Ruther, N.J. (1989). Solomon's Sword: A Practical Guide to Conducting Child Custody Evaluations. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Standards for educational and psychological tests. (1983). Prepared by a joint committee for the American Psychological Association, the American Educational Research Association, and the National Council on Measurement in Education. In B. D. Sales (Ed.) The professional psychologist's handbook. (pp.689-762). New York: Plenum. Wagenaar, W. A. (1988). The proper seat: A Bayesian discussion of the position of expert witness. Law and Human Behavior 12(4), 499-510.

Author of the above article:
The Custody Newsletter Editor

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CUSTODY COURTS AROUND THE COUNTRY

Gail Elliot, Ph.D.
Editor

GRANDPARENTS---THIRD-PARTY CUSTODY, GUARDIANSHIP, AND VISITATION
Guardianship and Grandparent Visitation When One Parent Is Deceased
The most widely publicized recent case involving grandparents' custody and visitation is O.J. Simpson's petition to terminate his children's maternal grandparents' guardianship following the conclusion of the murder trial in which he was found not guilty of murdering the children's mother. The grandparents had asked the court to consider Simpson's history of abuse against his former wife in making a determination based on the children's best interests. The court said that it was unclear whether the state statute strictly applied in this case and concluded that the evidence did not yield a picture of a man who has in the past, or is likely in the future, to lose control of himself in such a manner as to emotionally or physically harm his two young children. In making a custody determination, the court refused to consider evidence presented in the civil wrongful death case against Simpson. Simpson's petition to terminate the guardianship was granted by the court. However, the court granted continuing grandparent visitation, since it has the power to do so in cases where a parent is deceased and visitation is in the children's best interest. (In re Simpson, Calif Super Ct Orange Cty, No. A174254, 12/20/96)

Parent Preference Can Be Overcome When Parent Custody Is Detriment to Child
In another case also involving the termination of guardianship granted to a child's grandparents, an eleven-year old girl had lived with her maternal grandparents for nine years during which she had only intermittent contact with her mother. The Nevada Supreme Court found that the infrequent visitation did not constitute an extraordinary circumstance sufficient to preempt the state's statutory preference for the mother's regaining custody. It stated that the presumption for the mother prevents the award of custody to a non-parent except where the award to the parent would be detrimental to the child and the award to the non-parent would be in the child's best interest. The court stated that the factors considered in determining detriment to the child would include the bond between the child and the non-parent custodian, the existence of persistent neglect by the parent, the child's age, and the likelihood of harm to the child if placed with the biological parent. In reviewing these factors, the court found that exceptional circumstances did not exist and that the guardianship should be terminated and the child returned to the mother. (Locklin v. Duka, Nev SupCt, No. 28272, 12/20/96)

Temporary Vs. Permanent Third-Party Custody/Regaining Custody After Transfer of Custody to a Third Party
A woman who was divorced and was awarded custody of her children suffered a spinal injury which disabled her for thirteen months and prevented her from keeping her job. Due to her financial and physical problems, she asked her parents for help and signed an affidavit in which she stated she was not able to care for her children and in which she agreed to turn custody over to the maternal grandparents. The mother claims that she understood the transfer of custody was only temporary, while the grandparents' understanding was that the custody transfer was permanent. The grandparents then filed a petition with the court requesting permanent custody. However, they failed to serve notice on the mother, who remained unaware of the filing of the petition, the hearing on the petition, or the order granting permanent custody to the grandparents. The mother who had maintained frequent contact with the children during her recovery, appealed the court's decision. The West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals addressed the burden of proof that is required when a parent who has granted custody of a child to a third party then requests the return of the child. In seeking to regain custody after transferring temporary custody to a third party, the parent must prove that he or she is fit. According to the court, if the parent is successful in proving this, the burden of proof then shifts to the third party who must prove that a change in custody would be detrimental to a child. The court stated that, in a case where a parent transfers permanent custody to a third party, the parent must prove not only that he or she is fit, but also that a change of custody would significantly benefit the child. The court added that if a document in which a parent transfers custody of a child to a third party fails to explicitly spell out the intention as to whether custody is to be temporary or permanent, then the transfer is presumed to be temporary. In this case, the lower court's order granting the grandparents custody of the child was overturned based on the grounds that the mother had never received notice of the custody hearing and therefore was deprived the opportunity to present her case that her affidavit giving custody to the grandparents was intended as a temporary transfer. With the reversal of the lower court's findings, the case was remanded for further proceedings. (Overfield v. Collins, WVa SupCtApp, No. 23046, 12/6/96)

Physical Custody and Degree of Contact With Parent
A Colorado Court of Appeals ruled that the standing of a child's grandparents to gain legal custody depended on the nature of the child's contacts with the natural parents during the six-month period that the child was in the grandparents' physical custody. Under Colorado state law, a non-parent has standing to begin a custody proceeding if the child has not been in the parent's physical custody or if the non-parent has had physical custody of the child for six months or more. The issue in this case is the point at which contacts with the child's natural parents shift the balance so that the non-parent can no longer be said to have physical custody of the child. The court instructed that judges may resolve this question by considering the nature, frequency and duration of the contact between the child and the natural parent. It also stated that a non-parent does not necessarily lose standing if there are isolated contacts between the parent and child while the child is in the physical custody of the non-parent as prescribed in the state statute. (In re V.R.P.F., Colo CtApp, No. 96CA1379, 5/8/97)

Temporary Vs. Permanent Third-Party Custody/Degree of Contact With Parent
A case brought before the North Carolina Supreme Court involved the same issues raised in the above two cases, i.e., a determination of the disputing parties' understanding of whether custody granted by a parent to a non-parent would be temporary or permanent and the degree of contact the parent had maintained with the child. This case did not involve grandparents, but a biological mother and her former cohabitant whom she had falsely allowed to believe was the father of her child. The court said that the mother would not necessarily be entitled to parental preference in this custody case in which she had given custody of her child to her former cohabitant. It further stated that the presumption for the natural parent might be superseded by the "best interest of the child" test in cases where a parent's conduct has been inconsistent with his or her protected status as the natural parent. The court stated that just when a parent's conduct has been inconsistent and therefore, justifies the application of the best interest test, should be determined on a case-by-case basis. It further added that parent conduct did not need to rise to the level of mandating termination of the parent's rights. Concerning the case at issue, the courts stated that it could not determine whether the mother should prevail on the basis of her protected status as the natural parent or whether the best interest rule should apply. It therefore remanded the case to the trial court to determine whether the parties had agreed that the change of custody would be temporary and to determine the degree of contact that the mother had maintained with the child. (Price v. Howard, NC SupCt, No. 312A96, 5/9/97)

Mother Claims Third Party Status to Seek Post-Adoption Custody
In an interesting case in the New York Family Court, it was a mother, not a grandparent, who attempted to use "third party" status in order to seek custody of her daughter after the daughter had been adopted by foster parents. Even though the adoptive parents acquiesced in the biological mother's petition for custody, the court held that the mother lacked standing to seek custody and that the daughter's expressed desire to be with the biological mother did not constitute an extraordinary circumstance that would warrant the modification of the custody rights of the adoptive parents. The court noted that the mother, who had been found an unfit parent, never tried to vacate her default in the proceedings terminating her parental rights, never sought to set aside the adoption, and that she would not have been interested in her child had the child not expressed a desire to live with her. In this proceeding, the mother argued that she had standing to seek custody as a "third party" under the Family Court Act. However, the court rejected this argument, saying that giving permission to a parent to use this means would jeopardize the finality of adoption proceedings. The adoption process would be rendered meaningless if parents could disguise themselves as third parties in order to regain custody of children they have abandoned, abused or neglected. (Tiffany A. v. Margaret H., NY FamCt Kings Cty, NYLJ 1/7/97)

Parents' Rights in the Determination of Grandparent Visitation
In Tennessee, a judge who awarded sole custody of a boy to his divorced father also granted visitation to the boy's maternal grandmother, the grandmother with whom the boy had lived with since infancy. However, the Tennessee Court of Appeals determined that the lower court should first have determined whether the child would be harmed by the change in custody from the grandmother, who had been granted temporary custody of the child when the parents divorced. The court said that the case differed from other cases involving grandparent visitation since it did not involve a modification of the grandmother's visitation rights, but rather a modification of custody where custody was awarded to the father. Therefore, as sole custodian, he had the right to decide whether the grandmother should have visitation based on the state's holding that parents have a constitutional right of privacy in their parenting decisions and are not subject to state interference unless there is a chance of substantial harm to the child. Since the grandmother had served as the child's mother since he was an infant, the court decided to remand this case for a determination of harm which, if found, would lead to a determination of whether the grandparent visitation was in the child's best interest. (Hillard v. Hillard, Tenn CtApp, No. 02A01-9609-CH-00230, 2/24/97)

Parent Objection to Grandparent Visitation Following Court Denial of Grandparent Guardianship
In a similar case in Iowa, grandparents petitioned to be appointed guardians of a child who, along with the child's father, had lived with them for two years prior to his remarriage. The grandparents' petition was denied. In spite of the father's objections to visitation rights for the paternal grandparents, the trial court granted visitation to the grandparents on the grounds that the court in a guardianship preceding has the authority to do so. However, the Supreme Court stated that since the father, as primary caretaking parent, was not under the control of the guardianship court, and since the guardianship had been denied, the trial court could not grant grandparent visitation. The court's argument was the same as in the above case. That is, the grandparents do not have the legal right of visitation over a parent's objection. However, two of the judges dissented and argued that the trial court does have the power to grant grandparents' visitation after finding that such visitation would be in the child's best interest. (McMain v. Iowa District Court for Polk Cty., Iowa SupCt, No. 311/96-06, 2/19/97)

Grandparent Visitation Denied Following Termination of Parent's Rights
When an Arkansas child's parents divorced and her mother remarried, the child was adopted by her stepfather. The paternal grandparents then petitioned for visitation with the child. The Arkansas Supreme Court declared that the state favors the rights of the adoptive family over the rights of the adoptee's biological relatives. They argued that, when a natural parent (the father) consents to a child's adoption, the consenting parent's relatives lose their legal rights to visitation because these rights are derived from the consenting parent's rights. Therefore, these rights are terminated when the parent's rights are terminated. The effect of the adoption is to terminate all legal relationships between the adopted child and the natural relatives of the parent giving the child up for adoption. There is an exception, as in the O.J. Simpson case (cited above) where visitation rights are derived through deceased parents, the same is true in cases of adoption. However, these rights need to be asserted by the grandparents before the adoption decree is entered. (Vice v. Andrews, Ark SupCt, No. 96-544, 5/19/97)

Grandparent Custody Award in Post-Divorce Proceeding

A child lived with his paternal grandmother continuously for six years following the divorce of his parents. His mother had asked the grandmother to take him. At the time of the divorce, the parents had been awarded joint custody, with the mother named resident parent. The father then sought a change of custody and the court granted custody to the father based on the parental preference doctrine, even though the grandmother also sought custody under the state's non-parental custody statute in which temporary custody may be awarded to a grandparent who has had physical custody for a significant period of time. The judge argued that the non-parental custody statute did not apply in any post-divorce proceedings, but only in the original divorce preceding. However, the Kansas Court of Appeals rejected this finding, explaining that the trial court, under state law, has continuing jurisdiction over the custody of the child and that the provisions of the non-parental custody statute governed the determination of custody in this post-divorce action. It concluded that the trial court had wrongly found that it did not need to consider the statute and it reversed the order granting the father custody based on the parental preference doctrine. (In re Burbank, Kan CtApp, No. 76874, 2/28/97)

Grandparent Custody Petition When Parents are Still Married
A Florida couple, who where neither legally separated nor divorced, had frequent marital troubles and separated frequently. Following a shooting in the home in which the mother was wounded and another child was killed, the grandmother was granted temporary custody of the couple's other child. According to Florida statutes, grandparents have the same standing as parents for evaluating which custody arrangements are in the best interest of the child. The grandmother petitioned the court to be appointed primary residential parent for the child, and the trial court granted the petition. However, the Florida Court of Appeals ruled that the statute regarding grandparents' standing for custody was enacted with respect to custody decisions in divorce proceedings and does not apply in cases where the parents are not legally separated or divorced. It stated that to allow a grandparent to apply the statute when a divorce proceeding is not involved would be to permit a grandparent to interfere with an intact family. The court recommended that the grandmother institute a dependency proceeding so that the state could then intercede and attempt to improve the parents' level of care for their child. (Babb v. Begines, Fla 4thDistCtApp, No. 97-1227, 11/5/97)

CHANGE OF CIRCUMSTANCES AND MODIFICATION OF CUSTODY

Custodial Interference With Visitation
In an interstate custody dispute involving courts in Alabama and South Carolina, a trial court transferred custody of two children from their mother living in South Carolina to their father who lived in Alabama where the trial court ruling was made. The court had decided that Alabama had jurisdiction to hear the case under the Federal Parental Kidnaping Prevention Act because the mother had interfered with the father's visitation with the children. However, the Alabama Court of Civil Appeals held that a parent's interference with the visitation rights of the other parent does not, by itself, justify a change of custody. It further found that the father had not demonstrated that the mother's interference (denial of visitation for the father) had an adverse effect on the children or that the benefits of the change of custody would outweigh the disruptive effects of the change of custody. The court stated that there are more appropriate methods for enforcing visitation (contempt proceedings, motions to clarify the order regarding visitation rights) and restored custody to the mother. It further argued that the transfer of custody creates the kind of instability in the children's lives that the state statute is designed to prevent. (Vick v Vick, Ala CtCivApp, No. 2951185, 1/17/97)

Custodial Interference
In a similar case, an Oregon intermediate court ruled that a parent could not rely on evidence of a strengthened relationship with a child in order to show a change of circumstances warranting a custody modification, if that strengthening of the relationship is the result of the parent's abducting and hiding the child. However, the Oregon Supreme Court stated that there is nothing in the custody statutes of that state which precludes the consideration of a change of circumstances which resulted from a parent's illegal actions in custodial interference. The court reasoned that punishment for a parent for this illegal conduct is the province of criminal law which bars custodial interference, whereas the custody statutes concern themselves with what is in the child's best interests. The supreme court refused to punish the child for the parent's misconduct by preventing a court from considering whether a change in circumstances would justify modifying the custody arrangement, if it was in the child's best interest. In the present case, it ruled that the statutory requirement that there be a change of circumstances before a modification can be ordered has been satisfied, whatever the reason for that change. It further stated that, unless the parent's illegal conduct causes or may cause harm to the involved child, that conduct should not be considered in the decision on modification of custody. (Oregon ex rel. Johnson v. Bail, Ore SupCt, No. S43406, 6/12/97)

Custodial Interference
In a case where a mother was actually convicted of custodial interference, she had failed to abide by the visitation plan which the court had ordered as an effective temporary plan. This parenting plan was used as evidence of a court-ordered parenting plan in the criminal proceeding. The Washington Court of Appeals said that it was clear from the court-ordered parenting plan that the father had the right to time with his child, and this in turn was used as evidence in support of the mother's conviction for custodial interference. (Washington v. Pesta, Wash CtApp, No. 38054-1-I, 8/25/97)

Parent Hostility as a Change of Circumstances
A child was born out of wedlock, and both parents were involved in the life of the child until the mother's marriage to someone else. Following the marriage, the mother, who was custodial parent, and the new spouse became increasingly hostile to the child's father and eventually petitioned to terminate the father's visitation. The Ohio Supreme Court ruled that this hostility between the parents constituted a change in circumstances that justified modifying the custody arrangement and, therefore, named the father residential parent. It stated that the parent who attempts to cut out another parent who has been involved in a child's life affects the best interest of the child and demonstrates a disregard for the child's best interest. (Davis (Baker) v. Flinckinger, Ohio SupCt, No. 95-2208, 2/12/97

Parent Hostility and Parent Alienation Syndrome/Change of Circumstances
Another case in which a parent's animosity and conduct toward the other parent justified a modification of a joint custody arrangement occurred in Indiana. Based on the conflict between the divorced parents, an Indiana Court of Appeals modified a joint custody arrangement and awarded sole custody to the father. It stated that the conflict constituted a substantial change of circumstances supporting a modification of custody. The court cited the statutory grounds of a consideration of a mental and physical health of all individuals involved and stated that, if a parent can demonstrate that the other parent has committed misconduct which places a child's mental and physical welfare in jeopardy, the court can modify a custody order. In this case, the court was attacked by the mother concerning the court's visitation order which denied her any visitation for the first sixty (60) days and then permitted two hours of supervised visitation every other week for a period of three months. The Appeals Court said that in light of both the hostility between the parents and the judge's more recent move to more liberal visitation, the original order did not represent an abuse of the court's discretion. However, one judge dissented, complaining that the trial court judge had denied any meaningful relationship between child and mother and that the ruling effectively served to terminate parental rights. This dissenting judge also criticized the court for validating the trial court judge's reliance on the "Parent Alienation Syndrome." (Hanson v. Spolnik, Ind CtApp, No. 32A01-9703-CV-79, 8/29/97)

Parent Hostility---Father Sabotages Parenting Plan and Is Found in Contempt
When two Washington parents divorced, they agreed to split custody, with each parent having primary custody of one of their sons. They further agreed to cooperate in decision-making. However, following the court proceedings, the father refused to cooperate with the mother, exposed the sons to parental conflict, made disparaging remarks about the mother in front of the boys, and manipulated the older son into refusing to spend time with his mother. A Washington Court of Appeals decided that the trial judge had been appropriate in finding the father to be in contempt for sabotaging the parenting plan with his hostility toward the mother, lack of cooperation with her, and undermining of the older son's relationship with her. The court cited the father's refusal to cooperate with the mother as inferential evidence that he had never intended to follow the parenting plan. It further said that, even if he did not encourage the older son's refusal to spend time with the mother, the boy did so with his approval. The boy was ordered to make up his time with his mother by taking time away from the father's visitation. The appeals court found this to be reasonable, stating that this was an appropriate attempt to reconcile mother and child. However, the appeals court felt that the trial court exceeded it authority by imposing a jail term on the father, who was convicted of contempt, by not allowing him a means to purge the contempt. It directed the trial court to allow the father the opportunity to avoid a jail term by demonstrating his willingness to comply with the court's ruling. (In re Farr and Martin, Wash CtApp, No. 39302-2-I, 7/28/97)

Mother's Child Molester Paramour No Grounds for Custody Modification
In Alaska, a father sought a change in custody because the custodial mother's paramour was convicted of molesting several boys a decade ago. The trial court and the Alaska Supreme Court ruled that the mother's paramour does not present a threat to her daughters and, therefore, a custody modification is not warranted. The court stated that the father had not refuted the mother's evidence that the paramour had been rehabilitated and that he was not likely to reoffend. The court did take steps to reassure that the rehabilitation continued and that the mother provide the court with sixty days notice before the paramour begins to reside with her or before they decide to marry. The court also refused the father's argument that the paramour constitutes an emotional threat to the children, since they do not know his history and would be harmed by the fact that the mother withheld this information from them. However, the court decided that the harm would occur no matter which parent the children were living with. It is interesting that two of the justices in this case stated that the court's evaluation should be more based on the children's best interests than on the possible threat posed by the mother's paramour. However, one of the justices dissented, stating that this situation cannot be in the children's best interest. (Duffus v. Duffus, Alaska SupCt, No. 4788, 2/28/97)

Children's Noncompliance With Visitation Order---An Issue Raised in Custody Modification Proceeding
A custodial father in New York refused to comply with court-ordered visitation between his children and their mother who lives in Florida. The mother sought a change in custody and started a contempt action in Florida. The court changed primary residential responsibility to the mother. The Florida District Court of Appeal ruled that the trial court did not have the authority to compel the children to comply with its change of custody order. In explaining the ruling, the court stated that the children are not involved in the enforcement proceeding and that the mother had failed to argue that the children knowingly interfered with what was a valid court order. The court felt that the children should not be threatened with being held in contempt of court and, therefore, reversed that part of the lower court's order which involved the children's compliance with the change of custody order. (Tomaso v. Rivazfar (Pafford), Fla 1stDistCtApp, No. 97-2036, 11/10/97)

Custody Change Based on Mother's Lack of Supervision of Children
A trial court awarded a transfer of custody to the father of two children, citing the custodial mother's lack of supervision of her children as justification for a change of custody. The mother left the care of a twelve-year old boy to his fifteen-year old sister while the mother worked a night shift. The Missouri Court of Appeals found that this did not constitute a lack of supervision that would justify a change in custody. It further stated that in no Missouri case has "lack of supervision" been defined as it relates to child custody. It found that, in terms of custody modification, lack of supervision would mean a failure to provide supervision in such a manner that a child's physical or emotional well-being is in danger. The court also directed that the trial court should consider all the circumstances of the case and not rely solely on a child's age, unless a child is so young that there is great likelihood of endangerment regardless of the circumstances of the case. (McCreary v McCreary, Mo CtAppWDist, No. 52469, 5/27/97)

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