Thomas M. Achenbach

Achenbach, T.M., & Rescorla, L.A. (2019). Multicultural supplement to the Manual for The ASEBA Older Adult Forms & Profiles. Burlington, VT: University of Vermont Research Center for Children, Youth and Families

Achenbach, T.M., & Rescorla, L.A. (2015). Multicultural supplement to the Manual for the ASEBA Adult Forms & Profiles. Burlington, VT: University of Vermont Research Center for Children, Youth, and Families.

Achenbach, T.M., Rescorla, L.A., & Ivanova, M.Y. (2015). Guide to family assessment using the ASEBA. Burlington, VT: University of Vermont Research Center for Children, Youth, and Families.

Achenbach, T.M. (2009). The Achenbach System of Empirically Based Assessment (ASEBA): Development, findings, theory, and applications. Burlington, VT: University of Vermont Research Center for Children, Youth, and Families.

Achenbach, T.M., & Rescorla, L.A. (2007). Multicultural understanding of child and adolescent psychopathology: Implications for mental health assessment. New York: Guilford Press.

He married his research collaborator, Leslie Rescorla in 2000. His previous marriage had ended in divorce.

Because people’s functioning may vary from one context and interaction partner to another, the ASEBA assesses people from multiple perspectives. Various ASEBA forms are designed to be completed by people who see the person who is being assessed in different contexts, as well as forms completed by the person who is being assessed. The importance of obtaining information from multiple perspectives has been demonstrated by meta-analytic findings of substantial disparities between ratings of children’s problems by mothers, fathers, teachers, mental health workers, observers, and children themselves (Achenbach, McConaughy, & Howell, 1987). The disparities between different informants indicate that each informant may provide different information about a child. Consequently, valid assessment requires information from multiple informants, such as a child’s mother, father, and teacher(s), as well as from the child. The Achenbach et al. (1987) meta-analytic findings have had a major impact on assessment of children for clinical and research purposes, as attested by citations in over 6,000 publications and being described by De Los Reyes and Kazdin as “among the most robust findings in clinical child research”. Meta-analyses by Achenbach, Krukowski, Dumenci, and Ivanova (2005) also found substantial disparities between collateral and self-ratings of adults. These disparities indicate that assessment of adults should include information from collaterals, as well as from the adults who are being assessed.

Achenbach, T.M. (1974, 1982). Developmental psychopathology. New York: Ronald Press; (2nd ed.) New York: Wiley.

Achenbach served as Assistant Professor and then Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology and the Child Study Center at Yale from 1967 through 1975. In 1971-72, he was a Social Science Research Council Senior Faculty Fellow at Jean Piaget's Centre d'Epistémologie Génétique in Geneva, Switzerland. From 1975 through 1980, he was a Research Psychologist in the Laboratory of Developmental Psychology at the National Institute of Mental Health, where he served on the Research Advisory Group to the Director of the Institute. Since 1980, he has been Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology at the University of Vermont, where he was Director of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry from 1984 through 2007. He has been Chair of the American Psychological Association’s Task Force on Classification of Children’s Behavior and a member of the American Psychiatric Association’s Task Force on DSM-III-R. In 2000, he founded the nonprofit Research Center for Children, Youth, and Families at the University of Vermont and has served as President of the Center since it was founded. He has given some 400 invited presentations in 45 countries.

Thomas M. Achenbach (born 1940) is Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology and President of the nonprofit Research Center for Children, Youth, and Families at the University of Vermont. His research on syndromes of psychopathology gave rise to the terms “Internalizing” and “Externalizing”. His book in 1974 about developmental psychopathology was important to the foundation of this research area.