Clinical work

Dominic makes children and adolescents feel comfortable and minimizes defensive reactions.   Dominic uncovers hardly noticeable internalizing disorders that are often hidden behind behavioral problems and sheds light on various clinical features.

At school

Mental health problems are closely related with poor academic performance.

No one wants to pigeonhole children or adolescents, but neither should mental health problems be ignored.

School plays a central role in organizing mental health care for children and adolescents.

Research

Dominic makes it possible to gather standardized data from children as young as age 6. Social desirability bias is diminished. It is fast and easy, reducing assessment cost and eliminating errors. Data are easily exported towards statistical packages.

Public health

Because of the “global burden” of mental health problems, because more than half of mental disorders start before age 14 and because of their stability and their prevalence among children and adolescents, a systematic population-based approach is hard to avoid if any improvement is to be achieved.

Teaching

Many professionals attending to children and adolescents misinterpret mental health problems for educational issues, which leads to punitive interventions. The Dominic illustrated situations stay vividly in their minds and help them recognizing children and teenagers emotional and behavioral problems.