Diagnosis or diagnostic formulation?

Abstract Comprehensive assessment of behaviour generates information across biological, psychological and social/environmental domains. This leads to a challenge: what is the best way organize assessment information into a meaningful summary? In medical tradition this involves making a diagnosis. This chapter considers the limitations in utility when diagnosis is used to characterise behaviour problems of children with developmental disabilities. To address these limitations, a system of diagnostic formulation is proposed, the 5P model. This consists of factors termed predisposing, protective, precipitating, perpetuating, and palliating. In addition to organising information so that causal influences on child behaviour are more easily understood, diagnostic formulation provides a solid foundation for planning and evaluating management strategy.