
Russell A. Barkley, PhD, ABPP, ABCN, before retiring in 2021, served on the faculties of the University of Massachusetts Medical Center, the Medical University of South Carolina, and Virginia Commonwealth University. Dr. Barkley has worked with children, adolescents, and families since the 1970s and is the author of numerous bestselling books for both professionals and the public, including Taking Charge of ADHD and Your Defiant Child. He has also published six assessment scales and more than 300 scientific articles and book chapters on attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, executive functioning, and childhood defiance. A frequent conference presenter and speaker who is widely cited in the national media, Dr. Barkley is past president of the Section on Clinical Child Psychology (the former Division 12) of the American Psychological Association (APA), and of the International Society for Research in Child and Adolescent Psychopathology. He is a recipient of awards from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the APA, among other honors. His website is www.russellbarkley.org.
"Clinicians and scholars agree that functional impairment is critical to the diagnosis of psychological disorders, as well as a major focus of intervention. But most measures of impairment lack evidence of psychometric quality. In contrast, the BFIS has impressive normative data and reliability and validity evidence. With this scale, clinicians can make confident judgments about how impaired a client is relative to the general population, leading to more informed decisions about prioritizing treatment goals. Graduate students taking courses in clinical assessment or rehabilitation counseling could learn much from the conceptual background and empirical data that Barkley offers. And clinical researchers now have a new tool to accurately quantify impairment when conducting studies with a range of populations. The BFIS helps to solve the long-standing problem of measuring how well someone functions in everyday life."--Benjamin J. Lovett, PhD, Department of Psychology, Elmira College