Pediatric psychology training: an analysis of graduate, internship, and postdoctoral programs.

Abstract

The field of pediatric psychology is in the early stages of formulating its own identity relative to other areas, such as clinical child and health psychology. This paper complements other recent efforts to delineate training practices and guidelines. Questionnaires regarding doctoral, internship, and postdoctoral training experiences were obtained from 89% of the membership of the Society of Pediatric Psychology. From this information, rankings of the most commonly attended programs at each training level were derived. Some overlap was apparent between doctoral programs that were conducive to training in pediatric and clinical child psychology; however, differences between programs in these areas also were noted. The most commonly attended internship and postdoctoral settings were those in major medical centers or children's hospitals. Suggestions for investigating the current status of predoctoral, internship, and postdoctoral programs that may be facilitative of training in pediatric psychology are discussed.