The pediatric psychologist as “polyglot”: Or training students to communicate clearly in a multidisciplinary world

Abstract

Abstract This paper describes an internship training program‐within a multi‐disciplinary in‐patient pediatric setting. It views a major task of the pediatric psychologists training experience as the ability to communicate clearly with members from other professional disciplines. The multi‐disciplinary treatment team is conceptualized as an interdependent functioning system in which the psychologist plays an essential role — that of communication specialist. Specific procedures, found to be successful in facilitating communications between team members and patients, and among team members themselves are discussed from the standpoint of pediatric psychology training.