CV

Claudette Antuña obtained her doctorate in 2012. Her dissertation was titled “A profile of domestic violence: The responding of Spanish speaking females abuse survivors seeking lawful immigrant status in the United States under the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) on the Spanish version of the Personality Assessment Inventory (Tasa de Inventario de la Personalidad). Dr. Antuña received her BA in Hispanic American Studies from the University of Miami in 1966, a MSW from Barry University in 1975 and a MHSA in 1982. She has expertise in responding to requests for psychological and forensic assessments with specialization in Asylum, Hardship and Competency evaluations for Immigration Court. She holds certificates in Global Mental Health Trauma from the Harvard Program in Refugee Trauma and from the University of Washington Parent Evaluator Program. She also conducts parent evaluations as well conducting high conflict parenting and treatment in English and Spanish.

INVITED SYMPOSIUM ABSTRACT
Comparing the psychological profiles of English speaking and Spanish speaking females survivors of domestic violence
This symposium will address the findings of a quantitative study that compares a sample of undocumented Spanish-speaking female survivors of domestic violence seeking legal status in the U.S. to the responses of a sample of English speaking female survivors of domestic violence on the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI). The responses of the English speaking sample (111) were reported in the Swanson’s (2007) study and fifty-seven Spanish-speaking Latina females participated in this study. The Latina female sample met the criteria for legal relief under the Violence Against Women Act, reauthorized in 2005. Three case studies from the sample of Spanish speaking females are used to illustrate psychological profiles against clinical presentation. The results of this study suggested that when comparing the mean T-scores a statistical significant difference exists between the two populations.