Contemporary school psychology最新文献

There is a nationwide shortage of school psychologists, and while NASP has recommended ways to increase recruitment and retention, the research on recruiting and retaining school psychologists, especially in high-need areas, is limited. Teacher education researchers have begun to address teacher shortages through "grow your own" training programs, but the research on these programs is also limited. A team of university school psychology faculty and regional education agency administrators developed a "Grow Your Own" school psychologist re-specialization training program to support recruiting and retaining school psychologists in rural areas. It is difficult for rural education agencies to recruit young professionals to their area, but it may be possible to recruit professionals currently living in the area to school graduate training programs. The partnership between the university school psychology training program and the regional education agencies addresses the school psychology shortage in one Midwestern state by recruiting special education and related educational professionals to school psychology. A focus of this program is to place more mental health professionals (i.e., school psychologists) in rural schools, therefore addressing the deficiency of mental health services in these rural areas. The partnership and the program are described, as are opportunities and challenges that the team has experienced to date.

The COVID-19 global pandemic has shaken the status quo including the way university counseling and assessment centers provide training to graduate students and psychological services to the community. The pandemic brought high levels of uncertainty and contradictory telehealth guidelines across organizations. Guidelines related to telehealth assessment services were especially challenging to navigate. Center directors worked collaboratively with faculty and campus leadership to follow best practices and mitigate training and service disruptions to the best of their ability. The tension created by the pandemic offered an opportunity for centers to challenge long-standing practices, experiment with new practices, and ultimately enhance their programs. This paper offers reflections on our experiences in following best practice guidelines for telehealth counseling and psychoeducational assessment service delivery within a university counseling and diagnostic training center. Training considerations for directors and faculty affiliated with counseling and diagnostic training centers are provided.

Social-emotional learning (SEL) curricula are being increasingly implemented with young children; however, access to comprehensive programs can be prohibitive for programs limited by finances, time, or other factors. This article describes an exploratory case study that investigates the use of creative activity in the direct promotion of empathy and indirect promotion of other social-emotional skills for early elementary children in an urban-based after-school setting. A novel curriculum, Creating Compassion, which combines art engagement with explicit behavioral instruction, serves as a promising avenue for social-emotional skill development, and has particular importance for children from low-income households. Five children from racially minoritized backgrounds in grades kindergarten and first attended the Creating Compassion group intervention. Group-level data and individual data of direct behavior ratings suggested a modest increase in empathy development, responsible decision-making, and self-management skills and thereby provide a preliminary basis for further effectiveness investigation. Suggestions for future research in this area are discussed in addition to social justice implications.

With the iPad-mediated cognitive assessment gaining popularity with school districts and the need for alternative modes for training and instruction during this COVID-19 pandemic, school psychology training programs will need to adapt to effectively train their students to be competent in administering, scoring, an interpreting cognitive assessment instruments. This manuscript describes a mixed methods study of graduate students learning both the traditional and digital format (Q-interactive) of the WISC-V, with the goal of improving training methods and reducing administration and scoring errors. Results indicated that more errors are made on the traditional format than on the digital format, but the errors that did occur on the digital format were on subtests that require clinical acumen. Q-interactive did not reduce errors related to more complex judgments and nuanced scoring. The participating graduate students were surveyed regarding their perceptions of each format, and they revealed a majority preference for the digital format. Training implications are discussed, and specific suggestions provided for how training programs may respond to our current situation by integrating Q-interactive into their assessment courses.

School-wide behavior problems can vary significantly from structured to unstructured settings. Often problem behaviors can spike during unstructured times such as lunch and recess and the use of Tier 1 positive behavior interventions and supports (PBIS) can be used to reduce student behavior problems in these settings. Using a token economy as an independent group contingency, this study aimed to reduce student aggression in an elementary school during lunch/recess periods of the day. Students had the opportunity to earn school "dollars" during recess for demonstrating prosocial behaviors in which they were told could be exchanged for incentives at a student store (backup reinforcers). Across all grade levels, student levels of aggression were reduced between 50 and 100% from baseline levels in a 3-month period. However, as effect sizes indicated, only some intervention groups showed significant reduction of aggression. Despite the limitation of access to backup reinforcers, we theorized that the effectiveness of the present intervention was due to socially mediated contingencies among student group members as a result of receiving dollars.

It has long been established that school psychology practitioners experience high levels of burnout. As a means of preventing burnout among future practitioners, school psychology training programs are frequently encouraged to teach and model self-care to students. This is particularly important as the current generation of graduate students experience high levels of anxiety and depression, but there have been very few examples in the research literature of how training programs should teach self-care and whether it is actually effective. The current study presents results from an exploratory case study, which integrated self-care instruction into graduate school psychology curriculum with a small sample (N = 22) of first-year school psychology students across two separate cohorts. Students created written plans with self-care strategies that they attempted to implement over the course of their first semester in graduate school. A qualitative review of their plans and written reflections revealed that students described many sources of stress upon entry into training, and most needed to revise their strategies for coping as stresses changed during the semester. Overall, student reflections revealed that the self-care activities were helpful to meet the demands of their graduate education.

As the field of school psychology has expanded, the workforce has not, resulting in critical shortages at both the trainer and practitioner levels. Additionally, practitioners who are racially, ethnically, and linguistically diverse are underrepresented in the field, despite the growing diversity of our nation's schools. The purpose of this paper was to survey undergraduate psychology majors regarding their preferences for graduate studies and eventual career paths, and to examine the variables that might influence the decision to pursue a degree in school psychology. Findings suggested that exposure to the field in undergraduate studies was the only significant variable in predicting level of interest in pursuing graduate study in school psychology, which is similar to previous research. However, there were differences found by gender and ethnicity that might be informative for recruitment of students to the field.

Given the shortage of school psychologists, especially in rural areas, school psychology programs are beginning to emerge that provide students with the opportunity to attend classes through distance education (DE) methods (i.e., virtually). Despite many school psychology students and faculty holding negative perceptions of DE methods, the use of DE is expanding within the field of school psychology. This article provides an overview of existing DE programs and existing DE research, specific to school psychology, followed by a brief history of a DE option at Stephen F. Austin State University that began in Fall 2018. Solutions to common issues encountered with DE are also presented.