NSPLB: No School Psychologist Left Behind

According to Ervin, Gimpel, and Merrell (2006, p 140), it has been “expected” that school psychologists perform refer-test-place tasks and do traditional diagnostic roles. Teachers and parents have seen the psychologist's primary function as one of assessing children to determine if they are in need of receiving special education services. A problem occurs between the actual and preferred roles of the school psychologist and also the current and recommended practices that they use. In addition, there is a huge increase in children who are in need of special education services due to awareness, teachers wanting a disruptive child out of their class, increased stress on testing due to NCLB, and many parents wanting their children to receive aid on testing.

With this influx of children who are in need and requesting tested and financial problems within the state do you think there is any time for a school psychologist to do anything but test the children that require testing?

How much can be expected of the school psychologist and where should our focus be?

This blog was created by Rebecca Guenther and Danielle Allegra.

Paradigm Shift

We believe that much of the existing struggle in moving forward and expanding our practice roles from “what is” in our current practice to “what should be” is a result of the difficulties we face as we try to step away from traditional roles that have now become institutionalized. In essence, what has traditionally or historically dominated our practice roles (i.e., traditional diagnostic and refer-test-place tasks) has become our expected. Others (teachers, administrators, parents, etc.) have come to know the school psychologist as one whose primary and most visible function has been the psychoeducational assessment and diagnosis of children to determine their eligibility for special education and/or related services (Fagan, 1995; Lentz & Shapiro, 1985).


However, eligibility is not determined by the school psychologist alone. The implementation of the IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act) brought about the need for an IEP team to conjunctively evaluate whether a child meets the criteria to be placed in a special education program (Jacob & Hartshorne, 2007).
How can we as school psychologists work more effectively with other members of the IEP team in order to ensure that students’ needs are being met? As future school psychologists, how do you see your role in relation to other members of the IEP team?

For many of us preparing to enter the field or have been in the field are inundated with “what is” our role as a school psychologist. How do we shift roles to “what should be” our function as a school psychologist? According to Merrell et al., 2006), we believe it is essential that school psychologists: (1) critically examine current practice and recognize the need to move beyond our traditional roles; (2) gain a thorough understanding of the shortcomings of the traditional roles (understand why we need to try alternative approaches); (3) establish a clear vision of our role as a data-driven problem solver and implement this role in practice; and (4) carefully evaluate the utility of any alternative practice that we implement.

The current practice to use a problem-solving approach has been effective and gives the school psychologist a more proactive stance in the school. However, despite advocacy for this approach and advances in problem-solving methodologies, and evidenced-based practices, schools do not readily adopt evidenced-based practices (Abbott, Walton, Tapia, & Greenwood, 1999; Carnine 1997, 1999; Fornes, 2003a; Friedma, 2003, Hunter, 2003).

How do we make effective practices an accepted and necessary approach in the school?

Would this approach help us to identify issues earlier, and offer more
opportunities for early intervention?

This blog was created by Mark Newman and Anel DeJesus.

Culturally-Competent Assessments

Culturally competent practice in assessment is essential to improving outcomes for all students. It can reduce the achievement gaps and the disproportionate placement of minority students in special education. Nonverbal cognitive and alternate assessment strategies are strongly recommended by NASP. Alternate assessment strategies such as curriculum-based assessment, test-teach-test and performance monitoring over time should also be conducted.

Despite these recommendations, the field has been unable to develop culture-free intelligence tests. This is due to a myriad of factors, but an underlying explanation is that different cultures value different views of intelligence. As school psychologists, we will be responsible for assessing children from a variety of different cultural and linguistic backgrounds. How do we mitigate the limitations of the test in order to get a more accurate picture of the child's capability? What types of assessment do you plan to use for children from different cultures, socioeconomic statuses, linguistic backgrounds, etc.? How do you plan to address the assessment's limitations in your report?

Posted by Roxane Nassirpour.

Mirror, mirror on the wall...who's the fairest of them all?

A Projective test is a method of personality assessment in which an individual is presented with a standardized set of ambiguous, abstract stimuli and asked to interpret their meanings, wherein the individual's responses are assumed to reveal inner feelings, motives, and conflicts.
Although clinicians frequently use projectives, the subjective interpretation of responses to projective stimuli is problematic with regard to reliability and validity ( Beutler, 1995; Dawes, 1994). Recent refinements in scoring have focused on quantifying responses and comparing them to established norms ( Exner, 1993), with resulting improvement in reliability and validity.
It seems imperative that users score responses to projective tests objectively if adequate reliability and validity are to result. Without such objective scoring, the door is left open to biased interpretation. For example, if one believes the respondent is aggressive, one may tend to note responses that support such an impression and pay less attention to responses that do not fit as well.

History has shown that the scientific method is the most useful method for gaining reliable knowledge about the world. Will clinical practice improve with the adoption of empirically based rules?

Is there a place for subjective interpretation in psychological assessments and treatments or should clinical practice be guided by the scientific method?

Posted by Courtney Lynch.

Breaking away from Traditional Assessments...

As school psychologists, one of our primary roles will be assessing children to determine eligibility for special education services. The question of what constitutes an appropriate evaluation is a controversial topic that school psychologists often disagree on. Traditional assessment focused on standardized test scores of intellectual ability to determine eligibility of services. Standardized norm-referenced measures are a necessary and important part of assessment, but do scores alone give you enough information to define a problem behavior, implement an intervention, and see if there is a positive outcome? Alternative assessment methods such as FBA’s have become more popular in creating successful interventions. As future school psychologists’ shouldn’t our goal be to develop recommendations that will have positive outcomes for the child? How do we break away from traditional practices and incorporate new methods of assessment that will guide us in the evaluation process?

This blog was created by Melissa Picariello

Why has Testing and Assessment Gotten Such a Bad Rep?

The common job description of a school psychologist looks something like this: "Administer diagnostic assessments and evaluate student performance. Develop, implement and monitor goals and objectives of the school and program. Work with parents in the development of each student."

As most of us know, not only will we be testing, assessing and working with parents and teachers to help school children, but at times we will be called on for crisis interventions, therapeutic counseling, etc. There is no question that working as a school psychologist can be both rewarding and challenging. But our jobs shouldn't just stop there.

When discussing the primary role and function of a school psychologist, all agree that testing and assessment has A LOT to do with it. And if done correctly, assessment can help the client benefit from the many special services he/she may need. So if the tests are designed to get the child the help they need, why does the help only occur if assessment is done correctly? Why are so many kids, failed by misdiagnosis? In my opinion, assessment is a collaborative process and can only be done correctly if there is parent, teacher, and of course student cooperation. We can't assess on testing alone. In addition to using tests in the decision making process, we need to examine:

Day-to-Day Observation

Essays

Interviews

Performance tasks

Exhibitions and Demonstrations

Portfolios

Journals

Teacher-created tests

Rubrics

Self- and peer-evaluations

By using all of this in addition to having the involvement of parents and teachers, we as school psychologists can truly make an accurate assessment. One question remains however, is this too much to ask from the teacher and parent? And is going "beyond the test" asking too much of the school psychologist?

This blog was created by Tahina Reyes.

RTI: What about US?

Twenty percent of pre-school aged children exhibit moderate to clinically significant emotional and behavioral difficulties, which will ultimately place them at greater risk for disruption of the learning process. While policy changes of the 21st century are moving toward a Response to Intervention (RTI) in order to better serve these students, what is happening to the children that are placed in districts where the typical assessment procedures remain? Shouldn’t school psychologists work with children during the critical period of development and learning?

Are these students simply stuck inside the box along with the practitioners who guide them? It is likely that by the time RTI is adopted across the nation, many students will have graduated without the necessary tools that prepare them for a career or higher learning. With this frightening reality in mind, how will School Psychologists, school administrators and the like justify their decision to remain inside the box?

(This Blog was created by Christen M. Sylvester)