A Closer Look: Blogs From NASP Speakers, Leaders, and Presenters
This blog features blog posts written by experts in specific areas of practice, giving you an opportunity on your lunch break or after hours to quickly read up on a topic and learn more about implications for practice.
You can also check out the webinars related to many of these blog posts, as well as a list of our upcoming live webinars, by visiting the Online Learning Center.
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Seven Habits of Highly Effective Schools: How School Psychologists Can Promote School Change
Have you ever wondered why change in schools is often short lived? Has your district started one initiative only to abandon it and start another one, without allowing time to see results? Instead of thinking about change as a short-term fix, school personnel should think about building effective habits for long-lasting, sustainable change. School psychologists can promote these seven habits of highly effective schools starting today!
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Five Considerations for Developing Suicide Prevention Supports in the Schools
We know that suicide rates continue to rise, but where do we even begin in implementing a comprehensive model that includes suicide prevention, assessment, and postvention? It can all feel very overwhelming but this article covers five key points to assist with this process.
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Pitfalls of Using Translation and Interpretation Services in Schools
When a child is being evaluated for special education services, it is important for the parents to understand the findings from the psychoeducational evaluation report and the IEP if the child qualifies for services. However, many school psychologists have difficulty communicating the content of these documents with culturally and linguistically diverse families because of language barriers. It is common practice to use an interpreter for meetings or to seek out translated documents. While Spanish-speaking parents may have access to standard forms in their dominant language, parents who speak other languages may need to rely on an interpreter or machine translations to understand the written information that schools provide them. As schools try their best to make content accessible to families, they should be aware of the following limitations when considering the available options.
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How to Prepare for an Evaluation for a Student With Visual Impairments
Visual impairment (VI) is a low incidence eligibility category, accounting for less than 1% of students served in special education. Given the low incidence nature of VI, most school psychologists serve a small handful of students with VI in their careers, and many school psychology graduate programs do not cover how to serve this population in depth. If you have an evaluation of a student with visual impairments coming up and don’t know what to do, this blog post is for you.
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Advocacy in the Face of Adversity
There are multitude of organizations and programs which promote inclusive (Gender Spectrum), welcoming (HRC Foundation), and affirming (NASP) schools for LGBTQIA+ students, but physical and psychological safety requires a more holistic approach. Welcoming, affirming, inclusive, proactive, equitable, and responsive (WAIPER) schools are needed across all grades to promote learning and mental wellness. This webinar will empower school psychologists to create WAIPER schools which recognize the need for appropriate and positive school culture, climate, curriculum, and counseling.
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Postsecondary Transition for Autistic Adults
The transition to adulthood is important for all student, but given the invisible nature of autism spectrum disorders (ASD), it is even more important to support students with ASD during this time. While many of these students have average intellectual, academic, and language skills, many remain dependent on family members for support. By reviewing what pre-K–12 schools can do to support an effective transition, as well as the steps needed for self-advocacy and faculty development in postsecondary settings, this webinar will be one more resource in closing the transition service gap experienced by many students with ASD.
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Working With Spoken Language Interpreters in Educational Settings
Approximately 46% of immigrants to the United States (44.6 million people) are limited English proficient. One of the greatest barriers faced by immigrant families is the inability to communicate effectively, particularly with educators. Interpreters and translators (I/T) are often used to bridge this communication divide in schools, particularly in relation to student mental health, where federal law mandates informed consent and best practices indicate family awareness and possibly participation. However, schools often do not use qualified I/T, causing situations where communication breaks down, civil rights are infringed upon, and federal laws are breached. This blog post will convey the roles and responsibilities of I/T and those who use them, as well as solutions to ensure informed decision-making and family participation in educational settings where student mental health is concerned.
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Mission MTSS: Two Easy Ways to Use Statistics to Analyze Data
In a recent presentation, I discovered that most of the participants did not feel well trained in data analysis for MTSS, and, when they were trained, it was almost exclusively on the use of graphical trends (bar graphs) to make decisions. Participants were aware that more statistically sound methods existed (e.g., data analysis and percent of nonoverlapping data points); they just did not know how to use them. The goal of this post is to provide easy ways to integrate two statistical analyses into your daily practice.
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Simple, Summative Skills: Incorporating Brief Positive Psychology Practice Into Your Day
SEL curricula are often designed around pillars of positive psychology (PP) like social connectedness, resilience, positive reappraisal, and positive refocusing. However, many curricula require extensive time and fidelity to integrate into already-full classroom schedules. However, even if time is short, teaching isolated PP skills to students is shown to be beneficial. Recent research indicates learning and practicing brief PP skills (e.g., 3–7 minutes of mindfulness, gratitude, goal setting, resilience, growth mindset) can provide a double buffer effect: an instant mood booster and the building of neural pathways and generalized behavior over time. Brief PP practices demonstrate improvement in feelings of wellness for individuals of all ages, cultures, and geographies as well as across a range of symptom experiences and severity. This means that taking a few minutes out of the day to practice short PP exercises can help students, teachers, and other school staff with instant social–emotional boosters, which over time generalize into other aspects of their days, extracurriculars, social relationships, and academic practice.
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Creating the Psychologically Safe Learning Environment
We are in the midst of so much trauma and stress—it is never ending. How can school psychologists team with others in their schools and communities to help alleviate childhood drama? How can you apply trauma-informed, evidence-based practices to promote equity, alleviate trauma, accelerate learning, and achieve greater individual and collective self-care? The presenters will share tips and strategies for using their podcast, “Cultivating Resilience: A Whole Community Approach to Alleviating Trauma in Schools,” to advance well-being, resilience, and compassionate school cultures. They will also describe the approaches they have developed and promote trauma-informed policy and practices, heart-centered learning, compassionate school practices, and the use of mindfulness, meditation, and movement in schools.
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Get Out of the Testing Rut: Expanding Your School Psychology Role by Understanding Your District's Needs
While able to provide comprehensive services, school psychologists have bemoaned their "test and place" role for generations. But many have not analyzed their district’s strategic planning goals, the organizational interactions of district and school leaders, the importance of controlling costs and maximizing staff impact, and how these factors relate to student proficiency. This webinar discusses these systems-level areas, identifying what school psychologists need to include in their “three-minute elevator speech” when advocating for more comprehensive roles. We will discuss how to show district leaders that testing is inefficient, and how consultation and intervention activities improve student, staff, and school outcomes.
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Oral Reporting of Assessment Results for Maximum Impact
While school psychologists devote considerable time and effort to writing assessment reports, oral presentation of findings has the greater potential impact on parents, teachers, administrators, service providers, and other consumers. Oral presentations that are clear, child-centered, and responsive to the needs of consumers increase the likelihood that evaluators' findings will be accepted, and that recommendations will be followed. This session will provide practical guidelines and practice opportunities for participants to increase the effectiveness and impact of their oral presentation of assessment findings.
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Culturally Responsive Interviewing: Proactive Strategies for BIPOC Students
Culturally responsive interviews with students, caregivers, and teachers are an important and useful component of a culturally responsive assessment. Aside from gathering important data, interviewing can help build and foster interpersonal connections and relationships. The authors introduce here three specific aspects of the culturally responsive interview to support students who are Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC).
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Beyond Self-Care Sunday: Four Surprising Ways to Prevent School Psychologist Burnout
In this blog post, Dr. Rebecca Branstetter identifies four key ways that school psychologists can engage in self-care and prevent burnout in their practice, during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.
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Five Clues in Your Data: Identifying Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders
In this blog post, Dr. Laura Dilly recognizes the difficulty in identifying ASD in some children, and lays out five clues in the assessment data that can help school psychologists to better identify students with ASD, assist educators in developing appropriate goals for these students, and help them to reach their full potential.
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Five Questions Intern Supervisors Should Ask New Interns
In this blog post, Dr. Meaghan C. Guiney answers five important questions for intern supervisors to ask new interns at the beginning of their internship experience. Meaghan argues that with just a few strategic questions, supervisors can start a conversation that will help them understand your supervisee and make a strong start to a great year.
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Restorative, Collaborative Functional Behavior Assessments and Behavior Intervention Plans
In this blog post, Matthew Graziano, Anya Morales, Kelsie Morales and Craig Varsa discuss proactive actions that promote justice and fairness for all students, particularly those who are at risk of being marginalized because of their identities. There is a particular critical need to address the historical injustices wrought upon Black males within school settings, and the authors recommend that school psychologists begin or continue to reflect on current practices and identify those that cause harm to all marginalized students, are punitive, or are rooted in educators holding the sole authority.
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School Psychologists Should Embrace Telecounseling as an Option in the Post-COVID-19 World
In this blog post, Robyn Moses and Thomas J. Sopp answer questions about the advantages of continuing to provide telecounseling services to students after the COVID-19 pandemic, including the practical benefits of doing so, as well as identifying barriers to telecounseling services that may arise for some.
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Stress and Anxiety: I’m Not Just the Presenter, I’m Also a Client
In this blog post, Amy Cannava opens up about her personal experience with anxiety. She also illustrates how she helps her students deal with their own anxiety, including a list of the top ten strategies that have helped her cope personally.
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Problem-Solving the Complexities of Reading Comprehension
Being able to comprehend written text is an essential life skill. Consider all the ways in which one uses reading comprehension skills in everyday life. Everything from reading the comics in the newspaper and social media online to reading the voter's pamphlet or a job application are impacted by one's comprehension skills. Because of its importance, school psychologists need to understand which reading and language skills are critical to the development of reading comprehension.
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Promoting School Psychological Service Delivery Through Active Self-Care
Even though psychologists know the importance of taking care of themselves, achieving it within the complex and demanding school settings that exist in today’s educational landscape can be a serious challenge. Recognizing this dilemma and the significance of personal well-being is a critical professional skill that can have powerful impacts on job productivity and effectiveness.
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How to Prevent Students From Experiencing Psychosis
Did you know that it is rather common to have strange or extraordinary experiences? Many people experience these events, and they are usually harmless and are quickly forgotten. However, sometimes these experiences can be distressing and interfere with activities. Below are some examples of unusual or extraordinary experiences that students might mention or appear to be experiencing
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Science-Based Case Conceptualization
This entry to our A Closer Look blog examines science-based case conceptualization and its importance to navigating the overabundance of factors relevant or helpful for student assessment or intervention.
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Trauma, Stress, and the Postpandemic Opening of School: Let’s Not Pathologize Students’ Emotional Needs
Multifaceted data has not yet been collected regarding students’ current emotional status and how many students have actually been traumatized by the current COVID-19 pandemic. This entry to our "A Closer Look" blog takes a look at considerations schools must be mindful of in order to act as conscious leaders and caring adults supporting students through these times.
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Testing Accommodations: From the 2019 Admissions Scandal to the Bigger Scandal of Poor Decision-Making
Americans were shocked by the news that broke in March 2019. A number of affluent individuals, including celebrities Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman, had allegedly paid William “Rick” Singer to help their children get into selective colleges through fraudulent means. Singer’s strategies for gaming the admissions process were diverse, including faking athletic accomplishments and even lying about students’ ethnic backgrounds, but one of his techniques involved providing fraudulent college admissions test scores. Singer had associates who worked as proctors, and who could arrange for the scores. But logistical problems remained—in particular, Singer’s associates needed time to procure or produce tests with the high-scoring correct answers.
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Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD)
Self-regulated strategy development (SRSD) is a trans-theoretical teaching approach that was first developed by Karen Harris and Steve Graham nearly 40 years ago. They designed the approach to fill a gap in writing instruction for students with disabilities. It can be used with individuals, in small groups, and classwide with students in grades two through twelve.
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Thinking Versus Knowing: The Key to Measuring Intelligence
The pattern of strengths and weaknesses in a student’s thinking and knowing gives us information about eligibility (perhaps a specific learning disability) and direction for intervention. It is, however, critical that the way we measure how well a student thinks is not confounded by what they know.
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Social Media and Crisis Intervention: Opportunity and Danger
Over 70% of Americans use some form of social media every day (Pew Research Center, 2019). As a result of this trend, when a school associated crisis occurs, it has become expected that schools will use social media to disseminate information. In addition, we should expect that today's students and their caregivers will use social media to connect with each other.
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Self-Care Lessons From the Field
A 2-week Hawaiian vacation. Cozying up in thick fleece sweat pants, an oversized hoodie, and half a pint of cookie dough ice cream on a Friday night to watch your favorite movie. Taking backroads to work and marveling at the turns and hills and many shades of green along the route. Walking from the parking lot to the office, choosing not to focus on the deafening sounds of the ride-on mower zig zagging across the lawn, but instead attending to the sweet smell of fresh cut grass, brilliant sunshine, and crisp hint of autumn in the air. Self-care is different things to different people.