Meeting performance-based training demands: Accountability in an intervention-based practicum.

Describes the ways in which accountability methods were built into practicum experiences for specialist- and doctoral-level school psychology trainees at the University of Cincinnati. 13 doctoral students served as consultants to 66 3–14 yr old children who were referred by teachers and parents for academic and behavioral concerns. Four parents and 57 teachers participated in problem-solving consultation in the intervention. The results of intervention-based services were summed across individual cases developed by trainees as a means of examining the overall effectiveness of the practicum experience. Outcomes are reported as procedural adherence to the model of service delivery (operationalized as a procedural checklist), graphic analysis of the data, effect sizes, goal attainment scaling, and treatment acceptability. The methods are discussed as examples of how to meet accountability demands for training in school psychology while providing comprehensive training in the delivery of intervention-based services. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Training school psychologists: Some perspectives on a competency-based behavioral consultation model.

A behavioral consultation training model is presented that articulates training competency and service goals in school psychology. The model promotes evaluation of the competencies of school psychologists and their impact on the settings in which consultation services are provided. It also focuses on learning and adjustment problems in the socialization process and works on specific target behaviors. Problem-solving strategies are developed in 4 stages: (a) problem identification, (b) problem analysis, (c) intervention, and (d) evaluation. Difficulties encountered in implementing the model are discussed. (60 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Descriptive, theoretical, and behavioral characteristics of subdoctoral school psychologists.

Reports an analysis of theoretical and behavioral characteristics of a group of applicants and enrollees to an advanced National Defense Education Act Institute held for school psychologists in 1967. Data collected are discussed in relationship to the training, background, theoretical orientation preferences, work load and time allocation to alternate school psychology activities, and behavioral characteristics of applicants and enrollees. Findings suggest that theoretical orientation does appear to effect dimensions of school psychology practice. Factor analyses and step-wise regressions were completed on both paper-pencil measures and observational data obtained from video tape analysis. Results suggest that school psychologists have been recruited for the most part from the ranks of teachers and counselors within the public school setting. Traditional and novel predictors and multiple criteria are discussed in relationship to the emergence of a task-oriented social-learning model for school psychology training and practice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Impact of a district-wide behavioral consultation prereferral intervention service on patterns of school psychological service delivery.

Investigated the impact of behavioral consultation prereferral intervention services on patterns of school psychology service delivery in a school district with a school-aged (kindergarten through Grade 12) population of 2,800 children, 50% of whom were Hispanic. Data from 2 yrs prior to initiation were compared with data from 4 yrs during implementation of a prereferral model. Analyses indicated that during the time period consultative prereferral intervention services were offered (a) more children were served by school psychologists, (b) a higher proportion of referred children achieved their educational objectives in regular classrooms, (c) a lower proportion of referred children were tested for special education services, and (d) a higher proportion of children tested were found eligible for special education programs' services. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Rehabilitation psychology in primary care: Preparing for a changing health care environment.

Restructuring of health care delivery systems has deemphasized tertiary and specialty services with a resultant increase in primary medical care. These reform efforts are anticipated to continue, highlighting the need for rehabilitation psychologists to expand beyond tertiary care settings to sustain the growth and prosperity of their profession. New models of service delivery and training are needed to help them transition into the new health care environment. A recently developed model for integrating behavioral medicine into primary care may serve as a guide. In this paper we discuss a model for integrating behavioral science into the medical management of primary care patients. The model is applicable to the functions and philosophy of rehabilitation psychologists. A discussion of the new model and its relation to rehabilitation psychology is provided along with implications for predoctoral training and strategies for overcoming barriers to primary care integration. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Prevention and remediation through group interventions.

Reviews the book, The handbook of group intervention for children and families edited by Karen C. Stroiber and Thomas R. Kratochwill (see record 1998-07256-000). This book addresses current needs of psychologists and other mental health practitioners who are working across ecologies to address problems of children and youth. As such, this text is an excellent resource for school psychologists, school counselors, and others who are attempting to broaden service delivery systems and procedures. Although this handbook is appropriate for practitioners across a variety of mental health disciplines, it also meets the current needs of school psychologists by addressing gaps often found in school psychology service delivery and training models. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychology and health care.

Recent advances in health care psychology are noted, especially those involving the conceptualization and treatment of lifestyle and chronic health problems. The contributions to health care psychology of community psychology, brief psychological treatments, behavioral medicine, and health psychology are outlined. The central task of both organized psychology and individual psychologists is to create an underlying structure of clear boundaries and standards for clinical practice and training in health care psychology. Initially, this task should involve an inventory of Canadian psychologists currently providing health care services and the nature and amount of those services. Subsequently, a need exists for the profession to examine and create guidelines in psychological service delivery, professional role models, training, and scientific methods pertaining to general health care. (French abstract) (27 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Supporting children's mental health in schools: Teacher perceptions of needs, roles, and barriers.

There is a significant research to practice gap in the area of mental health practices and interventions in schools. Understanding the teacher perspective can provide important information about contextual influences that can be used to bridge the research to practice gap in school-based mental health practices. The purpose of this study was to examine teachers' perceptions of current mental health needs in their schools; their knowledge, skills, training experiences and training needs; their roles for supporting children's mental health; and barriers to supporting mental health needs in their school settings. Participants included 292 teachers from 5 school districts. Teachers reported viewing school psychologists as having a primary role in most aspects of mental health service delivery in the school including conducting screening and behavioral assessments, monitoring student progress, and referring children to school-based or community services. Teachers perceived themselves as having primary responsibility for implementing classroom-based behavioral interventions but believed school psychologists had a greater role in teaching social emotional lessons. Teachers also reported a global lack of experience and training for supporting children's mental health needs. Implications of the findings are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Preparing school psychologists: Perspectives on program design and training goals.

Describes the miniseries found within the current issue of Professional School Psychology: "Preparing School Psychologists: Perspectives on Program Design and Training Goals." Each of the four articles chosen presents a thoughtful and informative analysis of issues related to the miniseries topic. The first article argues for training school psychologists as "data-based problem solvers." The second paper examines the training of ethical principles and behavior in school psychology. The third article explores both the demographics and professional attitudes that are expected to be the major influences upon future training practices in school psychology. The final article of the miniseries presents a rationale for developing training efforts based on the research and principles of behavioral psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The cost-effective delivery of rehabilitation psychology services: The responsible utilization of paraprofessionals.

The new and rapidly changing health care environment necessitates innovation on the part of rehabilitation psychology to achieve cost-effectiveness. This innovation could take the form of rehabilitation psychologists' responsibly using bachelor's-level technicians, or paraprofessionals, in the delivery of clinical services. This article proposes a pyramid model of rehabilitation psychology service delivery using paraprofessionals and psychology trainees. Specific clinical activities appropriate for paraprofessionals are outlined. Controversies regarding use of bachelor's-level paraprofessionals and the inflationary process of over-credentialing doctoral-level psychologists are discussed. It is proposed that psychology interns and residents be cross-trained in allied health skills so that psychology trainees can provide clinical support to other health care disciplines, thereby improving the cost-effectiveness of, and preserving, hospital-based psychology training programs. The article emphasizes the need for doctoral-level rehabilitation psychologists to adopt administrative roles in medical settings in order to implement innovative service models. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Historical, current, and future models of schools as health care delivery settings.

Explores existing models of the school as a health care service delivery setting and considers the implications of these models for the practice of psychology in schools. Since the delivery of health services in schools in the present has emerged in response to social needs from the past, the issue of schools as health care settings is examined from both a historical and contemporary perspective. Emphasis is limited in scope to the school as a bureaucratic structure in which models of health service delivery are situated. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Bootstrapping it in the Big Apple: A history of school psychology at New York University.

Discusses the 1st school psychology training in the US at New York University (NYU) in 1929 and attempts to place it in the historical context from which clinical psychology and school psychology emerged. The history, philosophy, and economic struggles of the current NYU programs are described. It is contended that 3 coexisting current programs, a PhD, PsyD, and Certificate program, shared strong commitment to basic psychological theory, an intensive psychodynamically grounded assessment base, a client-oriented philosophy, and an eclectic curriculum that also includes behavioral, consultative, and systems orientations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A Note on Training Psychologists for Careers in Behavioral Medicine.

Discusses the training of psychologists for careers in behavioral medicine, a rapidly growing new field that is becoming increasingly attractive to psychologists and other behavioral and biomedical scientists. The author suggests that the optimum training setting in which to educate the PhD would be in an academic psychology department of a university that also had a medical school. His suggestions also include having a practicum that requires dealing both with emotionally and mentally disturbed patients and with psychosomatic patients, and requiring an additional postdoctoral year that would be used to specialize in cardiovascular, neurological, gastrointestinal, or other problems. The recommendations have nothing to say about other disciplines in the behavioral and biomedical sciences but are meant to describe a model for the training of psychologists to participate in this growing and exciting enterprise. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perinatal exposure in later psychological and behavioral disabilities.

The purpose of this miniseries is to introduce the field of school psychology to prenatal and perinatal exposures that may result in later psychological and behavioral disability. These outcomes often remain clinically silent until later in development, such as school entry, when the cognitive, behavioral, and language tasks become more complex and demanding. To our knowledge, this is the first time that a codified special issue on this topic has appeared in the school psychology literature. We have endeavored to make this issue multidisciplinary and have been fortunate to attract leading figures from the fields of psychiatry, public health, neuropsychology, and school psychology. Each article in this issue discusses the implications for school psychology prevention, assessment, and intervention. Consistent with any progressive model of physical or psychological health, the general consensus of each article is that prevention is essential, and early assessment is clearly desirable to understand etiology and inform intervention. Thus, this Special Issue represents a beginning step toward more fully exploring and conceptualizing the relationship between prenatal and perinatal exposures and later educational and behavioral disability. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Implementing the scientist-practitioner model: The school psychologist as data-based problem solver.

Describes a data-based problem-solver model (DBPS) for training in school psychology and recommends it as a superordinate model that can facilitate implementation of scientist-practitioner training in all school psychology programs. The fundamental principles and primary components of the DBPS are illustrated by describing its use in a doctoral school psychology training program. The DBPS model incorporates 2 dimensions that are concurrent throughout training: (1) education, yielding generalizable knowledge and skills, and (2) training, focusing on more specific knowledge and skills, with extensive supervised experience in a data-based approach to problems related to schooling. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Defining our common ground to reach new horizons.

There are 4 broad propositions concerning behavioral science that rehabilitation psychology shares with other applied branches of psychology: (a) rehabilitation psychology research is science, (b) rehabilitation psychology research is part of a larger effort to understand human behavior, (c) practice grounded in rehabilitation psychology research is designed to alleviate human suffering and promote well-being, and (d) all scientific tools are acceptable in these quests. A model encompassing the major elements in rehabilitation research and practice is presented, and several gaps in the current knowledge base are delineated. Implications and remedies for these gaps, and for changes in professional alliances and role definitions, are discussed so that the field can pursue a consumer-based, empirically driven health care service delivery agenda for persons with chronic disease and disability. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Toward an interfacing of Hispanic cultural variables with school psychology service delivery systems.

Discusses cultural influences and urban ecological factors that are significant mediators in the emotional, sociobehavioral, and academic development of low-income urban Hispanic students. A review of the literature indicates that the school psychology profession has an underdeveloped knowledge base explicating how ethnocultural variables and socialization practices impinge on the developmental and learning experiences of the Hispanic student. A case example of a 9-yr-old Hispanic female is presented to illustrate psychocultural variables and the socioadaptational patterns of Puerto Rican families and students. An organizing assessment and ethnosensitive intervention framework are described. Recommendations for psychoeducational policy, training, and practice are also provided. It is concluded that school psychology directors, practitioners, and trainers should reexamine and reconceptualize service delivery strategies to be more culturally and phenomenologically compatible with the needs, differences, and strengths of this specific population. (79 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Roles for psychologists in emerging models of school-related health and mental health services.

Describes contributions of school, clinical, community, and health psychology to emerging school-based and school-linked health and mental health service delivery models. The author contends that these 4 areas integrate well to inform the development and targets of health service delivery approaches in and linked to the schools and to set the stage for defining the emerging and future roles of psychologists providing health and mental health care in these contexts. Emerging and future roles of psychologists as health care providers through schools include roles in development, implementation, and administration of these models, direct and indirect service provision, interfacing of health and educational outcomes, and applied research and evaluation activities. Implications for the education and training of current and future psychologists are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Conceptual and empirical bases of conjoint behavioral consultation.

This article describes "conjoint behavioral consultation," a model of service delivery that addresses the shared responsibility among school personnel, families, and other important systems in educational problem solving. In conjoint behavioral consultation parents and teachers are joined to work together to address the academic, social, or behavioral needs of a child for whom both parties bear some responsibility. The conceptual background (incorporating ecological-systems and behavioral theories) and important features of the model are reviewed briefly. Findings from a number of empirical studies, including outcome studies, case studies, process research, and acceptability research, are reviewed. Directions for future research are also explored. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)