Introduction to the Special Issue: The Division 16 Task Force on Psychopharmacology, Learning and Behavior.

Welcome to this Special Issue of School Psychology Quarterly (SPQ), which is intended to disseminate the findings of the Division 16 Task Force on Psychopharmacology, Learning and Behavior. It has been my good fortune to have chaired this productive Task Force and to serve as Guest Editor for this Special Issue. In this introduction I will summarize the Division's history of interest in pediatric psychopharmacology, review the activities of this Task Force over the last three years, and orient you to the six articles that comprise this Special Issue. In the early 2000's the Division's Executive Committee (EC) recognized that (a) although there had been a dramatic increase in research, practice and policy interest in pediatric psychopharmacology during the previous decade, most medications prescribed for children continued to lack Food and Drug Administration indications; (b) there was a surge in polypharmacy (prescribing more than one medication to the child); (c) younger children (i.e., preschoolers) were increasingly treated with psychoactive drugs; (d) because the research literature expanded exponentially during the 1990's school psychologists needed a single, authoritative, updated resource they could access to better inform their consultations in this complex and emerging arena. In response to these realizations the EC established a Task Force on Psychopharmacology, Learning and Behavior in 2002 to address these issues. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Through a new lens: Contemporary psychological perspectives on school completion and dropping out of high school.

In 1996, the American Psychological Association (APA) recommended that the association work to "increase the participation of psychology and psychologists in assisting in national, state, and local efforts to prevent school drop-out" (APA, 1996). The purpose of this special issue is to describe the psychological scholarship that must underlie these efforts, as it has been reflected in the work of an Interdivisional Task Force on School Dropout Prevention. This article describes the complex understanding of high school completion that emerged from Task Force discussions, and the implications this has for efforts to prevent school dropout and promote school completion. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)