School+Psychology

Type in the content of your page here. 1. What is the major emphasis or what is the subject matter in this specialty area?  School Psychologist’s field of study applies principles of clinical and educational psychology to the diagnosis and treatment of children’s and adolescents’ behavioral and learning problems, such as dyslexia, autism, mental retardation, etc. Their goal is to help children and youth succeed academically, socially, and emotionally. They work together with teachers, parents, and other professionals to create safe, healthy, and supportive learning environments for all students that strengthen connections between home and school.  2. What topics does it usually include? For example, privacy issues and work space design.  School psychologists are educate in many branches of child development such as, child and adolescent development, child and adolescent psychopathology, education, family and parenting practices, learning theories, and personality theories. School psychologists deal with children who suffer with autism, mental retardation, dyslexia, ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder), ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder), childhood and adolescent schizophrenia, down syndrome, and child behavior.  3. Give examples of the typical types of questions studied. For example, what brain centers are responsible for memory?  Types of questions that are studied usually deal with child development, for example, “How was the child brought up”, “what is the reason for the child to be slacking in school”, “could trouble learning be heredity when it comes to the child having dyslexia”, “did the parents finish high school/college and do they encourage learning in their child”. Questions like these are asked by school psychologists because they need to be able to break down the reasons as to why the child is having so many problems.  4. Write a brief history of the specialty. Include where it was founded, why did it seem necessary to have this specialty, and who or what group initiated the specialty.  <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Early school psychologists were diagnosticians who studied the attributes of children to predict school success and determine the need for remedial or specialized instruction. Students typically referred were failing academically or exhibited severe emotional disturbance. A medical model of diagnosis and classification was well entrenched when federal special education regulations were first adopted in the mid 1970s. Eventually every school district employed at least one school psychologist. The growth of school psychologists began to expand beyond diagnostic when two conferences got together in the 1980s and it continued when the first Blueprint for the profession was published. When more serious cases of students were seen, consultations to address individual academic and behavioral difficulties, as well as group and systems intervention at the school or district levels were promoted. Many schools did not agree with this change because the budgets delayed broad roles for this profession. Ratios of students to school psychologists did steadily improve, and referral to special education increased rapidly. With better ratios, many school psychologists included consultation, counseling, staff training, and group interventions as part of their skills for their professional services in addition to the traditional diagnostic role. By the end of the 1980s, the first national credential for school psychologists was introduced by two groups, the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) and the Nationally Certified School Psychologist (NCSP) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">5. List some psychologists and examples of their publications that support this specialty. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Lightner Witmer and G. Stanley Hall created early models of school psychology. Witmer focused more on the idiographic clinical model, which had the ability to provide services for an individual, where as Hall’s focus was more research oriented in the sense that he was looking to develop normative characteristics for groups. Over the years, these two approaches became one to form what was known as the foundation of school psychology, the testing movement. Alfred Binet, however, was the leader of this testing movement. With the help of Theodore Simon, both men encouraged individual testing movement by developing the first practical test battery, which assessed high level cognitive skills and produce substantial correlations with measures of school achievement, known as the Binet test. Today the Binet test is known as the IQ test.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt;">Sources used for Wiki Project <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">[] __ <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">[] __ <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">[] __ <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">[] __ <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">http://www.nasponline.org/resources/handouts/What%20is%20a%20School%20Psych.pdf __ <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">[]