School psychologists familiar with the autism evaluation process have an awareness of the complexity of this school-based process. This paper provides school clinicians with an introduction to a visual framework and descriptive language to think and talk about the complex students they evaluate in positive, nuanced, and accessible terms. This…

The National Technical Assistance Center on Transition: the Collaborative (NTACT:C) Collaborative Assessment Guide for Transition Planning (CAG) is intended to help students, family members, educators, vocational rehabilitation counselors, human services and health agency staff, and other partners develop a coordinated assessment approach for…

School psychologists often have reason to suspect that students may not be putting forth full effort during diagnostic tests, or that questionnaire or rating scale data are not credible. However, such suspicions must be tested carefully to yield data-based conclusions. Structured, empirically supported methods for assessing the "response…

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) aims to ensure that all students are college- and career-ready by requiring all schools to implement high-quality accountability systems and services for students. The ESSA impacts assessment practices in schools by requiring staff to account for a broader range of variables related to student well-being,…

Principals and school counselors, as advocates and leaders, have a moral and ethical imperative to interrogate and disrupt the educational inequities pervading P-12 schools. Trained in data collection, disaggregation, and analyses, principals and school counselors must utilize their knowledge and skills in program evaluation to challenge systemic…

This article presents a structured blueprint for school psychologists to assess and intervene in cases of automatically maintained self-injurious behavior (SIB) while adhering to the Least Restrictive Environment (LRE) mandate. We outline a six-step process for conducting Functional Behavior Assessments (FBAs) of automatically maintained SIB,…

School counselors are tasked with many activities, including demonstrating the effectiveness of interventions they use with students. The American School Counselor Association recommends that school counselors include assessment, appraisal, and evaluation of delivery and program management in their school counseling program. Single-case research…

Epilepsy is one of the most common neurological disorders in children, affecting approximately 0.5% to 1% of children through the age of 16 years. Between 20,000 and 45,000 children are diagnosed annually with newly recognized seizures with the median age of onset between 5 and 6 years of age. In 2018 the Center for Disease Control (CDC) estimated…

Pediatric inflammatory bowel disease is on the rise. School psychologists must understand the significant physical, emotional, and psychological effects of this condition to be effective advocates for students and their families, and to conduct well-informed, comprehensive evaluations for this population. This article discusses the academic,…

The evidence-based school counseling model calls for school counselors to (a) make data-driven decisions to determine needs, (b) identify research-supported interventions to address the previously determined needs, and (c) evaluate the effectiveness of the implemented interventions. This article offers both a process model and logic model that…

The latest edition of this perennial bestseller instructs and updates students and clinicians on the basic principles of psychological assessment and measurement, recent changes in assessment procedures, and the most widely used tests in counseling practice today. Dr. Danica Hays guides counselors in the appropriate selection, interpretation, and…

Self-determination refers to a person's ability to have control of their life choices, decisions, and interactions with others. Self-determination skills include: 1) decision-making, 2) goal setting, 3) self-awareness, 4) problem-solving, 5) self-advocacy, 6) self-monitoring, and 7) self-efficacy. Researchers suggest that youth with or at-risk for…

In August 2015, in an article entitled "Estimating the Reproducibility of Psychology Science," the journal "Science" reported the findings of a comprehensive collaboration of social scientist researchers, collectively described as the "Open Science Collaboration" (OSC), who replicated the findings of 100 experiments…

Schizophrenia is a severe and persistent mental illness that is typically associated with distress and severe functional impairment. Individuals presenting with schizophrenia have symptoms that markedly impair their ability to perceive, think, engage, or express themselves clearly. Because the diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia articulated in…

This paper presents a number of general principles and guidelines for the development of an emotional intelligence training program designed to foster emotional abilities in gifted students. The presented guidelines underscore the need for EI theory-driven program planning geared to the needs of gifted students; integrating activities into routine…