School and Educational Psychologists

Abstract

The authors discuss the delivery of psychological and instructional services to students with special needs and also emerging strategies for providing ancillary psychological services, teaching students, assessing their learning, and managing their behavior. Among these emerging approaches to instruction and the delivery of psychological services are (a) "indirect" delivery of psychological services via consultation versus more labor-intensive "direct" intervention; (b) the development of instructional strategies based on new views of learning and cognition; (c) increased emphasis on cooperative arrangements in classrooms; (d) the use of authentic assessment procedures; and (e) peer mediation and other democratic structures that are designed to reduce students' misconduct and promote civility. n the face of increasing need for special education services, costs spiraling out of control, pressures for accountability, and the emergence of new perspectives about learning and teaching, psychologists have assumed new roles as providers of direct and indirect services in school settings. Here, we discuss the delivery of psychological and instructional services to students with special needs and describe emerging strategies for providing ancillary psychological services, teaching students, assessing their learning, and managing their behavior.This article consists of two sections, each under the umbrella of applied psychology. The first section describes the shifting philosophy of school psychology and presents examples of the emerging &dquo;indirect&dquo; method of collaborative problem solving in the delivery of psychological services via consultation. The second section describes applications of new knowledge in educational psychology to teaching students with special needs, assessing their learning, and managing their behavior.