Utility of school psychologists' recommendations: Perception of elementary teachers

Abstract

This study was designed to investigate perceptions by elementary school teachers of the usefulness and ease of implementation of traditional recommendations that attribute the cause of referral problems to the individual student's characteristics or environmental conditions, as compared to recommendations that address a student's problem with varying degrees of specificity. Teachers rated recommendations that contained specifics for implementation as being more useful than those that attributed the cause of the problem to individual characteristics or environmental conditions. In spite of their high ratings on usefulness, the most specific recommendations, written in contract form, were rated as being difficult to implement, as were the recommendations that mentioned individual characteristics or nonspecific environmental condition as causes of the problem.

A Consultation and Training Role for the Behaviourally Oriented Educational Psychologist in School Settings: A Clinical Note

“…The controversy between proponents of these two major approaches to reading instruction has largely been concerned with the importance given to decoding skills and the time at which decoding skills are taught (Chall, 1967). A number of reviews however, support Chall's conclusion that programs with earlier, more direct, and more systematic phonics instruction are superior to programs introducing phonics later and with less emphasis (Chall, 1979;Liberman & Liberman, 1990;Pflaum, Walberg, Karegianes & Rasher, 1980;Stanovich, 1982;Williams, 1979).…”

“…The results of a national survey of 335 American school psychologists, for example, identified 13 activities of which the most frequently engaged in were psychological/educational assessment (which occupied 39% of the school psychologist's time) and consultation with teachers and parents (which occupied 25% of the time) (Lacayo, Sherwood, & Morris, 1981). Although these two activities occupy the largest percentage of the school psychologist's time, it needs to be acknowledged that while these activities can be undertaken in a variety of ways, not all are equally effective (Johnston, 1990;Noble & Dickinson, 1988). Behaviourally oriented school psychologists should be comforted by the fact that behavioural approaches to these two areas of a school psychologist's role are considered in the literature to be more effective than a number of other approaches and practices.…”

“…Behaviourally oriented school psychologists should be comforted by the fact that behavioural approaches to these two areas of a school psychologist's role are considered in the literature to be more effective than a number of other approaches and practices. Superior benefits, for example, are achieved when school psychologists conduct assessments that lead to programming recommendations and when reports of their recommendations are expressed to teachers in specific, clear, and practical ways (Noble & Dickinson, 1988). This ability to assess and task-analyse problem areas has for many years been a hallmark of any behavioural intervention.…”