This year for National School Psychology Awareness Week, November 12-16, 2012, the authors urge their school psychologist colleagues across the country to help their students and the colleagues that they support to discover and celebrate their individual strengths. Whether strengths are academic, athletic, or social, they serve to bolster an…

Extensive research suggests that adolescence is a critical developmental period, especially when it comes to factors that influence mental health problems. Systematic efforts to promote adolescent help-seeking are essential for improving long-term mental health outcomes. Defined as a "behavior of actively seeking help from other people,"…

Over the last several years, educational policy has advocated for a preventive approach to keep problem behaviors from escalating and interfering with student achievement. Proactive methodologies such as school-wide positive behavior support (SWPBS) and response to intervention (RTI) have become common practice in school districts across the…

Students get by with a little help from their friends; students try with a little help from their friends. When their social needs are met, students tend to be better adjusted and perform more effectively in school. A strong social network serves to protect students and mitigates the effects of a variety of risk factors. Due to the rich empirical…

Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS), Maryland, is the 17th largest school district in the country, with more than 146,000 students and 200 schools (34 of which are National Blue Ribbon and 27 of which are Title 1). Wielding a budget of more than $2 billion, MCPS is also one of the top performing school districts in the country, with a 90%…

Over the past several years, allegations of abuse and death related to seclusion and restraint, media coverage of these events, subsequent federal investigations, and Congressional hearings about this topic have resulted in increased pressure on Congress to pass legislation to address the use of seclusion and restraint in the school setting.…

Many schools are working toward improving their overall social and behavioral climate. This endeavor is undertaken for its own sake, and in the anticipation that it will improve academic performance for students. There appear to be at least three predominant school-wide approaches to frame improving school climate: (1) positive behavior…

Students with severe and low-incidence disabilities comprise a heterogeneous population that often presents a challenge to the professionals charged with evaluating their skills and abilities. This is especially true in conducting a valid assessment of the cognitive ability of these children. Often, school psychologists are limited to the use of…

Faculty shortage is a major concern for the field of school psychology in the United States. Graduate students are not entering the field at a rate representative of the current need (Clopton & Haselhuhn, 2009). The reasons for this are multifaceted, but some studies have pointed to perceived high levels of job stress, perceived inadequate…

School professionals, including school psychologists, have often operated from a problem- or deficit-based perspective with a focus on identifying and remediating psychoeducational disorders in children and adolescents. However, positive psychologists have argued that an exclusive focus on deficits does not offer a comprehensive perspective of…

Over the past decade, school psychologists' role in facilitating the transition from high school to college for students with disabilities has become increasingly complex. Practitioners are faced with the difficult task of navigating the conspicuous disconnect between disability eligibility criteria at the secondary and postsecondary levels…

In November 2011, the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) created the Personnel Assessment Task Force comprising national and state leaders with knowledge of effective personnel evaluation systems. Task force participants included school psychologist supervisors, university professors, NASP leadership, and staff. The primary…

After more than 36 years as a teacher and school psychologist, the author decided that it was time for her to retire at the end of last school year (2011-2012). She spent her career as school psychologist trying to make a difference in the lives of the children and families that she served. But before she retired her WISC test kit, stopwatch, and…

The assessment of cognitive ability in students with the most severe disabilities presents a challenge to the clinicians who are charged with this task. This article is the second of a two-part series that summarizes what is currently known about effective assessment of the cognitive ability of students with significant impairments in order to…

In part one of this series, the authors discussed the connections among social and emotional learning (SEL), positive behavior interventions and supports (PBIS), and response to intervention (RTI). Specifically, they compared the processes and fidelity components of these approaches. They attempted to highlight the similarities in systems,…