Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is the leading cause of death and lifelong disability in the United States for individuals below the age of 45. Current estimates from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) indicate that at least 1.4 million Americans sustain a TBI annually. TBI affects 475,000 children under age 14 each year in the United States alone.…

Response to intervention (RTI) remains a major issue in both the professional literature and school practice. A series of previous "snapshot" studies traced the development of RTI in state laws concerning identification of students with specific learning disability (SLD). In the last article in this series, Zirkel and Thomas (2010) reported that…

Extended time is among the most common testing accommodations given to students with a wide range of disabilities. However, although school psychologists are often involved in accommodation decisions, many are unaware of research from the past decade that has changed their understanding of extended time. Used properly, testing accommodations let…

Childhood-onset schizophrenia is an exceedingly rare mental illness whose complex, multifaceted behavioral presentation can disrupt child development and raise diagnostic and treatment difficulties for attending clinicians. The disorder, affecting one in 30,000 children, shares the same diagnostic criteria and symptoms as its adult counterpart,…

Rapid advances in digital technologies have resulted in school professionals having to grapple with new and complex dilemmas related to balancing student privacy, safety, and legal rights and restrictions, often with little to no guidance from school or district policies. Students commonly bring cellular telephones, smartphones, iPods, and other…

The "Blueprint for Training and Practice III" (Blueprint III; Ysseldyke et al., 2006), attempts to pinpoint the vision for the field of school psychology through highlighting school psychologists' role as consultants engaged in activities ranging from individual to systems-level change. Although the literature is replete with calls to restructure…

The consequences of bullying are both widespread and severe. It disrupts learning, threatens school safety, and poses long-term emotional repercussions for bullies, victims, and bystanders. Although multiple strategies have targeted bullying, bullying must be understood within a social contextual framework beyond the bully-victim dyad. Davis and…

Approximately 52% of school psychologists with doctorate degrees take the Examination for Professional Practice in Psychology (EPPP) each year. A passing score on the EPPP is a mandatory requirement in all 50 states and in most provinces in Canada for licensure as an independent provider of psychological services. Approximately 300 students…

This column features summaries of five research articles relevant to school crisis response. The first, "High School Teachers' Experiences With Suicidal Students," summarized by Robyn Bratica, offers the results of a study examining high school teachers' experiences with suicidal students and suggests that contact with suicidal students is very…

While many school psychologists agree that part of the satisfaction in their profession lies in the challenges, dealing with these challenges daily can be exhausting. With NASP's 2010 "Model of Comprehensive and Integrated School Psychological Services" (also known as the NASP Practice Model), school psychologists are challenged to take time to…

Sport-related concussions (SRC) are not limited to specific age ranges, professional athletes, or gender. The primary focus of much of SRC research pertains to the assessment, management, and return to play (RTP) of the concussed athlete. This article highlights some major issues of SRC along with some controversies that presently exist within the…

Teenage sexual activity has arguably received more attention in the national media as of late than ever before. One is inundated with information concerning everything from alarming rises in the incidence and prevalence rates of sexually transmitted infections in adolescents and young adults to the latest round of suspensions (or even arrests)…

There are an estimated three million Arab Americans in the United States, with 25% of the population under the age of 18. Given this significant population, it is likely that some school psychologists come across children from Arab backgrounds during their career. Many school psychologists, however, may not be aware of the unique cultural…

The 2011 elections are complete and Amy Smith has been elected to lead NASP in 2012. Amy has a long history of serving her state and national professional organizations, most recently as NASP program manager for advocacy and before that as the Pennsylvania delegate and Northeast Region delegate representative. She served the Association of School…

Response to Intervention (RTI) is at a beginning stage in the Saskatchewan province as well as in other parts of Canada. One needs only to enter RTI and the names of any of the Canadian provinces into any widely used search engine to see the marked difference in the availability of information about RTI when the Canadian provinces and individual…