ARCHIVED ARTICLES AND REPORTS

 

School psychology futures conference. ISPA was one of the sponsoring associations, with two representatives at the conference in Indianapolis, Indiana in November, 2002 (Peg Dawson and Sissy Hatzichristou). 
          Conference website      Conference presentations
    

Trends in psychological assessment: Psychological assessment enjoys new respect, applications and approaches. From the APA Monitor, January, 2006.

Childhood revisited. Through longitudinal research, Roger Hart seeks to inform debate on the changing nature of childhood play. From the APA Monitor, March, 2006.

Is pop culture dumbing us down or smartening us up? On the limited value of homework. A book review by Malcolm Gladwell in the New Yorker, May 9, 2005.

An alternative IDEA - Changes to the disabilities education law mean psychologists might need to learn and support different assessment methods.

The trouble with discipline. From the BBC Education correspondent.

Teens With Same-Sex Parents Well-Adjusted. By Karen Pallarito, HealthDay Reporter.

Fighting children's fears, fast. Researchers at Virginia Tech are helping children tackle their phobias in a single action-packed session. From the APA Monitor, July-August, 2005.

A revolutionary drug-free treatment for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). From the BBC, 15th February, 2006. The thinking is that if dormant parts of the cerebellum are stimulated by a series of balance and eye exercises it will expand and work better. The system is based around a space-age neurological testing machine, known as a 'dynamic posturography booth'.

The US Department of Education has released "Crime, Violence, Discipline, and Safety in US Public Schools" It is data from 2003-04 and includes information and data on bullying, embedded with school survey data on crime and safety.

The Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System 2005: National State and Local Data. The Department of Health and Human Services and the Center for Disease Control recently made available on the internet a 276 page document and powerpoint presentation. There are stats on all types of behaviors, including suicide, carrying weapons to school, acts of violence, etc.

Psychological Debriefing Does Not Prevent Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. By Richard J. McNally. Psychiatric Times April 2004 Vol. XXI Issue 4.

Assisting Victims of Terrorism and Mass Violence. "Mental Health Response to Mass Violence and Terrorism: A Training Manual." Provides guidance for developing and implementing training that will prepare mental health and crime-victim service providers with the knowledge and skill to help victims, survivors, and the community at large cope with and recover from terrorist and other events that involve mass violence. Access full text at:
http://media.shs.net/ken/pdf/SMA-3959/MassViolenceAndTerrorism.pdf

Zero tolerance policies are not as effective as thought in reducing violence and promoting learning in school - APA Press Release.

HATS - Healing After Trauma Skills. A manual for professionals working with children after disasters. The manual includes a number of activities that can be used by clinicians to address issues related to trauma and disaster.

A renewed effort to tackle petty disruption in England's schools. BBC report, February 1, 2005.

Assessment of Suicidal Behaviors and Risk Among Children and Adolescents - David B. Goldston.

Practical information on crisis planning: A Guide for schools and communities. Emergency planning for America's schools. The Office of Safe and Drug-free Schools, U.S. Department of Education, May 2003. 
           
Pdf version (93K)  WORD format (33K).

Children exposed to domestic violence: A teacher's handbook to increase understanding and improve community response. Minnesota Center against Violence and Abuse. The handbook explains the impact of violence on children and provides help for teachers in responding to students who are victims of violence.

Preventing violence and related health-risking social behavior in adolescents. The Agency for Health Research & Quality.

Schools and Terrorism: A Supplement to the Report of the National Advisory Committee on Children and Terrorism is now available on-line: http://www.bt.cdc.gov/children/PDF/working/school.pdf
This report is a supplement to a comprehensive report to the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services with recommendations for addressing the special needs of children as they relate to possible biological, chemical, radiological, and mass trauma terrorism. (This report is available at www.bt.cdc.gov/children)

National Bullying Campaign in the USA - visit the website at www.stopbullyingnow.hrsa.gov

The Australasian Journal of Disaster and Trauma Studies. Vol. 2, December, 2004. Four interesting articles on managing traumatic stress in emergencies; available online.

Professional, Ethical, and Legal Issues Concerning Interpersonal Violence, Maltreatment, and Related Trauma - Reviews the issues faced by psychologists working in the areas of interpersonal violence.

Early mental health intervention reduces trauma: A report from the National Institute of Mental Health.

How Schools Can Help Students Recover from Traumatic Experiences: A Tool Kit for Supporting Long-Term Recovery (2006). By Lisa H. Jaycox, Lindsey K. Morse, Terri Tanielian, & Bradley D. Stein.
This tool kit is designed for schools that want to help students recover from traumatic experiences such as natural disasters, exposure to violence, abuse or assault, terrorist incidents, and war and refugee experiences. It focuses on long-term recovery, as opposed to immediate disaster response.

Earthquake handout.

Exploding the Self-Esteem Myth. Boosting people's sense of self-worth has become a national preoccupation. Yet surprisingly, research shows that such efforts are of little value in fostering academic progress or preventing undesirable behavior. Article from Scientific American, December 20, 2004.

Violent Crime Rate Against Students Drops. New report released November 29th 2004, by the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Justice. (The complete text of the report is available online at: http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2005002

Why school violence is declining - An article from the Christian Science Monitor, December 6, 2004.

When It Comes to Bullying, There Are No Boundaries - Nations try various strategies to eradicate such behavior in schools. Article by Marianne D. Hurst in Education Week, February 9, 2005.

Setting the school respect agenda. British Prime Minister Tony Blair and the education secretary met with a group of teachers and principals to discuss what could be done to improve school discipline. From the BBC, 23 July, 2005.

Daddy, what did you do in the men's movement? Robert Bly may have retreated to his sweat lodge, but the reconsideration of masculinity and fatherhood he helped initiate hasn't ended.

Children's mental health problems seen as 'epidemic'. From the APA Monitor, December, 2004.

What's new in children's mental health - Creative ways of reaching children and using resources distinguish some fresh interventions. From the APA Monitor, December, 2004.

Bullying prevention: gaps between science and practice. APA Monitor, October, 2004.

Small class pupils do no better.  There is no evidence that children in smaller primary classes do better in maths or English, researchers say. From the BBC, January 5, 2005.

Schools 'ignoring' sex education - a report from the British education watchdog Ofsted. From the BBC, 25th January, 2005.

Why puberty now begins at seven. Are rising obesity rates to blame? From the BBC, May 16, 2005.

The dyspraxia myth. Little Johnny trying to force square pegs into round holes? Why he probably has dyspraxia, the hot, new dyslexia.

Prevention and Treatment of Overweight in Children and Adolescents. American Family Physician, June 2004.

Brain-boosting "cosmetic neurology" on the horizon: Articles in Seattle Times and Wired.

Debating learning-disability identification - Do quantitative tests used to determine learning disabilities leads to the best outcomes for students? APA Monitor, October, 2004.

Three publications from the American Academy of Pediatrics:
Clinical Practice Guideline: Diagnosis and Evaluation of the Child With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder.
Clinical Practice Guideline: Treatment of the School-Aged Child With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder.
ADHD Practitioners' Toolkit.

New ADHD drug is launched in UK. A new drug to treat ADHD - attention deficit hyperactivity disorder - has been licensed for use in the UK. BBC Health News.

Pills or Talk Therapy? If You're Confused, No Wonder. Article in the New York Times, June 8, 2004.

Instruction versus exploration in science learning. Recent psychological research calls "discovery learning" into question. APA Monitor, June 2004.

From the APA Monitor, May 2004:
     Panel stresses youth suicide prevention
     ADHD may be moderated by mom's love, study finds
     Spreading the word on early violence prevention 
     Math ability and the brain
     Bridging psychology and education

Survey says special education isn't as troubled as critics claim - From the New York Times, May 20, 2004.

Improving teacher quality. APA highlights psychology's contributions to education at a teacher education conference. From the APA Monitor, April, 2004.

Two articles from American Educator, the magazine of the American Federation of Teachers, on how to improve the behavior of antisocial students:
  Heading off
disruption
- How early intervention can reduce defiant behavior and win back teaching time.
  How disruptive students escalate hostility and disorder--and how teachers can avoid it.

Do early-childhood experiences program young brains?  APA Monitor, February, 2004.

Training psychology students to respond to terrorism.
APA Monitor, February, 2004.

NEAT team provides assistance to Nebraska school district experiencing multiple suicides. An article by Scott Poland.

New Report Shows Efficacy of SOS Suicide Prevention Program: The SOS High School Suicide Prevention Program reduced suicide attempts by 40% in high school students exposed to the program, according to a paper in the American Journal of Public Health (March 04). The report concludes that the SOS program is the first school-based suicide prevention program to show a reduction in suicidal behavior in a randomized controlled study.

Increasing numbers of school children are seeking help and advice on how to cope with bullying. From the BBC, August 25, 2004.

Toward peace on the playground - A psychologist-run program to curb bullying. From the APA Monitor, April, 2004.

A new kind of war - With thousands of returning troops who may need help battling trauma, civilian and military psychologists alike are finding new ways to help. From the APA Monitor, April, 2005.

Resilience: The mental muscle everyone has - teaching children how to 'bounce back' from stress. From the APA Monitor, April, 2005.

Does early psychological intervention promote PTSD recovery? A new report explores the efficacy of psychological debriefing of trauma victims immediately after an event. The report reviews recent studies, addresses the current controversy over efforts to prevent PTSD versus treating individuals suffering with the disorder and discusses new evidence regarding the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral interventions.

The Quest to Forget, by Robin Marantz Henig. From the New York Times, April 4, 2004.

Study shows two types of reading disability. Researchers at Yale University have identified two reading disabilities that account for why some children compensate for impaired ability but others struggle to read throughout their lives. From the APA Monitor, Volume 34, No. 10, November 2003.

Two studies link child care to behavior problems - Article from the New York Times, 16 July, 2003.

National Institute on Drug Abuse - An excellent site for teens with information on the effects of drugs.

The ABCs of children's mental health. Article by Peter Whelley, Gene Cash and Dixie Bryson.

Report on violence in schools - Indicators of School Crime and Safety, 2002, from the USA Bureau of Justice Statistics and the National Center for Education Statistics.

Hearing Colors, Tasting Shapes: Article from the Scientific American which can apply to helping children learn how to read. People with synesthesia--whose senses blend together--are providing valuable clues to understanding the organization and functions of the human brain.

Results of a ten-year study by NIMH shows that brain shrinkage in ADHD is not caused by medication.

An interesting article on the economics of spanking.

Every day, in courts across the land, expert-witness doctors, economists, engineers, and psychologists raise their right hand and swear to tell the truth. Do they?

Dyslexics turn to colored specs. An Oxford professor says the government may be wasting money on expensive special tuition for dyslexic pupils when many of them could be helped by cheap colored spectacles. Article from the BBC.

Three interesting articles on intelligence from the February, 2003 edition of the APA Monitor:
Intelligent intelligence testing          Breaking new ground          Intelligence across cultures

Personality is not set by 30, it can change throughout life. (From the APA Monitor, May, 2003.)

APA Monitor, September, 2003:
     Molding effective teachers
.
    
Who is learning disabled?
     Pond
ering high-stakes tests.

Lessons in resilience. APA materials for school children and their parents and teachers on how to be resilient in times of stress. From the APA Monitor, September, 2003.

A new method for cushioning children from the trauma of terror. Ha'aretz, 24 November, 2003.

Is Trauma Being Trivialized? An article from the New York Times by Felicia R.Lee, September 6, 2003.

Counseling can add to post-disaster trauma. Article from the New Scientist, June, 2003.

U.S. Government mapping out a strategy to fight autism. Article from the New York Times, 19 November, 2003.

Epidemiology of autism:  A report on the principal findings from the California study.

The New Sex Scorecard, from Psychology Today Jul/Aug 2003. Article on sex differences.

Violent music lyrics increase aggressive thoughts.

Early Violence Prevention: Adults and Children Together (ACT) - A train-the-trainer program

Youth bullying: An article from the American Medical Association.

Men, Empathy, and Autism. A British researcher offers a new theory about the developmental disorder that has skyrocketed among children. From The Chronicle, March 5, 2004.

New report on drug use: The USA Department of Health and Human Services reports a decrease among high school students in the use of drugs. 

OECD report for 2006.

The Rorschach Inkblot Test, Fortune Tellers, and Cold Reading. Famous clinical psychologists used the Rorschach Inkblot Test to arrive at incredible insights. But were the astounding performances of these Rorschach Wizards merely a variation on astrology and palm reading? Excerpted by the authors from their book What's Wrong With the Rorschach? Science Confronts the Controversial Inkblot Test. James M. Wood, M.Teresa Nezworski, Scott O. Lilienfeld, and Howard N. Garb.