9/8
On my first day of my school psychology practicum at Martin Luther King elementary school, a lot of information was thrown my way. I learned that in this particular building there are an extreme amount of needs. It was estimated that about one third of the students were identified with some sort of disability. Mostly, the children are disabled from poverty. Their motor skills, social skills, and vocabulary are so low, several of them not knowing numbers, colors, or the alphabet.
One of the first things we did was go to observe a kindergarten class that had a child in it we were going to test. We pulled him out to administer the Differential Ability Scale (DAS) with him. He was so over stimulated by everything that there was no way to test him in the structured way it’s supposed to be done in. He did not sit still or listen for more than a few seconds. He was out of his seat and touching everything the whole time. We tested him as best we could and only got half way through the test. He is a little older than 4 years old and so far the test is suggesting that he’s only functioning at a 2 year old level. After discontinuing the assessment, we played for a little while just so I could observe him some more.
My impression after the first day is that the semester would be very busy. I am anticipating that this inner city school with such an abundance of identified children will present many new experiences for me to see.
9/10
Thursdays at the school are the Student Support Team’s scheduled day for Committee of Special Education meetings. In these meetings the student support team, related services specialists like speech therapists or social workers, and parents all convene to discuss the needs and classifications of the child in question. During the first meeting, the child’s parents were not in attendance. I was told that this is a common theme in this particular building, which is a shame. The committee decided to continue the child’s services as they were. The second meeting was to declassify a child who was speech impaired. Both parents were there and seemed pleased with their son’s progress.
The third meeting was somewhat upsetting to me. The child is very clearly MR, however not receiving appropriate services for that. The reason is because his mother would not allow the team to put that label upon her child. She wanted to keep his other related services intact instead of changing his classification to the appropriate one and getting him the services that would actually be beneficial to him. The team unfortunately can do nothing without the parent’s consent, and so we had to let this child go, knowing that he wouldn’t get adequate help. One of the issues discussed in School Psychology class was dealing with parents. I would expect and was told that parents are sometimes the hardest part of the job, however I would also expect that they would want to know what the experts thought was best for the children. Perhaps this mother thought that not labeling him MR was for the best, but I have to disagree whole heartedly. I was upset that there was nothing more that could be done.
After the meeting I spent some time reading over the manual for the DAS to become more familiar with its content and administration instructions. It is a fairly standard and straightforward assessment with its own procedures, standard scores, and administration guidelines very much like several of the assessments learned about in Assessment class at school.
9/29
This morning the first thing I did was learn to hand score the DAS.
After that, we talked about what happens when special education children are suspended since, already, there will have to be some action taken soon. I learned that once an identified child reaches ten days suspended from school, the matter must be taken up with the school psychologist for pattern analysis. If the child’s activities that he or she is being suspended for is a result of the disability, then the child can no longer be suspended, and must return to school immediately. In order to determine whether or not the instances are resulting from the disability, the team assembles for another meeting called a Manifestation Determination Review meeting to decide.
We then went to a kindergarten class to observe a child for a 20 minute time sample. Dr. Stafford showed me how she’d like the notes to be taken. The 20 minutes are broken down and in each section of time I was to compare the child to a peer close by in the room. One of the things I picked up on was that she missed directions that the teacher gave more often than not. She either needed them repeated, or looked to her peers to figure out what she was supposed to be doing. Once she knew what to be doing she could complete the task.
To end the day, I searched through the databases to research ADHD medications and their affect on growth hormones because this was needed to be known for yet another child who would be coming up in the meetings soon. The literature found pretty much confirmed that there is no affect, even though there was some speculation before.
10/1
This morning was spent researching possible counseling ideas and information on children whose parents are incarcerated. Because there is a high population of children in this circumstance, this is a project idea that Dr. Stafford has come up with for me to help her with. What I learned was that children with one or both parents that are incarcerated usually end up having behavioral problems and/or learning disabilities. The grief of their loss of a parent must also be dealt with and addressed. The two biggest and most effective interventions for the children were to help them by giving them a strong mentor, and having them be in some sort of contact with the parent who is incarcerated.
It was then time to sit in on the CSE meetings for the day which went smoothly, and when we got back to the office, a child who is close to Dr. Stafford came in to talk to calm down. He was very upset about a math grade that he had just received, and to deal with his emotions he needed a break from class to come in and be calmed down. We talked to him, got him a snack and got him calmed down to where he was eventually okay to return to class. I can foresee this being one of my favorite parts of the job. This child had a special relationship where he trusted Dr. Stafford who is obviously an influential adult in his life.
10/6
Today we did testing with a third grade student who has conductive hearing loss in both ears; however her hearing impairment had gone unnoticed until now. She is presently classified speech impaired. We first did a CTOPP assessment with her. All her scores were in the average range, except for phonological processing which was low. That would make sense given her hearing impairment. We also tested her with the Unit Intelligence Test which is an assessment that I have never heard of before today. It is a language free intelligence test. The administrator basically teaches the test taker signs and the whole test is administered using gestures, pointing, etc. and so no language is used. This assessment would give a better and more accurate score for this girl because her hearing loss would not be a factor in this test. She did well and scored in the average range, something that we feared she would not have been able to do if given a traditional IQ test. Eliminating factors that may hinder scores for reasons other than true disability is a big topic discussed in Assessment class. Being sure about the most accurate scores possible is very important and I was able to see that concept applied in this real setting today.
Another thing we discussed today that I was familiar with from school, was the idea of using positive psychology for the group of children with incarcerated parents that we were going to set up. Positive Psychology class taught us the basic concepts of determining and utilizing signature strengths of an individual to work for resilience and a better future, rather than focusing on what is wrong and trying to fix that. By this standard, instead of focusing on a problem, the emphasis is on the positive and the strengths of a person so that it can be used for something bigger and better.
10/8 – 10/15
These two days were spent observing children in their classrooms before their CSE meetings came up. What I am noticing as I do these observations is that the children are really very low functioning. Even though they are young, they just haven’t been exposed to anything and their social skills are suffering. I ran into one child who didn’t know what scissors were until the first day they used them in first grade. Some of the first graders still can’t write their names, and a lot of the kindergarteners even after weeks of school can’t recognize colors or shapes. I am also seeing a lot of children with high lead levels, and learned that Buffalo has one of the highest lead levels, and is among the poorest cities in the whole nation. These are huge factors in the development of the children.
I am also seeing the lack of involvement of parents as I sit through CSE meetings. Some parents show up and are only interested in whether we can prescribe their children medication, some show up and don’t care what we do with their children, and some don’t show up at all. One set of parents who came in had six children total in the school and didn’t know what grades they were even in. It’s disappointing, to say the least, to see that we are attempting to do more for the students than their own parents in this particular building.
10/20
Today I watched the DAS administered in its entirety today on a child that I observed last week. It was good to see the administration and timing of the various subtests in the structured manner that it is supposed to be done it.
After that, two twin boys were brought in because their mother was concerned. She called into the school to give a heads up in case they were acting strangely that day. The previous night they had witnessed a woman get shot in the head four times outside their home. We sat on the floor and talked about what a terribly scary experience it must have been for these two boys. We made sure to tell them if they were ever scared or sad to find someone as well as made sure they were okay to go about their day today. They are six years old and seemed hardly phased by this because it turns out that this is not the first violence that they have come in contact with in their neighborhood. They were more concerned with how scary and chaotic it was when the police gathered to sort out the situation than they were about the fact that they had just witnessed a murder.
On top of that, another boy was brought in today to be tested by the WISC. He could not get through the whole assessment because he was sick, and he was sad because his cousin had just been intentionally killed as well. He got half way through the test before he couldn’t go any further. The adversity that these kids must face in this city is absolutely unbelievable. The resilience that they show after having to deal with so much violence is incredible and says a lot of them despite their misfortunes. Had I been involved in murders and violence such as these, going to school and acting normal the next day would not even be close to an option. I can’t believe that this is a semi-normal occurrence to them.
10/22
I sat in on CSE meetings today. The first one was for a boy I observed last week. A child advocate came to this meeting which was a new concept to me. Basically, the advocate comes and in support of the child and the parent makes sure the best thing for the family is decided upon during the meeting. This was interesting to me because he came but the parents did not even show up. He contributed his thoughts and opinions, asked questions, and was asked if he agreed upon the decision at the end when it was made. Dr. Stafford asked me to present my observations when it was time to present the psychological evaluation part of the meeting. I’m starting to see the whole process coming together, the observation to the testing to the report and then to the meeting to make decisions. It’s also a really beneficial experience to be able to be included, and now in all aspects since I was able to present to the team the results of my observations. The chairperson, general education teacher, consultant teacher, child advocate, psychologist, and related service teachers were all present in this a particular meeting.
10/27
Today was the first Manifestation Determination Review meeting of the year for when a special education student has been suspended for ten days. We held the meeting to determine whether there is a pattern in her actions and if it is the result of the disability. If so, the child has to return to school immediately and can not be suspended for that again.
The boy from before whose cousin was killed is suffering from severe childhood depression, and so he set up meeting times with the doctor once a week to come in and talk. It turns out that not only was his cousin killed, but his sister attempted suicide and is in the hospital, and his family is below the poverty level in terms of income. He is also being bullied badly in his class, and so we discussed ways to deal with the bullying and promised we would have a conversation with his teacher to see if any of the bullying can be intercepted. We made sure he knew to tell his teacher whenever it happened, that he knew the hurtful comments were untrue and they were only said because of the bullies insecurities. We also looked into the possibility of getting the crisis service to send someone over for bully intervention in specific classrooms. Bullying is a serious issue discussed in school psychology class. I’ve learned that even more so today with all the technology bullying is hard to escape and can lead to devastating depression, or suicide, or even more violence if not caught early. The importance of this is recognized by Dr. Stafford and necessary steps are being taken to intervene before it escalates.
11/5 – 11/10
I met an older boy, 14 years old, who is diagnosed with oppositional defiant disorder. We administered the Rorschach with him, which was the first time I had ever seen it administered fully. I think the Rorschach is a really neat test, which sometimes gets dismissed too easily. It can tell a lot about what a person sees. I also didn’t know that each card was supposed to get at a different aspect, like there is a mother card, and an emotion card, etc. We also started the BASC with him on the second day that we worked with him. I sat with him by myself while he finished up answering the true/false questions on the BASC. He wanted to take breaks all the time and I had a hard time getting him back to class, but other than that I saw very little defiance at all. In fact he had been acting so well lately, that we gave him the option to participate in part of his CSE meeting next week.
11/12
Today we went over the results of the Rorschach. She had it scored on the computer, and I was surprised to see how extensive the results actually were. There were pages full of scales and subtests that told things about the test taker, and they were standardized as well which I didn’t know. After we looked through what the Rorschach said about this boy I was sent to observe and type up observation notes about a severe ADHD girl to put in her file. This was the most eventful observation I’ve done yet. This girl was very badly behaved, screaming and yelling at the boys in her class, threatening them, not listening, and never on task. By the end of the few minutes I was in the class, the teacher had to call a behavioral escort to take her away and she got written up and suspended. I later learned that she had been off her medication for the year, but when she was on it she was a completely different child. Her father took her off and did not wish her to take them anymore, but perhaps after he sees her suspension he will reconsider.
11/17 – 11/19
This week was a very fun week for me. First, there was another MDR meeting for a child, and the social worker who works with her was present this time for the meeting.
After, we brought in the girl that I just observed who was misbehaved. This was the first time she had ever met Dr. Stafford, so she was given a worksheet to fill out that consisted of sentence completions so we could get to know her. I went through the worksheet with her. After we had a little introduction and talked about some of her answers, we started conducting the WISC. Dr. Stafford let me administer the similarities, vocabulary, and matrix reasoning subtests with her on my own. She helped me when I needed to prompt more, and with scoring. It is definitely not as easy as it looks, and being familiar with the content and scoring procedures is a must. This was a big experience for me. I enjoyed it even though I was nervous about administering it correctly.
The rest of my time spent at the school this week consisted of observing children and sitting in on CSE meetings, presenting my observation results if I had observed that child.
11/24 – 12/3
These last two days of practicum were interesting as well. One of the days I attended a Student Support Team training session put on by the district for all SST leaders. The district is currently undergoing major changes and is somewhat chaotic. During the training session, the Response to Intervention model for working with children was talked about. In this model, certain interventions are put into place for a few weeks before the child is even tested, and then interventions are layered on as needed to find the right fit for the child and family. I was glad to be able to be included in the training session. Being up to date on the area’s methods and procedures are important.
Overall, this semester’s practicum experience I feel has been very eye opening and beneficial to me. I have learned a lot about the field of school psychology by seeing it in action first hand. Being in an inner city setting is definitely an experience I can share in the future as well. Having put in the hours and work, I do believe that this internship has applied concepts learned in the classroom, and has given me an advantage as I continue my education in this field.
