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School psychology is a subject that applies principles of clinical psychology and educational psychology to the diagnosis and treatment of children's and adolescents' behavioral and learning problems, to teachers, politicians and other responsible persons in the institutionalized education systems with pedagogic, didactic or systemic-organizational problems, occasionally also integrating parents of school children to find common solutions. School psychologists are educated in psychology, child and adolescent development, child and adolescent instruction, family, schooling, psychopathology and parenting, instruction, family and parenting techniques, learning theories, and personality theories. They truly are experienced in effective education. They truly are trained to carry out psychological and psycho educational assessment, counselling, and consultation, and in the administrative, legal and ethical codes of their profession.
Historical foundations of school psychology
School psychology dates back to the start of American psychology in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The subject is associated with both clinical and functional psychology. School psychology really came out of practical psychology. School psychologists were interested in childhood behaviours, learning procedures, and dysfunction with life or in the brain itself. They desired to understand the causes of the behaviors and their effects on learning. Along with its sources in functional psychology, school psychology can also be the earliest example of clinical psychology, beginning around 1890. While both clinical and school psychologists wished to help enhance the lives of children, it was approached by them in different ways. School psychologists were concerned with school learning and childhood behavioral problems, which mainly contrasts the mental health focus of clinical psychologists.
Another major event in the basis of school psychology now as it is was the Thayer Conference. The Thayer Conference was first held in August 1954 in West Point, New York in Resort Thayer. The 9 day-long conference was conducted by the American Psychological Association (APA).[4] The intention of the conference was to build up a position on the roles, functions, and necessary training and credentialing of a school psychologist. At the convention, forty - eight participants that represented trainers and practitioners of school psychologists discussed the functions and roles of a school psychologist and the most appropriate way to teach them.
During the time of the Thayer Conference, school psychology was still a very young profession with no more than 1,000 school psychology practitioners. Certainly one of the targets of the Thayer Conference was to define school psychologists. The agreed upon definition stated that school psychologists were psychologists who specialize in education and have special knowledge of learning and assessment of all children. School psychologists use school personnel to be assisted by this knowledge in enriching the lives of most children. This knowledge can also be used to help identify and work with children with exceptional needs. It was discussed that the school psychologist must be able to assess and develop plans for children thought to be at an increased risk. A school psychologist can be expected to better the lives of all children in the school; consequently, it was determined that school psychologists should be advisors in the planning and execution of school curriculum. Participants at the conference felt that since school psychology is a specialty, persons in the area should have a completed a two-year graduate training program or even a four-year doctoral program. Participants felt that states ought to be encouraged to establish certification standards to ensure appropriate training. It was also decided that a practicum experience be required to help facilitate experiential knowledge within the area.
Because it was there that the subject was initially shaped into what it is today the Thayer Conference is one of the more important events in the history of school psychology. Before the Thayer Conference defined school psychology, practitioners used seventy - five different professional titles. By supplying one title and a definition, the conference helped to get school psychologists recognized nationwide. Since a consensus was reached concerning the standards of training and major functions of a school psychologist, the people can now be assured that most school psychologists are receiving adequate information and training to be always a professional.
It is crucial that school psychologists meet up with exactly the same qualifications and get proper training nationwide. These essential standards were first addressed at the Thayer Conference. At the Thayer Conference some participants felt that in order to support the title of a school psychologist an individual will need to have earned a doctoral degree. That is an issue that can be still debated today and may be the principal difference between the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) and the American Psychological Association (APA). APA only recognizes doctoral degrees where as NASP approves school psychology specialist and doctoral programs that meet their standards.
Important contributors to the founding Lightner Witmer has been recognized as the founder of school psychology.
Witmer was a pupil of James Mckeen Cattell and both Wilhelm Wundt. While Wundt believed that psychology should deal with the common or typical performance, Cattell's teachings emphasized individual differences. Witmer followed Catell's teachings and centered on learning about each individual child's needs. Witmer opened the first psychological and child guidance clinic in 1896 at the University of Pennsylvania. Witmer's goal was to prepare psychologists to assist educators solve children's learning issues, especially those with individual differences. Witmer became an advocate for these special children. He was not focused on their deficits per se, but rather helping them overcome them, by looking at the person's favorable advancement rather than all they still could not achieve. Witmer stated that his practice helped "to find mental and moral defects and to deal with the child in such a way that these defects may be overcome or rendered harmless through the development of other mental and moral traits". He strongly believed that active clinical interventions could help to improve the lives of the individual kiddies.
Since Witmer saw much success through his practice, he saw the necessity for more experts to assist these individuals. Witmer argued for special training for the experts working together with exceptional children in special educational classrooms. He called for a "new profession which will be exercised more particularly in reference to educational problems, but for which the training of the psychologist will be considered a necessity.
As Witmer believed in the appropriate training of these school psychologists, he also stressed the importance of accurate and appropriate testing of these special kids. The IQ testing movement was sweeping through the entire world of education as a result of its creation in 1905. Nevertheless, the IQ test negatively influenced special education. The IQ test creators, Lewis Terman and Henry Goddard, held a view of intelligence, believing that intelligence was inherited and difficult if not impossible to change in just about any meaningful way through education. These notions were frequently used as a basis for excluding children with disabilities from the general public schools. To be able to help select children for special education Witmer argued from the standard pencil and paper IQ and Binet type tests. Witmer's child selection process included observations and having children perform certain mental tasks.
Granville Stanley Hall
Still another significant figure to the source of school psychology was Granville Stanley Hall. Rather than taking a look at the individual child as Witmer did, Hall focused more on the administrators, teachers and parents of special children He believed that psychology could make a contribution to the administrator system level of the application form of school psychology. Hall created the child study movement, which helped to invent the notion of the "normal" child. Through Hall's child study, he helped to work out the mappings of child growth and dedicated to the nature and nurture debate of an individual's shortage. Hall's primary focus of the movement was still the exceptional child despite the undeniable fact that he worked with atypical children.
Arnold Gesell
Bridging the gap between the child study movement, clinical psychology and special education was the very first person in the United States to officially support the title of school psychologist, Arnold Gesell. He successfully combined education and psychology by assessing children and making recommendations for special teaching. Arnold Gesell paved the way for future school psychologists.
Education
Unlike clinical psychology and counseling psychology, which frequently are doctoral-only fields, school psychology contains individuals with Master's (M.A., M.S., M.Ed.), Practitioner (Ed.S. or SSP), Certification of Advanced Graduate Studies (CAGS), and doctoral (Ph.D., Psy.D. or Ed.D.) degrees. In the past, a Master's degree was considered the standard for practice in schools, but the National Association of School Psychologists now recognizes the 60-credit-hour Specialist degree as the most appropriate level of training needed for entry-level school-based practice. In line with the NASP Research Committee (NASP Research Committee, 2007), in 2004-05, 33% of school psychologists possessed Master's degrees, 35% possessed Specialist (Ed.S. or SSP) degrees, and 32% possessed doctoral (Ph.D., Psy.D., or Ed.D.) degrees.
School psychology training programs are housed in university schools of education or departments of psychology; in Specialist degree programs, the former generally results in a Ed.S. degree, as the latter results in a SSP degree. School psychology programs require courses, practica, and internships that cover the domains of:
Data-based decision-making and responsibility;
Consultation and collaboration;
Effective instruction and development of cognitive/academic skills;
Socialization and development of life skills;
Student diversity in development and learning;
School and systems organization, policy development, and climate;
Prevention, crisis intervention, and mental health;
Home / school / community collaboration;
Research and program evaluation;
School psychology practice and development; and
Information technology Standards for Training and Field Position,
2007. Specialist-level training usually requires 3--4 years of graduate training including a 9-month (1200 hour) internship in a school setting. Doctoral-level training programs usually require 5--7 years of graduate training including a 12-month internship (1500 hours), which may be in a school or other (e.g., medical) setting. Doctoral level training differs from specialist - level training for the reason that it requires more coursework to be taken by students in core psychology and professional psychology. Furthermore, doctoral programs usually require students to learn more advanced statistics, to be involved in research endeavors, and also to complete a doctoral dissertation constituting original research.
Doctoral training programs might be approved by NASP and/or accredited by the American Psychological Association. In 2007, roughly 125 programs were approved by NASP, and 58 programs were accredited by APA. Yet another 11 APA-accredited programs were joined (clinical/counseling/school, clinical/school, or counseling/school) programs (American Psychological Association, 2007). A list of school psychology graduate programs at all degrees across the US may be found at the University of California Berkeley's site.
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