Students are often referred for special education evaluations following teacher generated referrals. These referrals indicate observable poor academic progress, although often there is no indication of the cause of the poor performance as well as no indication of remediation attempts prior to a special education referral. Students who demonstrate reading difficulties struggle in nearly all areas due to the dependence on reading that permeates all academic classes. Poor reading abilities are a prominent concern in schools and one of the primary reasons for special education referrals (NAEP, 2007). The purpose of this study was to determine whether effectively implementing a reading fluency intervention prior to referring a student for a special education evaluation led to fewer overall special education referrals as well as more accurate special education referrals. Results of this study indicated that the implementation of a reading intervention did significantly decrease the number of overall special education referrals that were made. The students who were referred for special education following participation in the intervention program were also more likely to qualify for special education services compared to students who had not participated in the intervention program. Additional student characteristics that were explored included sex, work habits, attendance rates and socioeconomic status (SES). Results indicated that work habits and sex did not significantly affect the rate of teacher referral for special education evaluations. Poor attendance did have a significant relationship on special education referral rates, indicating that students with poor attendance were more likely to be considered in need of special education support. SES was found to have a significant relationship to special education referrals over the length of the study as well as during the pre-intervention period, but did not have a significant impact on special education referrals during the intervention period.

There has been a rapid increase in the emergence of minority groups during the past few decades in the United States. Hispanics are the largest minority group that has people who speak English as a second language. The increasing proportion of English Language Learning (ELL) students has made it more difficult to maintain high learning standards. Furthermore, this increase has led to other problems such as the over and underrepresentation of ELL students in special education, high dropout rates and the underachievement obtained in standardized tests such us the Arizona's Instrument to Measure Standards (AIMS). For this reason, researchers have strongly emphasized the importance of studying self-regulated learning (SRL) as a critical component in the learning process as it is suggested to improve the academic outcomes of students. However, SRL has mostly been researched in middle class Caucasians but there has not been much research in relation to minorities or ELL students. Due to the paucity of research, the present study examined the relationship between SRL and academic achievement of ELL students. The study was conducted in a southern Arizona school district. The sample was comprised of 30 students attending seventh and eighth grades from a solicited sample of 130 students. The students completed the Motivated Strategies Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ). Results indicated that SRL is related to the academic achievement of students in reading, writing, and mathematics. Similarly, the components of SRL (i.e., motivation and learning strategies), especially motivation, were found to be significantly related to achievement as well. Additionally, the MSLQ was encountered to be a reliable instrument to be used with ELL students as indicated by the reliability indexes. The implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.

The purpose of this study is to examine how respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) is affected across paced breathing, attention, inhibition, and emotion-eliciting tasks and how those relationships may be mediated by emotion regulation strategies in children with different levels of externalizing and internalizing behaviors between the ages of 8 and 12 years. The first aim was to determine whether externalizing and internalizing symptoms during a paced breathing or natural breathing task better predicted RSA levels. The hypothesis was that internalizing and externalizing behaviors would be more predictive of RSA baseline levels when utilizing a paced-breathing method of measuring RSA. The second aim was to determine how RSA levels across an attention, inhibition, sad, and anger task are predicted by internalizing and externalizing symptoms after controlling for baseline RSA levels. There were four hypotheses: (1) as levels of externalizing behaviors increase, levels of baseline RSA would decrease, (2) as levels of internalizing behaviors increase, levels of baseline RSA will decrease, (3) there will be significantly smaller changes in RSA reactivity) as the level of externalizing behaviors increases, and (4) as levels of internalizing symptoms increase, there will be significantly larger changes in RSA levels relative to RSA baseline levels (RSA reactivity).The results showed that externalizing and internalizing behaviors did not predict RSA levels during a paced or natural breathing task. Additionally, there was very little difference in the outcomes when used either a natural or paced breathing method of RSA as a control variable except when predicting RSA levels during a sad emotion-eliciting task. Although RSA levels during three experimental tasks (attention, inhibition, and sad) were not significant, there were moderate effect sizes for externalizing and/or internalizing symptoms predicting various RSA reactivity (i.e., RSA levels after controlling for baseline) across these conditions. One model was significant in predicting the level of variance of RSA reactivity during an anger emotion-eliciting task, with internalizing and hyperactivity/inattention symptoms contributing the most variation in the model. Findings point towards understanding how internalizing and externalizing symptoms may impact an individual's physiological response during a task.

This study examined the trend of ten dropout indicators between various grade levels and focused on those indicators that can be changed, such as attendance or grades, versus those factors that cannot be changed by the student (i.e., their socioeconomic status). The study consisted of 111 Race-to-the-Top Schools from 22 districts in the Green River Regional Educational Cooperative (GRREC) and the Ohio Valley Educational Cooperative (OVEC) in Kentucky. A total of 18,072 students in fourth, sixth, eighth, ninth, and eleventh grades completed the 10-item dropout indicator survey. Results of the Chi-square analysis indicate that percentages of agreement on most of the ten dropout indicators increase by grade with some exceptions (e.g., repeated a grade and referrals). Overall, academic and non-academic factors were of equal importance for most of the grades surveyed. However, ninth grade students were twice as likely to report non-academic factors over academic.

Abstract A revised Developmental Delay (DD) category became effective in Arizona on September 30, 2009 and allows children who demonstrate significant delays in at least two developmental areas to receive services in special education up to age 10. In order for the educational team to determine that a student meets the criteria for DD, an assessment in all five developmental areas, including cognitive, physical, communication, adaptive, and social/emotional must be completed. However, areas typically included in a neuropsychological assessment, like attention and executive functioning or memory and learning, are typically not part of an educational evaluation and have the potential to adversely affect learning when there are deficits in these areas. DD is a highly prevalent group that has a wide variety of genetic, environmental, and societal risk factors. The definition varies greatly in research, education, medical or health-related fields, as well as by culture. Since the DD category is viable until age 10, outcome studies have been conducted to find out if children with DD continue in special education and if so, under what categories. It has been found that children with DD generally stay in special education and continue receiving services, most often as students with specific learning disability, mild intellectual disability, and speech/language impairment, in addition to other categories. There is limited information in the available literature regarding the neuropsychological strengths and weaknesses for this prevalent group. Moreover, there is limited information available regarding the possible predictors of reading achievement for children with DD. The first aim of the study was to determine how much variability in performance there was for children who met the educational criteria for DD in Arizona as well as to assess strengths and weaknesses compared to normative means. The second aim of this study was to find out if two specific scores from a neuropsychological battery found to be significantly lower in children with a reading disorder were also significant predictors of reading performance in children with DD. A third aim involved an exploratory analysis to determine if there was evidence of a pattern of strengths and weaknesses by delay type. Thirty-three children with DD ages 5 to 9 years were recruited for this study from a single school district in Southern Arizona. Children were administered measures of cognition, attention and executive functioning, memory and learning, sensorimotor skills, and visuospatial processing, and reading. The parent/guardian of the child completed a structured developmental history. For the first aim, the total sample was split into two groups by presence of cognitive delay and analyzed separately. Qualitatively, the data in the form of box-plots was examined. Levene's and Nonparametric Levene's tests were used to quantitatively evaluate variance in score distributions. Single sample t-tests were used to compare group mean scale or subscale scores to the appropriate normative means. The second aim was analyzed using the total sample of children with DD. Stepwise linear regression models were used to determine if Speeded Naming and Inhibition Naming Total Completion Time scores significantly predicted reading performance as measured by the Reading Cluster score from the WJ IV ACH for all children with DD. Two other subtest scores, which were observed to be within normal limits in children with reading disorder on the NEPSY-II special group study, were also analyzed with stepwise linear regression to confirm that they did not predict reading in children with DD, namely Memory for Designs Total Score and Geometric Puzzles. Lastly, for the third aim, those with each delay type were analyzed separately from those without the delay type (e.g., no communication delay and communication delay). Like the first aim, box-plots were generated to visually represent the data. DD group mean scores of each scale or subscale were also compared to the appropriate normative means by single sample t-tests. Results from this study indicated that the variation in the scores was not significantly different between groups, except for a measure of graphomotor speed and precision. Children with DD with a cognitive delay were found to exhibit a wide range of deficits, including deficits in cognition, reading, attention and executive functioning, language, memory and learning, sensorimotor, and visuospatial processing. Children without cognitive impairment did not demonstrate impairments in cognition and reading and demonstrated specific skill deficits for sustained attention, speeded naming with accuracy, immediate and long-term visual memory, memory for organized verbal information, phonological short-term memory, and fine motor speed. When the total sample was analyzed together, three high reading scores were identified as outliers from group reading performance. Both predictor variables were found to be moderately related to reading whether the outliers were in or out. Only one of the two predictors were found to significantly contribute to the predictive model whether the outliers were in or out yet the strength of the prediction was weak, suggesting there are likely better predictors of reading for children with DD. In the analysis of the non-predictors, when the outlier scores were left in, Geometric Puzzles, a measure of visuospatial perception and mental rotation was indicated as a significant predictor of reading. When the outliers were removed, neither score was significantly related with reading. Lastly, meaningful group strengths and weaknesses were seen when the total sample of children with DD was broken into groups by delay, even when the majority performed below normative means. The results of this study indicate that children with DD are at increased risk for significant difficulties in many of the areas included in neuropsychological assessment. This points to the need for many of these areas, namely attention and executive functioning, memory and learning, and visuospatial processing to be included in a comprehensive evaluation in the school setting. Moreover, knowledge of group strengths and weaknesses can aid intervention selection and implementation in addition to appropriate accommodations to facilitate learning. This can inform intervention implementation and design. More research is needed in this area to have a better understanding of how neurocognitive skills relate to reading since the predictors selected for this study were not strong predictors of reading performance for children with DD. Visuospatial perception and mental rotation may be more highly related for children with DD that have higher reading skills.

Lower performance on measures of neuropsychological and academic ability has been noted in adolescents with either Type I Diabetes Mellitus (T1DM) or exposure to traumatic life events. This present study looked to gather information on trauma exposure and symptoms in adolescents with T1DM. The first aim was to compare the neuropsychological and academic achievement performance of Type I Diabetes Mellitus positive adolescents who had experienced a traumatic event with those who had not. Second, the study explored if T1DM positive adolescent’s performance on neuropsychological and academic achievement could be predicted by the number and severity of traumatic stress symptoms they experienced. Finally, the study aimed to explore the nature of trauma exposure of its T1DM positive adolescent participants. Results found limited evidence participants who self-reported trauma exposure performed worse than those who did not on a measure of perceptual reasoning; those with parent-reported trauma exposure scored lower on a measure of visual perception and reasoning as well as an assessment of calculation ability than those whose parents did not. As trauma symptoms scores as reported by either self- or parent-report increased, participant scores on measures of general cognitive ability and attention decreased. As self-reported trauma symptoms increased, performance on perceptual reasoning and psychomotor ability decreased. As parent-reported trauma symptoms increased, vocabulary and verbal abilities decreased. In addition to the results noted for trauma symptom scores, the as the number of self-reported symptoms increased, executive functioning, vocabulary, and verbal abilities decreased. While parent-reported trauma symptoms were not associated with decreased performance on any academic measure, as self-reported trauma symptoms scores increased math calculation, reading comprehension, and writing fluency scores decreased.

陸慧菁. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2011. / Includes bibliographical references. / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in Chinese and English. / Lu Huijing.

The social justice agenda is currently at the foreground of political consciousness and the idea of 'social justice' has penetrated the discipline of psychology, specifically counselling and community psychology. However, there is a wealth of literature which has debated the role of social justice in psychology, and what it can and should look like. A systematic literature review was undertaken to find and synthesise empirical research relevant to the question: 'what is the significance of social justice in educational psychology practice?' It was structured using the PRISMA framework and studies were examined and screened to ensure that they met the inclusion criteria. A Weight of Evidence framework was used to enhance the judgement of the quality and relevance of the identified studies, with regards to the review's research question. Qualitative research studies were assessed for quality using a pre-existing investigative framework, whilst quantitative investigation studies were evaluated using a tailor-made framework, which referenced quantitative research guidelines. The research base was found to give positive support to the significance of the concept of social justice in US school psychology practice. An exploratory piece of qualitative research using semi-structured interviews with qualified UK educational psychologists was conducted to explore their views of social justice. The interviews were transcribed and thematic analysis applied. Results of the research gave definition to the concept of social justice under an educational psychology lens, reasons for its importance to educational psychology practice, examples of what it looked like within educational psychology practice, and thoughts around the role of educational psychology in promoting social justice. The concepts of evidence-based practice and practice-based evidence, and the effective dissemination of research in relation to outcomes and impact were discussed. Policy, practice and research development implications were considered, before a strategy for promoting and evaluating the dissemination and impact of the research findings, was considered. A multi-strand strategy of journal publication, presentations, and workshops will be utilised to encourage further discussion around the topic. The creation of a UK educational psychology special interest group around social justice may be of value, in order to advance interest in social justice, into action.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) calls for education to prepare children for "responsible life in a free society, in the spirit of understanding, peace, tolerance, equality of sexes, and friendship among all peoples, ethnic, national and religious groups and persons of indigenous origin" (UN, 1989, p.9). This thesis examines the potential role of Educational Psychologists (EPs) in addressing the UNCRC call to promote community cohesion through their work in schools. A systematic review of recent international research into the effects of psychology-based educational approaches promoting community cohesion was undertaken. The review, structured by the PRISMA framework, identified 13 studies examining the effects of approaches to community cohesion. Analysis of these studies yielded insight into approaches to community cohesion, which may be best promoted through educational approaches that have both knowledge and process-based components and through a multi-level approach, which takes into account the individual and their relationships as well as the relationships between community groups and the individual's participation in their community. An empirical study with an Educational Psychology Service (EPS) in the North West of England was undertaken. This consisted of an Appreciative Inquiry cycle of four focus groups exploring ways in which an EPS could envisage promoting community cohesion. Findings from the empirical study suggest that an EPS supporting community cohesion is facilitated by aspects of current EP practice including values and by EPs knowing their school communities. EPs reflecting on their own positionality regarding community and culture may also be a facilitator. Dissemination to EP practice was considered, both at the research site as well as within the profession more generally. A multi-level approach was generated in which dissemination to practice through journal publication, conference presentations and continued contribution to a working group of regional EPSs was planned alongside dissemination through the design and delivery of training packages for schools. Deliberation over whether adopting a children's rights-based approach could help to maintain focus on community cohesion through times of changing government priorities was discussed.

The researcher examined the relationship between the motor scales of the Learning Accomplishment Profile-Diagnostic Revised Edition (LAP-D) and the Developmental Indicators for the Assessment of Learning-Revised (DIAL-R) motor scales. Specifically, the strength of the relationship and the consistency of identification between the motor scales of these two measures were examined. The sample consisted of 29 children ages 38-67 months selected from the LAP-D normative sample which was stratified for gender and race. Children were administered tests in random order. The study results revealed the following: 1) the LAPD and DIAL-R motor scales were significantly and positively correlated; 2) LAP-D and DIAL-R had a high agreement rate with regard to identification of motor status; and 3) LAP-D results were more consistent with the criterion measure (VVPPSI-R) than the DIAL -R results. Results were discussed relative to internal and external validity of the study and practical utility of the instruments.