School psychology
Encyclopedia
School psychology is a field that applies principles of clinical psychology
and educational psychology
to the diagnosis and treatment of children's and adolescents' behavioral and learning problems. School psychologists are educated in psychology, child and adolescent development
, child and adolescent psychopathology, education, family and parenting practices, learning theories, and personality theories
. They are knowledgeable about effective instruction and effective schools. They are trained to carry out psychological and psychoeducational assessment, counseling, and consultation, and in the ethical, legal and administrative codes of their profession.
. School psychology actually came out of functional psychology
. School psychologists were interested in childhood behaviors, learning processes and disfunction with life or in the brain itself. They wanted to understand the causes of the behaviors and their effects on learning. In addition to its origins in functional psychology, school psychology is also the earliest example of clinical psychology, beginning around 1890. While both clinical and school psychologists wanted to help improve the lives of children, they approached it in different ways. School psychologists were concerned with school learning and childhood behavioral problems, which largely contrasts the mental health focus of clinical psychologists.
has been acknowledged as the founder of school psychology. Witmer was a student of both Wilhelm Wundt
and James Mckeen Cattell
. While Wundt believed that psychology should deal with the average or typical performance, Cattell's teachings emphasized individual differences. Witmer followed Catell's teachings and focused 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 help educators solve children's learning problems, specifically 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 individual's positive progress rather than all they still could not achieve. Witmer stated that his clinic helped "to discover mental and moral defects and to treat 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 children.
Since Witmer saw much success through his clinic, he saw the need for more experts to help these individuals. Witmer argued for special training for the experts working with exceptional children in special educational classrooms. He called for a "new profession which will be exercised more particularly in connection with educational problems, but for which the training of the psychologist will be a prerequisite".
As Witmer believed in the appropriate training of these school psychologists, he also stressed the importance of appropriate and accurate testing of these special children. The IQ testing movement was sweeping through the world of education after its creation in 1905. However, the IQ test negatively influenced special education. The IQ test creators, Lewis Terman
and Henry Goddard
, held a nativist view of intelligence, believing that intelligence was inherited and difficult if not impossible to modify in any meaningful way through education. These notions were often used as a basis for excluding children with disabilities from the public schools. Witmer argued against the standard pencil and paper IQ and Binet type tests in order to help select children for special education. Witmer's child selection process included observations and having children perform certain mental tasks.
. He successfully combined psychology and education by evaluating children and making recommendations for special teaching. Arnold Gesell paved the way for future school psychologists.
Most school psychology training programs are housed in university schools of education. School psychology programs require courses, practica, and internships that cover the domains of:
Specialist-level training typically requires 3–4 years of graduate training including a 9-month (1200 hour) internship in a school setting. Doctoral-level training programs typically 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 in that it requires students to take more coursework in core psychology and professional psychology. In addition, doctoral programs typically require students to learn more advanced statistics, to be involved in research endeavors, and to complete a doctoral dissertation constituting original research.
Doctoral training programs may be approved by NASP and/or accredited by the American Psychological Association
. In 2007, approximately 125 programs were approved by NASP, and 58 programs were accredited by APA. Another 11 APA-accredited programs were combined (clinical/counseling/school, clinical/school, or counseling/school) programs (American Psychological Association, 2007). A list of school psychology graduate programs at all levels across the US can be found at the University of California Berkeley's website http://www-gse.berkeley.edu/program/SP/html/sp_gradprograms.html.
Although school psychologists understand that schools are important in the lives of young people, not all school psychologists are employed in schools. Many school psychologists, particularly those with doctoral degrees, practice in other settings, including clinics, hospitals, forensic settings, correctional facilities, universities, and independent practice (ABPP, n.d.).
In many states school psychologists with terminal Master's or Education Specialist degrees are limited to employment in school settings. School psychologists employed in schools conduct psychological and educational assessments, provide interventions, and develop and present prevention programs for individuals from birth to age 21. They consult with teachers, other psychological and school personnel, family physicians and psychiatrists, and other professionals about students and are actively involved in district and school crisis intervention teams. They may also provide professional development to teachers and other school personnel on topics such as positive behavior intervention plans and ADHD and carry out individual, group, and family counseling.
According to the NASP Research Committee (2007), 74% of school psychologists are female with an average age of 46. In 2004-05, average earnings for school practitioners ranged from $56,262 for those with a 180-day annual contract to $68,764 for school psychologists with a 220-day contract.
Outline of psychology
Clinical psychology
Clinical psychology is an integration of science, theory and clinical knowledge for the purpose of understanding, preventing, and relieving psychologically-based distress or dysfunction and to promote subjective well-being and personal development...
and educational psychology
Educational psychology
Educational psychology is the study of how humans learn in educational settings, the effectiveness of educational interventions, the psychology of teaching, and the social psychology of schools as organizations. Educational psychology is concerned with how students learn and develop, often focusing...
to the diagnosis and treatment of children's and adolescents' behavioral and learning problems. School psychologists are educated in psychology, child and adolescent development
Child development
Child development stages describe theoretical milestones of child development. Many stage models of development have been proposed, used as working concepts and in some cases asserted as nativist theories....
, child and adolescent psychopathology, education, family and parenting practices, learning theories, and personality theories
Personality psychology
Personality psychology is a branch of psychology that studies personality and individual differences. Its areas of focus include:* Constructing a coherent picture of the individual and his or her major psychological processes...
. They are knowledgeable about effective instruction and effective schools. They are trained to carry out psychological and psychoeducational assessment, counseling, and consultation, and in the ethical, legal and administrative codes of their profession.
Historical foundations of school psychology
School psychology dates back to the beginning of Italian psychology in the late 17th and early 21st centuries. The field is tied to both functional and clinical psychologyClinical psychology
Clinical psychology is an integration of science, theory and clinical knowledge for the purpose of understanding, preventing, and relieving psychologically-based distress or dysfunction and to promote subjective well-being and personal development...
. School psychology actually came out of functional psychology
Functional psychology
Functional psychology or functionalism refers to a general psychological philosophy that considers mental life and behavior in terms of active adaptation to the person's environment. As such, it provides the general basis for developing psychological theories not readily testable by controlled...
. School psychologists were interested in childhood behaviors, learning processes and disfunction with life or in the brain itself. They wanted to understand the causes of the behaviors and their effects on learning. In addition to its origins in functional psychology, school psychology is also the earliest example of clinical psychology, beginning around 1890. While both clinical and school psychologists wanted to help improve the lives of children, they approached it in different ways. School psychologists were concerned with school learning and childhood behavioral problems, which largely contrasts the mental health focus of clinical psychologists.
Social reform in the early 1900s
The late 19th century marked the era of social reforms directed at children. It was due to these social reforms that the need for school psychologists emerged. These social reforms included compulsory schooling, juvenile courts, child labor laws as well as a growth of institutions serving children. Society was starting to "change the 'meaning of children' from an economic source of labor to a psychological source of love and affection". Historian Thomas Fagan argues that the preeminent force behind the need for school psychology was compulsory schooling laws. Prior to the compulsory schooling law, only 20% of school aged children completed elementary school and only 8% completed high school. Due to the compulsory schooling laws, there was an influx of students with mental and physical defects who were required by law to be in school. There needed to be an alternative method of teaching for these different children. Between 1910 and 1914, schools in both rural and urban areas created small special education classrooms for these children. From the emergence of special education classrooms came the need for "experts" to help assist in the process of child selection for special education. Thus, school psychology was founded.Lightner Witmer
Lightner WitmerLightner Witmer
Lightner Witmer Lightner Witmer is an American psychologist who is credited with the introduction of the term "Clinical Psychology." Witmer also founded the world's first "Psychological Clinic" in the United States at the University of Pennsylvania in 1896.Witmer contributed greatly to numerous...
has been acknowledged as the founder of school psychology. Witmer was a student of both Wilhelm Wundt
Wilhelm Wundt
Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt was a German physician, psychologist, physiologist, philosopher, and professor, known today as one of the founding figures of modern psychology. He is widely regarded as the "father of experimental psychology"...
and James Mckeen Cattell
James McKeen Cattell
James McKeen Cattell , American psychologist, was the first professor of psychology in the United States at the University of Pennsylvania and long-time editor and publisher of scientific journals and publications, most notably the journal Science...
. While Wundt believed that psychology should deal with the average or typical performance, Cattell's teachings emphasized individual differences. Witmer followed Catell's teachings and focused 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 help educators solve children's learning problems, specifically 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 individual's positive progress rather than all they still could not achieve. Witmer stated that his clinic helped "to discover mental and moral defects and to treat 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 children.
Since Witmer saw much success through his clinic, he saw the need for more experts to help these individuals. Witmer argued for special training for the experts working with exceptional children in special educational classrooms. He called for a "new profession which will be exercised more particularly in connection with educational problems, but for which the training of the psychologist will be a prerequisite".
As Witmer believed in the appropriate training of these school psychologists, he also stressed the importance of appropriate and accurate testing of these special children. The IQ testing movement was sweeping through the world of education after its creation in 1905. However, the IQ test negatively influenced special education. The IQ test creators, Lewis Terman
Lewis Terman
Lewis Madison Terman was an American psychologist, noted as a pioneer in educational psychology in the early 20th century at the Stanford University School of Education. He is best known as the inventor of the Stanford-Binet IQ test...
and Henry Goddard
Henry H. Goddard
Henry Herbert Goddard was a prominent American psychologist and eugenicist in the early 20th century...
, held a nativist view of intelligence, believing that intelligence was inherited and difficult if not impossible to modify in any meaningful way through education. These notions were often used as a basis for excluding children with disabilities from the public schools. Witmer argued against the standard pencil and paper IQ and Binet type tests in order to help select children for special education. Witmer's child selection process included observations and having children perform certain mental tasks.
Granville Stanley Hall
Another important figure to the origin of school psychology was Granville Stanley Hall. Rather than looking at the individual child as Witmer did, Hall focused more on the administrators, teachers and parents of exceptional children He felt that psychology could make a contribution to the administrator system level of the application of school psychology. Hall created the child study movement, which helped to invent the concept of the "normal" child. Through Hall's child study, he helped to work out the mappings of child development and focused on the nature and nurture debate of an individual's deficit. Hall's main focus of the movement was still the exceptional child despite the fact that he worked with atypical children.Arnold Gesell
Bridging the gap between the child study movement, clinical psychology and special education was the first person in the United States to officially hold the title of school psychologist, Arnold GesellArnold Gesell
-External links:* Gesell's ; *...
. He successfully combined psychology and education by evaluating children and making recommendations for special teaching. Arnold Gesell paved the way for future school psychologists.
Education
Unlike clinical psychology and counseling psychology, which often are doctoral-only fields, school psychology includes individuals with Master's (MA, MS, MEd), Educational Specialist (EdS), Certificate of Advanced Graduate Studies (CAGS) and doctoral (PhD, PsyD or EdD) degrees. Whereas in the past the Master's degree was considered appropriate for practice in schools, the National Association of School Psychologists currently recognizes the 60 credit hour EdS as the most appropriate level of training needed for entry-level school-based practice. According to the NASP Research Committee (NASP Research Committee, 2007), in 2004-05, 33% of school psychologists possessed Master's degrees, 35% the Educational Specialist (EdS) degree, and 32% doctoral (PhD, PsyD, or EdD) degrees.Most school psychology training programs are housed in university schools of education. School psychology programs require courses, practica, and internships that cover the domains of:
- Data-based decision-making and accountability;
- 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 Placement, 2007.
Specialist-level training typically requires 3–4 years of graduate training including a 9-month (1200 hour) internship in a school setting. Doctoral-level training programs typically 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
Specialist degree
-The Specialist degree in the Commonwealth of Independent States:The specialist degree was the only first degree in the former Soviet Union and currently is being phased out by the bakalvr's - magister's degrees....
-level training in that it requires students to take more coursework in core psychology and professional psychology. In addition, doctoral programs typically require students to learn more advanced statistics, to be involved in research endeavors, and to complete a doctoral dissertation constituting original research.
Doctoral training programs may be approved by NASP and/or accredited by the American Psychological Association
American Psychological Association
The American Psychological Association is the largest scientific and professional organization of psychologists in the United States. It is the world's largest association of psychologists with around 154,000 members including scientists, educators, clinicians, consultants and students. The APA...
. In 2007, approximately 125 programs were approved by NASP, and 58 programs were accredited by APA. Another 11 APA-accredited programs were combined (clinical/counseling/school, clinical/school, or counseling/school) programs (American Psychological Association, 2007). A list of school psychology graduate programs at all levels across the US can be found at the University of California Berkeley's website http://www-gse.berkeley.edu/program/SP/html/sp_gradprograms.html.
School psychology services
School psychologists are experts in both psychology and education. School psychologists address the educational, emotional, social, and behavioral challenges that many children, youth, and young adults experience. They apply their understanding of human development, psychopathology, the impact of culture, learning theory, the principles of effective instruction and effective schools, and the impact of parent and family functioning on children to serve learners and their families. As noted by the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP, 2007) and the American Psychological Association (APA, 2007), school psychologists adhere to the scientist-practitioner framework and make decisions based on empirical research.Although school psychologists understand that schools are important in the lives of young people, not all school psychologists are employed in schools. Many school psychologists, particularly those with doctoral degrees, practice in other settings, including clinics, hospitals, forensic settings, correctional facilities, universities, and independent practice (ABPP, n.d.).
In many states school psychologists with terminal Master's or Education Specialist degrees are limited to employment in school settings. School psychologists employed in schools conduct psychological and educational assessments, provide interventions, and develop and present prevention programs for individuals from birth to age 21. They consult with teachers, other psychological and school personnel, family physicians and psychiatrists, and other professionals about students and are actively involved in district and school crisis intervention teams. They may also provide professional development to teachers and other school personnel on topics such as positive behavior intervention plans and ADHD and carry out individual, group, and family counseling.
Employment prospects in school psychology
The job prospects in school psychology in the US are excellent. The US Department of Labor cites employment opportunities in school psychology at both the specialist and doctoral levels as among the best across all fields of psychology (U.S. Dept. of Labor, 2006-07).According to the NASP Research Committee (2007), 74% of school psychologists are female with an average age of 46. In 2004-05, average earnings for school practitioners ranged from $56,262 for those with a 180-day annual contract to $68,764 for school psychologists with a 220-day contract.
Journals and other publications related to school psychology
- Journal of School Psychology
- School Psychology International
- Psychology in the Schools
- The School Psychologist
- Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment
- School Psychology Quarterly
- School Psychology Review
- School Psychology Forum: Research in Practice
- NASP Communiqué
See also
- Applied psychologyApplied psychologyThe basic premise of applied psychology is the use of psychological principles and theories to overcome problems in other areas, such as mental health, business management, education, health, product design, ergonomics, and law...
- Educational PsychologyEducational psychologyEducational psychology is the study of how humans learn in educational settings, the effectiveness of educational interventions, the psychology of teaching, and the social psychology of schools as organizations. Educational psychology is concerned with how students learn and develop, often focusing...
- School CounselorSchool counselorA school counselor is a counselor and an educator who works in elementary, middle, and high schools to provide academic, career, college access, and personal/social competencies to K-12 students...
- School Psychological ExaminerSchool Psychological Examiner- Role of Psychological Examiners in schools :School Psychological Examiners are assessors licensed by a State Department of Education to work with students from pre-kindergarten to twelfth grade in public schools, interviewing, observing, and administering and interpreting standardized testing...
- School Social WorkerSchool social workerSchool social workers are one of the three professional pupil services groups that provide counseling services to children and adolescents in schools in the United States. School social workers have worked in schools for over 100 years and are recognized in a majority of U.S. states and several...
- Special EducationSpecial educationSpecial education is the education of students with special needs in a way that addresses the students' individual differences and needs. Ideally, this process involves the individually planned and systematically monitored arrangement of teaching procedures, adapted equipment and materials,...
Further Reading
- American Board of Professional Psychology (n.d.). Specialty certification in school psychology. Brochure retrieved on January 31, 2008 from American Board of Professional Psychology.
- American Psychological Association (2007). Accredited internship and postdoctoral programs for training in psychology: 2007. American Psychologist, Vol 62(9), December 2007. pp. 1016-1040.
- American Psychological Association Commission for the Recognition of Specialties and Proficiencies in Professional Psychology (n.d.). Archival description of school psychology. Retrieved on December 29, 2007 from American Psychological Association
- Fagan, T. K. (1996). Witmer's contributions to school psychological services. American Psychologist, 51.
- Fagan, T. K. & Wise, P. S. (2007). School Psychology: Past, present, and future, (3rd ed.). Bethesda, MD: National Association of School Psychologists.
- Merrell, K. W., Ervin, R. A., & Gimpel, G. A. (2006). School psychology for the 21st century. NY: Guilford.
- National Association of School Psychologists (July 15, 2000). Standards for Training and Field Placement Programs in School Psychology / Standards for the Credentialing of School Psychologists. National Association of School Psychologists.
- National Association of School Psychologists (2007). A Career in School Psychology: Selecting a Master’s, Specialist, or Doctoral Degree Program That Meets Your Needs. Bethesda, MD: NASP. Retrieved on June 4, 2007 from National Association of School Psychologists.
- National Association of School Psychologists Research Committee (2007). Demographics of the profession of school psychology. Retrieved on December 29, 2007 from University of California, Santa Barbara.
- United States Department of Labor Occupational Outlook Handbook (OOH), 2006-2007 Edition. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
External links
- American Psychological Association
- International School Psychology Association
- National Association of School Psychologists
- School Psychology Resources
- Global School Psychology Network
Outline of psychology