Today concluded my emotional disturbance evaluation. I am really happy with how it all came together.
Here is what my eval entailed:
- Observations (classroom, recess, testing)
- Interviews (foster parent, legal guardian, student, teacher)
- WISCV
-VMI (I am not really sure why we gave this - but my sup told me to!)
- WJII Achievement
- CBM - Oral reading Fluency
- BASC2 Student Self Report
- EDDT - Legal Guardian was the respondent.
-Review of records.
The only thing I wish that I had would be rating scales of some sort from the teacher and the current foster parent, but I didn't get them. :(
Today we met and I went over my book of a report. It was a pretty long meeting, but the legal guardian seemed genuinely interested in what he had done with him and what we planned to do with him. She was extremely complementary to me for making sure she understood each part of the testing. So that made me feel like a did a good job. All in all I think it was a great first go at a emotional disturbance. This report will go in my portfolio!
After the meeting the principal gave me a "fist-bump" and told me I did a good job and my supervisor had no issues with my presentation. Woot!
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Thursday, February 17, 2011
A Job Has Been Posted
I am still rather in shock. I had been told that the district was hoping to hire a new school psych for next year, but I told myself to not get my hopes up. One of my supervisors has been keeping me up to date on the play by play of the committee he is on to structure the mod-severe program for next year and so I had heard the progression of the position being a .6, then full time, and then lastly a .4 position. I was holding my breath hoping there would be even a part time position and then yesterday I was told that the job had posted. I looked at it and it was a full time gig. WHAT THE HECK?! I am so confused, but excited non the less. Weird thing is that they are only posting the job for one week! I am uncertain why they are doing it so fast, and have a lot of conspiracy theories floating around in my head, but regardless my application will be in the pile by next Thursday. Now I just need to get a handle on my resume and secure some quick letters of reference. I am already nervous!
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
First initial Mental Retardation IEP
Last week I had the IEP for a student I did an initial evaluation for mental retardation (mr) for. I was crazy uncomfortable before the meeting. I mean, how do you tell someone for the first time that there baby is different and has a mean sounding label applied to them? All morning long (well, after Mr. Z left the house) I rehearsed aloud, practicing what I would say during each of the components of the IEP. Then when I got to the office, Mr. P demonstrated for me how he would go about saying it - which was extremely helpful. The meeting ended up going as well as it could. The parents definitely blanched a bit in response to the MR label. But after seeing their faces we talked for a bit about what the label does and doesn't mean. They seemed shocked, but at the same time expressed that the diagnosis made sense to them as they could see that this child was very different than his younger sibling. We actually ended up talking more about his placement change in the following school year as we recommended that he be moved to the moderate-severe program that the school district is starting. All in all, I am happy with how it went. Although I wish I didn't have a reason to.
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Cute kids, sad kids, scared kids and sick kids
Since we returned from Christmas Break, it seems like things have been going full force. This week alone I worked on assessments for 6 kids! We are starting to refer some of the reading intervention non-responders for special education testing and then I've got a couple 3 years to do and a couple of parent requests for testing on top of that.
I've been doing a TON of testing with one little one who we are looking at for a possible learning disability. I think she is pretty cute, but I think I am the only one in the school who feels that way. She is very socially immature. As a 2nd grade student, she is behaviorally more like a kindergartner. She tends to crack me up though as you can tell she is used to getting her way at home and she believes she should be able to dictate or negotiate everything to fit her desire - this includes the testing setting. I used a sticker chart with her during testing because I wanted to keep her engaged - it worked. I also would end our testing time with 5-10 minutes of the two of us coloring together (I set a timer on the computer so she KNOWS when we are done). I swear though, she has fabulous negotiation skills. We would do a couple subtests and she would try, "hope about we do one more of these, then color?" And I would again have to remind her of the plan. LOL, I think she's pretty cute, and she obviously has some smarts in her too.
I am loading up on my viatmin c again as everyone seems sick. One of my counseling kids and one that I had been stalking in order to test where both sick this week. I have been trying to catch a 1st grade for a week and a half now and he finally showed up to school so I swooped in and pulled him to get his testing done. He was so sick. I tried to send him home but the poor little dude stole my heart and said, "I want to stay with you. I like spending time with you." so we did a little bit of work and then I sent him home. Poor baby.
I tried to meet with one of my counseling kiddos only to find out that she had been sent to the dental clinic for the morning. I knew my schedule was going to be extra tight this week so I figured I could just go check on her at the clinic and make sure she was having a good week and then pop out. I walk into the teachers lounge where the dental people were and see my little girl sitting in the waiting area. She avoids eye contact with me and is bouncing her foot up and down and looks completely freaked out. So I sit with her, and sit with her, and sit with her. She is only answering my attempts to get her to talk with one word answers so I am unsure if she even wants me there but I decide to stick with her. She ended up getting half way done then sent to lunch and told she needed to come back for more. So I walk with her to get her lunch and ask her if she wants me to stick around or leave and she finally speaks and says she wants me to stay. So stay I did. Poor pumpkin, I felt her pain.
My middle school kid threw me for a loop this week. He wasn't one I planned on testing, but I got to the site and heard my supervisor lamenting how she did not want to test him. She had interviewed him the day prior and he was off the walls ADHD. As she seemed like she had a lot of other things she needed to do and didn't particularly care to have to deal with the student I reminded her that she could make her intern do it :) So I took on the kid, not bothering to ask what the assessment was for (my assumption - since it was a middle schooler - was a three year re-eval for Specific Learning Disability). I gave the kid a wisc and he spoke a mile a minute, was very much in need of positive regard, and very unsure of himself. He cracked akward jokes throughout the testing and constantly wanted affirmation that he was doing ok. After the WISC was done we did the Beery VMI (which I haven't done in a YEAR!) followed by the BASC self report. This is where things really got depressing. The kidlet read some of the things outloud and some I helped him on and in the process it became pretty clear that he was a very depressed little boy, he had no friends and believed everyone hated him. He then got to the questions about hearing voices and shared with me that he did. I asked what the voices said to him and he looked down at his hands and said that they told him that he should end it as things would be better if he was gone. This of course led to me asking him if he had ever thought about listening to them and he shared with me that he had previously had two suicide attempts, but he currently did not have a plan/intention to hurt himself. Through some questioning on my part, he was able to list a couple reasons why he wouldn't want to hurt himself and we made a plan as to how he could get in contact with me or my supervisor if he needed to talk. *Yikes* poor kid! Such a sad little one, he's had such a hard life, full of pain and abandonment. :( Needless to say, once I found out why I was assessing him it all clicked: Emotional Disturbance
I've been doing a TON of testing with one little one who we are looking at for a possible learning disability. I think she is pretty cute, but I think I am the only one in the school who feels that way. She is very socially immature. As a 2nd grade student, she is behaviorally more like a kindergartner. She tends to crack me up though as you can tell she is used to getting her way at home and she believes she should be able to dictate or negotiate everything to fit her desire - this includes the testing setting. I used a sticker chart with her during testing because I wanted to keep her engaged - it worked. I also would end our testing time with 5-10 minutes of the two of us coloring together (I set a timer on the computer so she KNOWS when we are done). I swear though, she has fabulous negotiation skills. We would do a couple subtests and she would try, "hope about we do one more of these, then color?" And I would again have to remind her of the plan. LOL, I think she's pretty cute, and she obviously has some smarts in her too.
I am loading up on my viatmin c again as everyone seems sick. One of my counseling kids and one that I had been stalking in order to test where both sick this week. I have been trying to catch a 1st grade for a week and a half now and he finally showed up to school so I swooped in and pulled him to get his testing done. He was so sick. I tried to send him home but the poor little dude stole my heart and said, "I want to stay with you. I like spending time with you." so we did a little bit of work and then I sent him home. Poor baby.
I tried to meet with one of my counseling kiddos only to find out that she had been sent to the dental clinic for the morning. I knew my schedule was going to be extra tight this week so I figured I could just go check on her at the clinic and make sure she was having a good week and then pop out. I walk into the teachers lounge where the dental people were and see my little girl sitting in the waiting area. She avoids eye contact with me and is bouncing her foot up and down and looks completely freaked out. So I sit with her, and sit with her, and sit with her. She is only answering my attempts to get her to talk with one word answers so I am unsure if she even wants me there but I decide to stick with her. She ended up getting half way done then sent to lunch and told she needed to come back for more. So I walk with her to get her lunch and ask her if she wants me to stick around or leave and she finally speaks and says she wants me to stay. So stay I did. Poor pumpkin, I felt her pain.
My middle school kid threw me for a loop this week. He wasn't one I planned on testing, but I got to the site and heard my supervisor lamenting how she did not want to test him. She had interviewed him the day prior and he was off the walls ADHD. As she seemed like she had a lot of other things she needed to do and didn't particularly care to have to deal with the student I reminded her that she could make her intern do it :) So I took on the kid, not bothering to ask what the assessment was for (my assumption - since it was a middle schooler - was a three year re-eval for Specific Learning Disability). I gave the kid a wisc and he spoke a mile a minute, was very much in need of positive regard, and very unsure of himself. He cracked akward jokes throughout the testing and constantly wanted affirmation that he was doing ok. After the WISC was done we did the Beery VMI (which I haven't done in a YEAR!) followed by the BASC self report. This is where things really got depressing. The kidlet read some of the things outloud and some I helped him on and in the process it became pretty clear that he was a very depressed little boy, he had no friends and believed everyone hated him. He then got to the questions about hearing voices and shared with me that he did. I asked what the voices said to him and he looked down at his hands and said that they told him that he should end it as things would be better if he was gone. This of course led to me asking him if he had ever thought about listening to them and he shared with me that he had previously had two suicide attempts, but he currently did not have a plan/intention to hurt himself. Through some questioning on my part, he was able to list a couple reasons why he wouldn't want to hurt himself and we made a plan as to how he could get in contact with me or my supervisor if he needed to talk. *Yikes* poor kid! Such a sad little one, he's had such a hard life, full of pain and abandonment. :( Needless to say, once I found out why I was assessing him it all clicked: Emotional Disturbance
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
WISCing away!
I finished giving the WISC today to a little kidlet in the 2nd grade. I didn't actually need to do a cognitive assessment for her since she is already going to qualify for SLD using the RTI model, but I decided I wanted a good look at her ability. She is a really sloppy kid. Has a hard time keeping her thoughts and herself together. She seems to always be running like a maniac to something. I have a pretty good rapport with this little one since I have been working with her on her classroom behavior for the entire school year. She was pretty stoked to come in and test with me and I could tell she really gave it her best shot. I honestly didn't know what to expect for her IQ because she is amazingly low in academics. As a second grader she is only reading about 15 words in a minute, so she is very far below her peers. Even after 15 weeks of reading intervention, her rate of improvement in reading fluency is about .3 :( But, low in behold she is a completely average kid per her IQ of 97. She had really good perceptual reasoning skills, but her memory was her weakest link. It was below average, but not by a ton. So she is definitely a learning disabled kid, but it seems like there is something else amiss with her. Not sure what it is. She is so socially behind her peers, and even her motor abilities seem not quite right. I may have to try something else... maybe a rating scale? I guess though it really wont matter. She will qualify with what I have already done with her, but I am just so curious!
Thursday, January 20, 2011
800 hours down
400 to go! Not that I will leave my internship at the end of them, I'm there until June. It will just be nice to have one more requirement done for this program.
Classes for the final semester have started and I am quickly finding out that this semester I won't be going to class very often. Most of the classes meet at most once a month! I've returned to my previous thesis plan, with some tweaks. I am going to present my intervention kids data at my Thursday/Friday sights instead of my other school. So that will mean I need to adjust my previously written lit review a smidgeon as the intervention curriculum is different. No biggie.
My internship class is meeting pretty infrequently too, which I love. When I was doing practicum we had to meet weekly - dumb because most of us were only doing 1 to 2 days of practicum a week and so we really didn't have much to say. When we started internship we were still meeting at least every other week. The Prof would stare at us and expect us to come in with stories or problems that needed to be dealt with. Problem was there really wasn't much to say! We'd end up sitting and staring at each other for the couple hours we had to warm the classroom seats!
I oddly enough don't have much to write about this week. Having Monday off kinda threw off my entire schedule, so I've been just trying to get some things caught up this week rather than starting on anything new as I knew I wouldn't be able to get too far.
Classes for the final semester have started and I am quickly finding out that this semester I won't be going to class very often. Most of the classes meet at most once a month! I've returned to my previous thesis plan, with some tweaks. I am going to present my intervention kids data at my Thursday/Friday sights instead of my other school. So that will mean I need to adjust my previously written lit review a smidgeon as the intervention curriculum is different. No biggie.
My internship class is meeting pretty infrequently too, which I love. When I was doing practicum we had to meet weekly - dumb because most of us were only doing 1 to 2 days of practicum a week and so we really didn't have much to say. When we started internship we were still meeting at least every other week. The Prof would stare at us and expect us to come in with stories or problems that needed to be dealt with. Problem was there really wasn't much to say! We'd end up sitting and staring at each other for the couple hours we had to warm the classroom seats!
I oddly enough don't have much to write about this week. Having Monday off kinda threw off my entire schedule, so I've been just trying to get some things caught up this week rather than starting on anything new as I knew I wouldn't be able to get too far.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
My Two Worlds Collided!
I think I have mentioned before, that prior to this internship I worked for six years for the county run human services department as a social worker. As part of this job, I occasionally had to complete child abuse investigations. This week one of my counseling kiddos asked her teacher to find me because she felt "sad." I got an email from the teacher, asking if it was possible for me to come by. I got the email at around 12:30 and school ended in an hour and a half. It was surprising to get this request because this student is extremely shy and I typically feel like she doesn't want to go with me because she is so timid. BUT early on in our sessions I had told her that if she needed me she should tell her teacher and I would try my bestest to get there. So, although I was at another school site I managed to find a half hour to run to the kiddo's school and pull her with 10 minutes remaining in the school day.
I went to her classroom, still holding my purse since I didn't have time to set it down in the office and pulled her into a private room. When I initially asked her what was up, she started to play shy with me again. Although not my typical style, I was pretty blunt with her and said something along the lines of, "ok girlie, I know something is up or you wouldn't have asked for me. So spill it." She looked at the ground for a couple of moments and then began to share with me that the night prior her mom had "hit" her on her back. My brain seemed to automatically switch back to my old days as an investigator. I started out by asking what had happened before that and she said that mom was mad at her for not following directions so she hit her on the back. Kiddo said it didn't hurt anymore and gave me permission to check out her back (there were no marks/bruising) she said that mom doesn't typically hit her, but it does happen every once in a while. At this point in time I am kinda uncertain as to what to do. I ask her how she feels about going home that day and she states that she is a little scared. I ended up marching her over to my supervisor who then directed us to the principal. We shared the story with him and he thinks it over and decides to send her home.
Following this I had to run back to my site of the day and get my wits about me to run an IEP. The IEP went fine, but was amazingly chaotic because mom brought three kids under the age of 5 to the meeting. Talk about noisy!
After the meeting as I was desperately attempting to make sense of the mess on my desk following another day of running from place to place my supervisor, Mr. H., calls. Mr. H was checking on me and wanted to hear how everything had worked out with my counseling kid. So I give him the play by play. He advising me against playing investigator in the future (too true - gotta get rid of that programming in my head!) but tells me to follow up with the kidlet the next day. So I did. She was fine. Nothing new happened, but I think I will keep tabs on this topic over the next couple of weeks. I didn't do a child abuse report because I do not feel she is being abused, but should she tell me a similar incident in the future, I may have to change my opinion. Hopefully that isn't the case though!
I went to her classroom, still holding my purse since I didn't have time to set it down in the office and pulled her into a private room. When I initially asked her what was up, she started to play shy with me again. Although not my typical style, I was pretty blunt with her and said something along the lines of, "ok girlie, I know something is up or you wouldn't have asked for me. So spill it." She looked at the ground for a couple of moments and then began to share with me that the night prior her mom had "hit" her on her back. My brain seemed to automatically switch back to my old days as an investigator. I started out by asking what had happened before that and she said that mom was mad at her for not following directions so she hit her on the back. Kiddo said it didn't hurt anymore and gave me permission to check out her back (there were no marks/bruising) she said that mom doesn't typically hit her, but it does happen every once in a while. At this point in time I am kinda uncertain as to what to do. I ask her how she feels about going home that day and she states that she is a little scared. I ended up marching her over to my supervisor who then directed us to the principal. We shared the story with him and he thinks it over and decides to send her home.
Following this I had to run back to my site of the day and get my wits about me to run an IEP. The IEP went fine, but was amazingly chaotic because mom brought three kids under the age of 5 to the meeting. Talk about noisy!
After the meeting as I was desperately attempting to make sense of the mess on my desk following another day of running from place to place my supervisor, Mr. H., calls. Mr. H was checking on me and wanted to hear how everything had worked out with my counseling kid. So I give him the play by play. He advising me against playing investigator in the future (too true - gotta get rid of that programming in my head!) but tells me to follow up with the kidlet the next day. So I did. She was fine. Nothing new happened, but I think I will keep tabs on this topic over the next couple of weeks. I didn't do a child abuse report because I do not feel she is being abused, but should she tell me a similar incident in the future, I may have to change my opinion. Hopefully that isn't the case though!
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