Have you found forms from outdated assessments taking up space your office? Many Customers are unsure what to do with unused or obsolete test protocols or materials from prior versions of an instrument. Rather than letting old forms collect dust on a shelf, PAR recommends that you destroy and discard these materials in a secure manner.
If you or your institution does not have access to a secure recycling program, PAR is happy to help! Simply e-mail custsup@parinc.com or call our Customer Support line at 1.800.331.8378 and a specialist will help you obtain a prepaid return label so we may discard the materials through our own corporate recycling program. This program is available only to our Customers in the U.S.
Many adjectives can be used to describe 2020, but for those of us at PAR, the word busy is one that comes to mind! In case you missed any, look back on some of the innovative products that PAR released this year.
BRIEF2 ADHD Form: Use BRIEF2 scores to predict likelihood of ADHD.
ChecKIT: A library of popular mental health checklists that allows users to mix-and-match their inventory as needed.
Identi-Fi: Measure visual organizational ability.
Feifer Assessment of Mathematics (FAM) Interpretive Report on PARiConnect: A new report that provides scores for all 19 subtests and includes detailed interpretations.
Feifer Assessment of Writing (FAW) with scoring on PARiConnect: Examine the underlying processes that support written language skills. Scoring available on PARiConnect.
Older Adult Cognitive Screener (OACS): Screen for neurocognitive impairment.
PAI Plus: Interpret PAI data in a new way; available on PARiConnect.
Pandemic Anxiety Screener for Students–12 (PASS-12): Assess the impact of a pandemic on a student’s everyday functioning.
Spanish Forms: Serve your clients with Spanish forms for the NEO-FFI-3 Form S Adult Item Booklet, the NEO-PI-3 Reusable Form S Item Booklet, and the NEO-PI-3 Hand-Scorable Answer Sheet, the PAI-A Hand-Scorable Answer Sheet, the PAI-A Softcover Reusable Item Booklet, the PAS Hand-Scorable Response Form, the RADS-2 Hand-Scorable Test Booklet, and the RCDS-2:SF Test Form.
Plus, we’ve added many new ways to use your favorite PAR products in remote settings, including introducing in-person e-Stimulus Books, e-Manuals, and remote assessment solutions. Learn more about these offerings on our School Resources page or our Remote Assessment Solutions page.
And make sure to stop by the PAR Training Portal to catch up on new interactive courses on the EDDT Family of Products, the NEO, and the FAW, as well as numerous videos, recorded webinars, and supplemental materials!
More than 640,000 children and adolescents visit the emergency room each year for concerns related to traumatic brain injury (TBI). TBI can have a negative impact on an individual’s learning and memory, affecting educational attainment in school and beyond. New research on TBI provides more insight into its effect on children and adolescents.
Just-published research in the journal Assessment provides evidence of clinical utility of the Child and Adolescent Memory Profile (ChAMP; Sherman & Brooks, 2015) as part of a more comprehensive evaluation of traumatic brain injury in children and adolescents. The ChAMP assesses visual and verbal memory that allows for both in-depth evaluation and memory screening.
Kate Wilson, Sofia Lesica, and Jacobus Donders from the Mary Free Bed Rehabilitation Hospital in Grand Rapids, Michigan assessed 61 children and adolescents with TBI using the ChAMP within 1 to 12 months after injury. They found that most ChAMP index scores demonstrated significant negative correlations with time to follow commands following TBI. After comparing ChAMP scores to a matched control group, they found that individuals with TBI had statistically significantly lower scores on all indexes, though sensitivity and specificity were suboptimal.
The researchers concluded that the ChAMP has modest utility as part of a comprehensive evaluation of TBI in children and adolescents. Learn more about their research or learn more about the ChAMP.
PAR has announced that Feeding America is the recipient of its annual Pay It Forward program!
“PAR has been incredibly fortunate as a company,” stated Kristin Greco, CEO. “A few years ago, we decided to make a charitable contribution on behalf of our Customers to an organization chosen by those we serve. Each year, we select a new charity to honor.”
PAR surveyed its Customers throughout the month of November, asking them to choose their favorite organization from a list. Now that results have been tallied, PAR is proud to announce that on behalf of its Customers, a $5,000 donation will be made to Feeding America.
“We are so inspired by the work our Customers do, and Feeding America is doing work that is important to them,” said Greco. “It is an honor to be able to pay it forward to such a worthy organization.”
View a video of CEO Kristin Greco announcing this year's recipient here.
ChecKIT on PARiConnect offers you a centralized location for brief, commonly used mental health checklists. Now we’ve added the Language Acculturation Meter™ (LAM) to our ChecKIT offerings so clinicians can quickly determine an individual’s level of English-language acculturation.
What’s on ChecKIT?
Flexible purchase model
Buy multiple units of checklists up front, but you don’t need to decide which checklists you want to use until you are ready to administer them.
Score reports and technical papers
After administration, receive a score report that offers interpretive text that can be easily incorporated into your professional reports. You can also export data to have a ready-to-analyze dataset to facilitate research. Furthermore, each ChecKIT product offers a complimentary technical paper that explains the development behind the measure.
Easily track progress
ChecKIT allows you to save repeated administrations in one location and regularly track client symptoms across therapy sessions.
We are constantly expanding the ChecKIT product family so you can have a variety of tools that work for you!
Check out ChecKIT today!
PAR is so grateful for all you have done this year to help those you serve. We would like to take this opportunity to honor our Customers during our annual Pay It Forward campaign. Check your e-mail tomorrow for a list of charities with a link to select your favorite. On behalf of our Customers, we will give a $5,000 donation to whichever charity receives the most votes.
“We are so inspired by the work our Customers do, and it is an honor to be able to donate on their behalf to a worthy organization of their choosing,” said PAR CEO Kristin Greco. “We are so fortunate to be able to pay it forward.”
This year, you will be able to choose between the American Red Cross, the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, the California Fire Foundation, Feeding America, and Prevent Child Abuse America.
We are grateful to assist you in the important work you do, and we are thankful for your business! Thank you for helping us to Pay it Forward!
Earlier this year, PAR welcomed A. Jordan Wright, PhD, for a webinar concerning best practices in teleassessment. Dr. Wright is the Director of the Center for Counseling and Community Wellbeing at New York University's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, where he also coordinates the psychological assessment curriculum in the Counseling Psychology program. He is the author of the upcoming Essentials of Psychological Tele-Assessment. As teleassessment has become an increasingly important part of many clinician’s lives, we are republishing selected questions posed by webinar attendees looking for ways to incorporate teleassessment into their practices. For a full list of the questions asked of Dr. Wright and his responses, click here.
Q: What are your thoughts about using personal protective equipment (PPE) during assessments? If we use PPE, is it okay to change the order in which subtests are administered?
A: Currently, we have absolutely no research into the potential impact of using PPE on the data that emerge during an assessment. Remember, the more you veer off from standardized administration, the greater the threat to validity. So, changing the order of subtests adds one large variable that changes standardized administration procedures. PPE adds another (and in a way that is likely to be quite significant).
Q: My school district is asking us to only report confidence intervals due to breaking standardization with PPE during in-person testing. What are your thoughts on only reporting confidence intervals?
A: Because we know there are not systematic effects of teleassessment, confidence intervals are helpful (they can remind us and readers that scores are imperfect). However, with PPE, we don’t have research studies to confirm where children's scores would likely fall, so even confidence intervals can be misleading.
Q: Is there a disclaimer about teleassessment that could be used in reports? Is there specific language that should be used to make it more legally defensible when doing teleassessment?
A: Mine is evolving. Here's the gist of the language I include: 1. It should be noted that the evaluation was conducted using teleassessment (remote) procedures. 2. It is known that administering tests in this way may have some effects on the validity of the data that emerge from the tests. 3. However, the teleassessment was conducted in alignment with the best and most current research evidence to elicit data that constitute a valid representation of the client's functioning.
Q: In your experience, how are teleassessment reports received by schools, testing boards like ETS, etc.?
A: Many school districts have developed their own rules. Check with your school district and the state psychological associations in your state. Advocacy is a role that we as psychologists need to take on so kids can get resources they need. If a school district or company has a blanket statement that they will not accept teleassessments, work toward educating them about the evidence base of conducting teleassessments.
Q: What information can we share with parents, families, and schools about equivalence and validity?
A: We have reviewed the current state of equivalence/validity research across all tests for the Essentials of Psychological Tele-Assessment book. It is of course fair and ethical to discuss the limitations of the evidence base with the interested parties. But you can also summarize the current state of support (for the most part, across IQ and achievement tests, research has shown very little, if any, impact of conducting testing remotely on scores that emerge).
Q: What’s your best advice when remote testing ELL students with chaotic settings at home (lots of siblings, distractions, limited ability from parent to support)?
A: This is really tough, and it's a social justice issue. Obviously, we cannot only provide services to those with “perfect” home environments. A remote, in-office setup is one way that we can balance the safety of tele-assessment with better controlling the environment. If you set up an office with a laptop, any manipulatives and response booklets, etc., and have students come into that office to do their remote assessment, this provides a much more controlled environment. This is also the solution when students/clients do not have access to the necessary technology (e.g., a stable internet connection).
Want help with remote and teleassessment? We can help here!
Want to view the entire webinar? Visit the PAR Training Portal!
Each year, PAR employees take part in a week-long United Way fundraising campaign. This year, we exceeded our fundraising goal, resulting in nearly $102,000 in employee contributions to help United Way Suncoast and their partner agencies! This surpassed our 2019 giving by 1.6%, an incredible achievement in such a challenging year. We are proud to say that through our involvement with United Way, we will help make a difference in the lives of so many people in the Tampa Bay area.
Learn more about how you can help United Way in your community!
Tomorrow is Veterans Day in the U.S., a day we pause to pay tribute, honor, and thank those who have served in the branches of our armed forces.
PAR would like to sincerely thank each and every one of you who made the choice to serve our country and defend our freedom. You chose to leave familiar surroundings, family, and friends in service to your country. Your sacrifice has made a true difference in the life of every American and is a debt we can never truly repay, but we can certainly tell you just how much we value and appreciate your selflessness. It is the foundation that our country is built on.
We’d also like to give a special thanks to the members of our PAR staff who have served in our military.
Thank you for your service and thank you to all veterans on this special day!
PAR would like to thank you for all you have done—especially this year—to help those you serve. We would like to take this opportunity to honor our Customers during our annual Pay It Forward campaign. Keep your eyes on your email—in the next week, you will be receiving a list of charities with a link to select your favorite. On behalf of our Customers, we will give a $5,000 donation to whichever charity receives the most votes.
We are grateful to assist you in the important work you do and we are thankful for your business!