Adele Eskeles Gottfried, PhD, author of the Children’s Academic Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (CAIMI), will be presenting a paper at the 2014 APA Annual Conference in Washington, DC this week. Entitled, “From Parental Stimulation of Children’s Curiosity to Science Motivation and Achievement,” Gottfried’s longitudinal research shows that when parents encourage their young children’s curiosity, those children have higher academic intrinsic motivation in science subjects and higher science achievement across childhood through adolescence. Overall, the importance of academic intrinsic motivation for children’s subsequent academic competence is demonstrated. This study is part of Gottfried’s ongoing research on longitudinal aspects of parental stimulation’s role in children’s academic intrinsic motivation, and it highlights the importance of the CAIMI in being able to delineate these findings.

Gottfried’s presentation will be part of the “Role of Others in Promoting Students’ Motivation, Learning, and Well-Being” session on Sunday, August 10, at 1:00 p.m. in Convention Center Room 115. Please confirm dates and times in your convention program when you get to APA—and be sure to stop by the PAR booth (#438) as well!

Get ready, Washington, DC! PAR staff have arrived in our nation’s capital for the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) Annual Convention. If you are attending NASP, be sure to stop by the PAR booth to learn about some of our new products, including the Working Styles Assessment™ (WSA™) and the Self-Directed Search®, 5^th Edition.

Cecil R. Reynolds, PhD, author of the Reynolds Adaptable Intelligence Test™ (RAIT™) and the Test of General Reasoning Ability™ (TOGRA™) will be presenting tomorrow, from 8:30 a.m. to 10:20 a.m. His session, titled “Two New Adaptable Reliable Intelligence Measures for Busy Practitioners,” will cover the development, application, and research involved in creating these two new assessments.

Among PAR’s newest and most innovative products, the Vocabulary Assessment Scales (VAS) present highly realistic, full-color digital photographs to measure the breadth of an individual’s vocabulary and oral language development. This complementary pair of assessments measure both expressive (VAS-E) and receptive (VAS-R) vocabulary.  Norm-referenced and designed for simple administration and scoring, the VAS-E and VAS-R can be used individually or in combination throughout an individual’s life span.

Click the video link above to view a short interview with VAS author Rebecca Gerhardstein-Nader, PhD, and learn more about the features and benefits of this exciting new product!

https://vimeo.com/82204714

PAR is proud to announce that the following 14 PAR authors will be presenting at APA this year. We encourage you attend their sessions and to visit our booth to meet our staff, pick up a complimentary doorhanger, and receive 15% off plus free shipping and handling on all purchases made during APA 2012.

Kevin D. Arnold
2212

Phillip J. Brantley
3293

Lisa Firestone
1174, 3051

Gerard Gioia
2210

Christopher Hopwood
4060

Randy Kamphaus
1150, 2127, 2163, 4104

Alan Kaufman
3211

Mark McMinn
1096, 1307, 2073, 2316, 3099, 3248

Jonathan Mueller
4132

Randal Salekin 
1013, 1141, 4130, 4135

Peter Sheras
 2271, 3047, 4131

Glenn Smith
3073

Robert Stern
2210

Irv Weiner
1066

PAR author Lisa A. Firestone, PhD will be presenting “Suicide: Treating the Self-Destructive Client” through live CE workshops in Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey as well as an online during February and March. These workshops will be helpful for users of the Firestone Assessment of Violent Thoughts™ (FAVT™) ,  the Firestone Assessment of Violent Thoughts^™-Adolescent (FAVT-A^™), and the Firestone Assessment of Self-Destructive Thoughts^™ and Firestone Assessment of Suicide Intent^™ (FAST^™-FASI^™).

For more information or to register, visit The Glendon Association.

PAR author Dr. Lisa Firestone will be presenting two CE workshops through the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology.

“Suicide: What Professionals Need to Know” will be held on December 2, 2011. This workshop provides an in-depth understanding of the dynamics of suicide and of the legal, ethical, and case management issues that arise when dealing with suicidal individuals.

For more information or to register for this session, click here.

“A Developmental Understanding for Assessing and Treating Violent Individuals” will be held on December 3, 2011. This workshop provides an in-depth understanding of developmental issues contributing to violence, the triggers of violence, assessment, case management, and treatment of violent or potentially violent adults and adolescents.

For more information or to register for this session, click here.

Dr. Firestone is the author of the Firestone Assessment of Self-Destructive Thoughts^™ and Firestone Assessment of Suicide Intent^™ (FAST^™-FASI^™), the Firestone Assessment of Violent Thoughts™ (FAVT™) , and the Firestone Assessment of Violent Thoughts^™-Adolescent (FAVT-A^™).

1. Why did you choose to enter the field of psychology?

I was 8 years old when I decided that I wanted to be a psychologist. I had come across a series of books my sister had about human nature in which the term was often mentioned. While I did not really understand what being a psychologist meant at the time, things in the books such as pictures of the brain and visual illusions made a lasting impression on me. During high school I developed an interest in the etiology and treatment of substance abuse in adolescents. While my career path eventually led largely away from that topic, it cemented my dedication to a career in psychology.

 2. What made you decide initially to develop the TEC?

During the development of the BRIEF-A, Peter Isquith, Gerry Gioia, and I had engaged in discussions about assessment and functional neuroimaging of executive functions. We became interested in the idea of developing an instrument that would involve executive function tasks often used in neuroimaging studies but that had not been standardized for use as a clinical measure.

 3. What would you like to tell people about the TEC that they may not know?

It took 7 years from the initial discussion about developing a new measure to publication of the TEC. A great deal of time was spent developing the measure, trying different parameters, selecting stimuli, making other adjustments and changes to the task and reports based on pilot testing, analyzing data, and writing and editing the manual. It was a true labor of love.

 4. What would you like to tell people about yourself that they may not know?

I have been studying executive functions, using a variety of methods (neuropsychological measures, ERPs, fMRI, questionnaires) for the past 20 years. I love writing and mentoring scientific papers. I am a trilingual Canadian from Montreal Quebec who speaks English, French, and Hungarian (the latter being my parents’ native language).

 5. How do you spend your free time? (hobbies, books are you reading, movies you enjoy, pets, etc.)

I most enjoy spending time with my two sons and other family members. Other than that, reading history and historical fiction related to Europe, tourism, watching movies (lots of kid-friendly fare, but also romantic comedies and sci-fi, as well as just about anything that has to do with historical events pre-1919), listening to hard rock and heavy metal music, and following the National Hockey League (go Habs!).

PAR author Adele Eskeles Gottfried, professor of educational psychology and counseling at the California State University at Northridge, is being honored by the Western Psychological Association (WPA) at their convention next month in Los Angeles. Dr. Gottfried, creator of the Children’s Academic Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (CAIMI), has been named recipient of the WPA’s 2011 Social Responsibility Award based on her research in the field of intrinsic motivation that has contributed to enhancing knowledge about children’s motivational development and educational attainment. In recognition of her award, she has received a special invitation to present at the convention; her talk will be entitled, “Searching for Motivation from Childhood through Adulthood: Findings and Implications.” Dr. Gottfried will also present her research on intrinsic motivation at the 2011 Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD) Biennial Meeting next week in Montreal. This presentation will be entitled, “Developmental Motivation Roots and the Need for Cognition: A 20-Year Longitudinal Study.”

Dr. Gottfried developed the Children’s Academic Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (CAIMI) as a tool to help differentiate motivation from achievement and ability factors in students with academic difficulties. The CAIMI is also useful for counseling students in the general population with regard to academic interests and course selection, in instructional planning to stimulate motivation in weak areas and facilitate intrinsic motivation in strong areas, in providing individualized program planning, and in program and educational evaluation by schools and school districts. In addition, the CAIMI is the basis for the construct of gifted motivation, which addresses the concept that individuals with exceptionally high intrinsic motivation have a history of higher academic competence and functioning. Through the years, the evidence for the validity and stability of the CAIMI has continued to mount. Dr. Gottfried currently has both a book chapter and a journal article in press that extend the CAIMI to leadership literature.

To learn more about Dr. Gottfried’s research, click here for her intrinsic motivation bibliography.

Congratulations to Dr. Gottfried on this honor!

Why did you choose to enter the field of psychology?
I was first interested in biology and especially in the brain. In my first behavioral neuroscience class, I felt that this field took on many of the questions that had always been interesting to me. Then I was given the chance to spend a summer as an undergraduate working on a study of people with aphasia. I realized then that I was really interested in neuropsychology.

What made you decide initially to develop the Memory for Intentions Test™ (MIST™)?
In working with people who have brain injury and asking them to set goals for rehabilitation, the problem of prospective memory, or memory for intentions, kept coming up. I wanted to understand what it was about completing an intention that was difficult for people with brain injury. At the time, there was no standardized measure available.

What would you like to tell people about your product that they may not know?
I think it is very useful as a clinical measure and has the ability to discriminate between different types of prospective memory failures in different populations; the alternate form makes it useful to measure efficacy of rehabilitation. But it is also a useful research measure and has been published in a number of studies with people with different disorders.

What would you like to tell people about yourself that they may not know?
I love the theater and one of my jobs during graduate school in New York City was sewing costumes. My kids got interested in theater, and my son even convinced me to be in a community theater production with him. My daughter still does plays, but my son is now focused on playing guitar.

How do you spend your free time?
I spend as much time as I can with my two children, ages 10 and 14, and my husband. We had the wonderful experience of spending six weeks together as a family in Rome this summer while I taught a course titled “The Arts and the Brain.” I spend time volunteering in my kids’ schools or in other community activities. I love to read novels, the more tragic the better.

 

Why did you choose to enter the field of psychology?
As a high school student, I was curious about what made people act the way they do. As a college student, I became interested in the scientific study of human behavior through applied behavior analysis. I entered psychology in order to do research and further our knowledge about the science of human behavior. During graduate school at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, I found that I enjoyed helping people as much, if not more, than doing research, so I trained to be a clinical psychologist. My first job after receiving my doctorate was as an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Maryland in Baltimore County. I did a lot of research and teaching, but hardly any clinical practice. Something was missing. When I moved to Michigan and joined the staff at Children’s Hospital of Michigan and Wayne State University, I had the opportunity to see a wide variety of children with medical illnesses and behavioral/emotional problems. This has proven to be very gratifying, and I have now been at Children’s Hospital for 30 years. I also get to do some research, such as my work with the Parent Adolescent Relationship Questionnaire™ (PARQ™), and a great deal of teaching.

What made you decide initially to develop the PARQ?
I had developed a number of brief measures of family relationships, but they did not provide a comprehensive picture of the parent-adolescent relationship. The clinicians would need to use several measures to get the full picture, and even then, the scores would not be on a common metric. In the early 1980s, I learned about the Marital Satisfaction Inventory, which Dr. Doug Snyder developed as a comprehensive measure of marital interactions. Dr. Snyder was at Wayne State University, so my co-authors and I got to talk with him. I decided to follow his example and develop a multidimensional measure of the parent-teen relationship. In addition, my co-authors, Dr. Tom Koepke and Dr. Ann Moye, needed dissertation topics. We decided to work together and develop the PARQ, which also provided them with dissertation topics.

What would you like to tell people about your product that they may not know?
We have administered the PARQ in adolescents with spina bifida and with their parents. Some of this data is presented in the PARQ Professional Manual. We found that the adolescents with spina bifida and their parents reported better relationships than even our normative group. This partially replicates other investigator’s research on parent-adolescent relationships for families where the teen has spina bifida. We plan to use it a lot with adolescents who have a variety of chronic illnesses.

What would you like to tell people about yourself that they may not know?
I direct a psychology internship at Children’s Hospital of Michigan.

How do you spend your free time?
O gauge model railroading and photography are my two hobbies. I like to combine them by taking pictures of my trains and layout, as well as other people’s train layouts. My first non-psychology publication in 35 years was a photograph of my holiday train layout published in the December 2009 issue of Classic Toy Trains magazine!