DBR Connect is an online direct behavior rating tool that helps educators, school psychologists, and school-based intervention teams assess at-risk students, rate student behavior and track success, and monitor student behavior over time. It can help identify problem behaviors and triggers and determine response to intervention (RTI) effectiveness in minutes.

Here are five things you should know about DBR Connect:

DBR Connect is easy – built-in sliders allow for simple, straightforward administration, and teachers or other professionals can assess student behavior online in about one minute per student.

DBR Connect is comprehensive—research has shown that the three core behavioral constructs in DBR Connect (Academically Engaged, Disruptive, and Respectful) are the most indicative of student success in the classroom.

DBR Connect is effective—according to the National Center on Intensive Intervention, DBR Connect is one of only two behavioral progress monitoring tools proven to be sensitive to student change.

DBR Connect is convenient—the online system completely eliminates paperwork and filing, although forms can be printed and data added to the system later, if desired. At the end of an observation period, a click of a button is all it takes to review data and generate reports.

DBR Connect is reliable—the system offers the strengths of both traditional rating scales and systematic direct observation.  This means teachers can not only identify specific behaviors in real time—and perhaps at the same time every day, such as in homeroom or during bell work—but they can also rate those behaviors.

Learn more about DBR Connect today!

You may know that the Reynolds Adaptable Intelligence Test™ (RAIT™) is a rapid, reliable, and valid intelligence test. Here are five things you may not know.

1. The RAIT is composed of seven subtests that assess crystallized intelligence, fluid intelligence, and quantitative aptitude or intelligence.


2. The RAIT is flexible. The test can be administered by paper and pencil or via PARiConnect, our online assessment platform. The digital version allows you to administer the full battery (i.e., all seven subtests) or an abbreviated battery (i.e., crystallized and fluid subtests only). Because print and digital versions are statistically equivalent, you can confidently assess groups or individuals.


3. This flexibility makes the RAIT a viable option for use in schools, juvenile and adult justice systems, clinical settings, and human resource and related industrial settings.


4. The RAIT provides multiple types of scores, including z scores, normal curve equivalents, stanines, percentiles, and, for the younger ages, age equivalents.


5. The soon-to-be-released Reynold Adaptable Intelligence Test™–Nonverbal (RAIT™-NV) was created from the RAIT to be a rapid, reliable, and valid power test of nonverbal intelligence.

For more information on the RAIT or RAIT-NV, visit their individual product pages.

You may know the Emotional Disturbance Decision Tree™ (EDDT™) family recently welcomed a new member—the EDDT–Self-Report Form (EDDT-SR). Here are five things you may not know about this trio of assessment tools.

1. The EDDT is the first instrument of its kind to provide a standardized approach to the assessment of emotional disturbance (ED). The EDDT encompasses all the federal criteria and addresses the broad emotional and behavioral nuances of children who may require special education services for ED.


2. The EDDT–Parent Form (EDDT-PF) and EDDT-SR are available in Spanish, facilitating use with Hispanic/Latino clients.


3. Multi-Rater Summary Forms can be used with all three forms to review responses from multiple raters over time to create a well-rounded picture of an individual's functioning.


4. The EDDT-SR Professional Manual offers additional analysis and scores that have been developed for all three EDDT versions including base rates for discrepancies between raters and reliable change scores.


5. The EDDT, EDDT-PF, and EDDT-SR are all Likert-style response forms that can be completed in less than 20 minutes each, making them easy to administer and time efficient.

For more information on the EDDT, EDDT-PF, and EDDT-SR, visit their individual product pages.

Did you know that PAR offers many of our manuals in a convenient e-Manual format? No need to carry hard copies of professional manuals with you—you can simply download select manuals to your computer or laptop, where you'll be able to easily search for exactly the information you need. Here are a few questions about e-Manuals answered!

Q: Can I view e-Manuals on an e-reader or a tablet?

A: e-Manuals from PAR can be downloaded and viewed on the iPad and on select Android tablets. PAR has tested and successfully downloaded e-Manuals on the iPad, iPad2, Motorola Xoom, and the Samsung Galaxy. Use of e-Manuals on these tablets requires you to download the free Bluefire Reader app onto your device. It may be possible to use on other Android tablets, but PAR is unable to guarantee compatibility and will only be able to provide limited support.

Q: How many times can I download an e-Manual?

A: Each e-Manual you purchase is licensed for one user. We provide two download links per purchase. The second download link serves as a backup should you experience computer problems, replace your computer, or otherwise lose your original copy.

Q: Is the e-Manual identical to the printed manual?

A: Yes, all the information contained in the printed manual, including tables and graphs, is included in the digital version.

 

More questions about PAR’s e-Manuals? Visit our FAQ. Want to see our e-Manual selection? Click here or visit the product page for your favorite product.

You may know the Trauma Symptom Checklist for Young Children (TSCYC) evaluates acute and chronic posttraumatic symptomatology in young children in just 15 to 20 minutes. Here are five things you may not know.

1. The TSCYC is the first fully standardized and normed broadband trauma measure for young children ages 3-12 years who have been exposed to traumatic events such as child abuse, peer assault, and community violence.


2. The TSCYC is customizable: The test features a caretaker report that rates symptoms observed during the previous month and includes separate profile forms for males and females in three age groups: ages 3-4 years, ages 5-9 years, and ages 10-12 years.


3. The TSCYC is reliable and valid: It meets the new 2017 standards for use in Children’s Advocacy Centers.


4. The TSCYC has free online training. Get up to speed quickly with a short instructional video describing the administration, scoring, and interpretation of the TSCYC—available at no charge on the PAR Training Portal.


5. The TSCYC is convenient. Administer and score with paper and pencil or 24/7 via PARiConnect, our online assessment platform.

Learn more about the TSCYC!

You may know the Trauma Symptom Checklist for Children (TSCC) evaluates posttraumatic stress symptomatology in individuals 8 to 16 years old. Here are five things you may not know:

1. The TSCC is comprehensive: The TSCC measures posttraumatic stress and related psychological symptomology in children and adolescents  who have experienced traumatic events such as physical or sexual abuse, major loss, and natural disasters.


2. The TSCC is customizable: The test features separate self-report profile forms for males and females, with items for ages 8-12 years on one side and items for ages 13-16 years on the other side. An alternate form, the TSCC-A, makes no reference to sexual issues.


3. The TSCC is reliable and valid: It meets the new 2017 standards for use in Children’s Advocacy Centers.


4. The TSCC has free online training. Get up to speed quickly with a short instructional video describing the administration, scoring, and interpretation of the TSCC—available at no charge on the PAR Training Portal.


5. The TSCC is convenient. Administer and score with paper and pencil or 24/7 via PARiConnect, our online assessment platform.

PAR is proud of our ongoing relationship with United Way. In September, we took part in our annual fundraising campaign. For more than 20 years, 100% of staff members have contributed during our annual United Way drive. This year was no different. We exceeded our fundraising goal, resulting in employee contributions of $88,063.84 being donated to United Way to help continue its mission of helping others in our community. With match and challenge donations, that brings our 2016 United Way campaign total to $133,069.76! Amazing!

This year, our United Way week theme was PAR Olympics. Staffers were broken into five teams that took part in a host of competitions, ranging from artistic gymnastics to a javelin toss to indoor rowing. Some furry athletes from the Humane Society of Tampa Bay even stopped by.

Want to learn more about how you can help United Way in your community? Visit www.unitedway.org.

This week, Richard Brummer, Senior Manager of Quality Assurance will be retiring after 12.5 years with PAR. This is the third part in a series where PAR staff share their memories and well wishes on Richard’s retirement.

Did you miss Part 1 or Part 2? Catch up now.

We will miss you, Richard!

The first time I ever met Richard was when I was doing post-hire interviews my first week at PAR. I remember walking into his office and seeing a display case with an electronic tether. I was a little intimidated. I came to find out that he was the project manager of the team that created the electronic tether. I think this may have intimidated me a little bit more, but as I got to know Richard both inside and outside of work, his wisdom, integrity, sense of humor, and caring made him stand out as both an employee and a human being. He quickly became one of my favorite people and I am sad to say that life at PAR will truly not be the same without him!

-Rebecca Gerhardstein, Senior Project Director

 

Richard has a quiet but impactful way of helping others. Beside the many Customers (internal and external) he has assisted over the years, Richard and his wife Sandi have been faithful supporters of Meals On Wheels of Tampa. As a company, PAR is an Adopt-A-Route Partner of Meals On Wheels (MOW), with staff taking turns delivering meals to the homebound in our community. Richard has been a vital part of this group of volunteers. For the first few years, he organized and managed the PAR group of volunteers, while also delivering an additional weekly MOW route with his wife Sandi. By speaking with the recipients and others, I learned he and Sandi did many other things behind the scenes to help the recipients. Such acts of kindness included visiting numerous additional times with 90+ year old recipient Dorothy, who lived alone, and continuing to visit her frequently when she moved to an assisted living facility; constructing a wooden ramp so one of the wheelchair-bound recipients could more easily access his home; and helping one of the recipients, who was a self-acknowledged hoarder, clean out her apartment. The list goes on. We will miss Richard and the many ways he has helped all of us at PAR, as well as those in our community.

-Cathy Smith, Vice President of Community Relations

 

Richard was an extremely valuable member of the PAR Team. Not just for his many contributions to our success, but also his cheery disposition and charitable heart. I will miss the delightful chats, stories, and delicious goodies from Sandi. Thank you for all that you have done for PAR!

-Vicki McFadden, Permissions Specialist

 

In the 9 years I have known Richard, he has always been such a pleasure to work with—not only great at his job but also funny and warm. My favorite memory with him is when he presented me with a framed screenshot of a certain PARiConnect screen, the wording on which he and I had debated heavily. I won the debate, and he was sweet enough to frame the results for me. Of course, the framed screenshot is still hanging on my office wall. Richard is just that type of person—caring, kind, a real friend. I will truly miss working with him.

-Erika Thompson, Manager of Production

 

Richard Brummer is one of the nicest people I have ever met and worked with. He’s so kind and thoughtful while always keeping you on your toes with his joshing. I’ll always remember when he surprised me with my “No Love Like Dog Love” mug during Christmas. I felt so special that day. His visits to my desk are going to be so missed. I hope he knows how much he is loved!

-Lauren Howland, Desktop Publisher

 

Good luck, Richard! We will miss you!

 

This week, Richard Brummer, Senior Manager of Quality Assurance will be retiring after 12.5 years with PAR. This is the second part in a series where PAR staff share their memories and well wishes on Richard’s retirement.

Did you miss Part 1? Click here.

For months, every time I walked into Richard’s office, my eyes were drawn to something strange, and I couldn’t fathom why he had it. Perched beside his monitor is a section of a tree trunk about a foot and a half in length and about six inches in diameter. Glued to this piece of wood is an assortment of brightly-colored plastic bugs. For a long time, I just thought that he really liked the outdoors and it was his alternative to a painting of a tree. I asked about it after a while, and Richard explained that one of his many responsibilities is to find errors and inconsistencies in our digital products during development. Any issue he and the team finds is logged in a central place that is used to communicate with the programmers. Issues are called ‘bugs’ in the programming world. Those bugs are recorded in a log. A bug log. This whole time, he’s had a bug log in his office.

-Amy Kovacs, Research Assistant

 

Richard Brummer brought a bottle of champagne to every meeting during the development of PARiConnect. Here, he opens that bottle in the PAR parking lot on January 2, 2013, the day of the PARiConnect launch.

For the past 12 years, Richard has been passionately committed to ensuring that all PAR products contain no errors or quality problems when they are published. And he has done an exceptional job leading this effort and achieving his objective more than 99% of the time. He has developed innovative processes and procedures to evaluate and test product quality, and has trained others to be able to meet the same standards.

Richard also led the effort to design and develop PARiConnect and ensure that it was completed and launched in early 2013. He has continued to be a very strong champion for the ongoing development and evolution of the PARiConnect platform and experience, and has spent endless hours teaching our Customers and others about it. PARiConnect would not be the same without all of the major contributions he has made to it.

-R. Bob Smith, III, PhD, Chairman and CEO

 

Richard has made so many valuable contributions to PAR over the years, particularly his tireless work to help build PARiConnect into a powerful and user-friendly platform. He also worked on a daily basis to ensure that every product published by PAR was error free. But what I’ll remember most is his commitment to doing things the right way. He has always been consistent and steadfast in his beliefs. He fought on behalf of our customers and did a great job of keeping our Customer Support department informed. For that and many other reasons, we’ll miss him dearly. Thanks for everything, Richard!

-Daniel McFadden, Manager of Customer Support

 

Richard has always inspired me to think differently about things. His Innovation Academy was an amazing course that made us really question protocol and view things in a different light. Not only did it help us, but it helped our Customers and made PAR an even better company. I’ll miss Richard’s honesty and wit as well as his almost daily visits to our department (often with treats from his wife). I hope that he truly enjoys his retirement as it is well deserved. He will be missed greatly.

-Teri Lyon, Senior Technical Support Specialist

 

Richard and the accounting staff during a company celebration.

I will miss Richard’s impromptu visits. He is one of the few employees who prefers face to face meetings and walks through the south building regularly. He is very personable and I enjoy his visits and his good nature and sense of humor. I’ll also miss Sandi’s baking. Oh, and he has been extremely helpful with our fixed asset inventories!

-Karen Clifford, Senior Accountant

Did you miss Part 1? Click here. Come back tomorrow for Part 3.

“Real artists ship” is a quote attributed to Steve Jobs of Apple, but around the PAR office, it is a phrase closely associated with Richard Brummer, Senior Manager of Quality Assurance. This week, Richard will be retiring after 12.5 years with the company.

When Richard started at PAR in 2004, he thought he would be working on developing psychological assessment products in print. But in the years since, that has only been a small part of his responsibilities. Most notably, he has been a dedicated champion of the PARiConnect platform since the early days of development. Every PAR Customer has felt Richard’s influence—his tireless dedication to making sure each product is error-free, easily understandable, and intuitively designed is clear on everything he touches. Richard has taught all of us so much about creativity, innovation, and – just like his motto – making sure the focus is always on the Customer receiving a product that makes their job easier.

Here are a few memories we would like to share:

 
I believe that it was, in large part, Richard’s motivation to speak directly to Customers, gather information on their needs, and transform that into PARiConnect functions that lead to the excellent reputation the system has today.

Also, the treats that his wife makes for us are also spectacular.

-Julie Alexander, PhD, Senior Clinical Assessment Consultant

 

Richard Brummer at the PARiConnect launch on January 2, 2013.

I remember Richard taking over as project manager on the development of PARiConnect. With a gleam in his eye, he courageously led a cross-functional team of employees and outside developers in a short time frame to develop a testing and reporting platform with the focus on the user experience. His leadership taught the entire team that anything is possible with perseverance and focus. I have learned so much from Richard throughout my time and PAR and will miss him tremendously!

-Donna Drackett, Vice President/Chief Financial Office

 

I thought the thorough and organized way in which Richard organized and elicited help for testing of the PARiConnect upgrade that was completed in 2015 was masterful! He provided clear and concise explanations of what needed to be tested, and how to accomplish it. It made it easy for many of us to assist.

-Kay Cunningham, President and Chief Operating Officer

 

One of my favorite Richardisms: That’s been around since Moses was a Cub Scout!

-Sue Trujillo, Manager of Data Collection

 

Richard was a great asset to me when I was developing forms for the first time. I truly appreciate his eye when it comes to usability and what will make sense to our Customers. He continues to be my go-to person for review when I am mocking up a form.

-Jenny Greene, Senior Research Assistant

 

Come back tomorrow for Part 2 of this three-part series.