The week of Feb. 6-10, 2017, is National School Counseling Week, sponsored by the American School Counselor Association. This year’s theme is “School Counseling: Helping Students Realize Their Potential.” The celebration places a spotlight on how school counselors can help students achieve school success and plan for a career.

PAR is proud to salute those who are dedicated to the task of working with children in schools across the country who devote their time and energy to this vital and important endeavor.

In the spirit of celebrating, we’d like to tell you about some new assessment products that will soon be available to help you help your students.

The Multidimensional Everyday Memory Ratings for Youth (MEMRY) is the first and only nationally standardized rating scale designed to measure everyday memory, in children, adolescents, and young adults ages 5-21 years. It measures everyday memory, learning, and executive aspects of memory in youth, including working memory.

The Reynolds Interference Task (RIT) is a Stroop-style test of complex processing speed that measures neuropsychological integrity, complex processing speed deficits, and attention across a wide age range (6-94 years). It adds a layer of cognitive processing difficulty to simple tasks, making them more complex and thus more indicative of cognitive flexibility and selective attention.

The MEMRY and RIT will be released in March.

PAR would like to thank all school counselors for the crucial work you perform every single day. Your efforts are the personification of our tagline: Creating Connections. Changing Lives.

From the author of the Reynolds Adaptable Intelligence Test (RAIT), the RAIT-Nonverbal (RAIT-NV) can help you quickly evaluate nonverbal, or fluid, intelligence. Ideal for administration with individuals with limited or no language skills, the RAIT-NV reduces confounds found in other nonverbal intelligence measures.

The RAIT-NV:

• Can be administered individually or in group format. May be used in human resource and related industrial settings, schools, juvenile and adult justice systems, and clinical practices, especially where nonverbal reasoning skills are a premium.


• Is designed to provide continuity across wide age span.


• Was examined rigorously to be free of gender and ethnic bias, reducing gender and ethnicity as confounds, particularly important for use with English as a Second Language (ESL) students and adults.

 

Learn more about the RAIT-NV today!

The Iowa Gambling Task™, Version 2 (IGT™2) is a computerized assessment that assists in the evaluation of decision making. The IGT2 is ideal for assessing patients who exhibit poor decision-making skills in the presence of otherwise normal or unaffected intelligence because of head injury or insult or any other condition thought to impact the function of the prefrontal cortex.

This updated edition features a downward age extension that makes the IGT2 usable throughout the life span, from ages 8 to 79 years.

The IGT2 is:

• Administered on a computer. The program generates a Score Report and T-score and raw score profiles as soon as the examinee has completed the task. Two export formats are available.


• Customized to your needs. Optional settings can be customized to your needs, including number of trials, intertrial intervals, type of currency, and starting amount of money.


• Interpreted immediately. Normative scores are produced automatically, allowing the examiner to compare scores to those of a demographically corrected or U.S. Census-matched sample.

Now featuring extended normative data!

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.

The third in the EDDT series, the EDDT-SR allows clinicians to assess emotional disturbance from the perspective of a child or adolescent. A standardized, norm-referenced assessment, the EDDT-SR is completed by individuals ages 9-18 years and is intended to be used in conjunction with the EDDT parent or teacher versions to develop a well-rounded picture of an individual’s functioning.

The EDDT-SR:

• Uses criteria presented in the Individuals With Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 (IDEA) with scales that map directly on to this criteria.


• Provides additional analysis and scores developed for all three EDDT versions including base rates for discrepancies between raters and reliable change scores.


• Includes scales that measure Inability to Build or Maintain Relationships, Inappropriate Behaviors or Feelings, Pervasive Mood/Depression, and Physical Symptoms or Fears, and clusters that measure Level of Severity, Motivation, and Resilience.

Spanish forms are available!

To order the EDDT-SR or learn more, click here!

As the old adage goes, “Find a job you love, and you will never work a day in your life.”

Though you may be passionate about a particular career or field of study, how do you know it will really make you happy? Nothing could be worse than studying for years to become a financial trader on Wall Street, for example, only to discover the first day on the job that you prefer a quieter, more stable, and more predictable type of working environment.

When considering a career, knowing more about what type of environment you prefer can impact job satisfaction. Do you prefer to work on a team or independently? Do you like positions of leadership? Do you desire recognition for a job well done?  Do you want a supportive employer? These are all aspects about yourself as an employee that you may not even realize. Employees who are a good fit have been shown to be happier, stay longer in a position, and be more productive.

The Work Values Inventory™ (WVI™) is a new test that measures work values (also known as vocational needs) to help users find job satisfaction by identifying a career that fits. It is based on and tied to the Department of Labor’s Occupational Information Network (O*NET). In just 10 minutes, users learn their top three work values (Achievement, Independence, Support, Relationships, Working Conditions, and Recognition). Using the WVI Occupations Finder, users then match their top work values to careers that are a good fit.

The WVI is self-administered, self-scored, and self-interpreted, and no special training is required. It benefits job seekers by helping them learn more about what they need in a position for job satisfaction. It also benefits career counselors, and it is a useful tool for human resource personnel when evaluating potential job candidates.

The WVI is an important part of the career personality puzzle—but it’s not the only part. The Working Styles Assessment™ (WSA™) evaluates work personality and approaches, such as initiative, cooperation, and innovation. The Self-Directed Search® (SDS®) examines aspirations, activities, competencies, and levels of interest in different occupations. Used together, these three tests help identify a user’s complete work personality to help him or her find a career that a fits.

College can be difficult even for the most prepared of students. For those struggling with an undiagnosed learning difficulty, it can be overwhelming. They may have poor coping skills, increased levels of stress, executive functioning and working memory deficits, low self-esteem, and even significant academic, interpersonal, and psychological difficulties.

The worst part? They don’t know why.

The new Kane Learning Difficulties Assessment™ (KLDA™) is a tool that screens college students for learning difficulties and ADHD to give them the answers they need.

According to a National Council on Disability report, up to 44% of individuals with an attention deficit disorder were first identified at the postsecondary level. The KLDA screens college students for learning difficulties and ADHD as well as other issues that affect learning, such as anxiety, memory, and functional problems like organization and procrastination. It identifies those who should seek further assessment, so they can get the help they need to succeed in college.

The KLDA measures academic strengths and weaknesses in key areas, including reading, listening, time management, writing, math, concentration and memory, organization and self-control, oral presentation, and anxiety and pressure.

It is useful for all levels of postsecondary education, including vocational schools, technical colleges, community colleges, 4-year colleges and universities, and graduate schools.

The KLDA is a self-report form that can be completed with paper and pencil or online via PARiConnect. Administration takes just 15 minutes, and no special training is required to administer or score.

Scoring and reporting is completed exclusively through PARiConnect. A Student Feedback Report is generated for students that provides them with a comparative sense of their academic skills in relation to their peers. A Score Report is generated for the test administrator.

For students, knowing that are at risk for a learning difficulty, ADHD, or other issue that affects learning—and getting the help they need—can be a first step toward academic success. For more information or to order the KLDA, visit the product page.

 

Whether you’re a long-time user of the BRIEF family of products or you are considering your first purchase of the Behavior Inventory of Executive Function®, 2^nd Ed., now you can take view a free training course to learn more about this assessment!

The BRIEF2 makes the assessment of executive function impairments easier than ever. The most widely used gold-standard rating scale for assessing executive function, the original BRIEF has been cited in more than 800 peer-reviewed studies. The new BRIEF2 provides even more useful information for practitioners. The BRIEF2 assesses executive function behaviors in the school and home environments through questionnaires developed for parents, teachers, and children and adolescents. Designed to assess the abilities of a broad range of individuals, the BRIEF2 is useful when working with children who have learning disabilities and attention disorders; traumatic brain injuries; lead exposure; pervasive developmental disorders; depression; and other developmental, neurological, psychiatric, and medical conditions.

This free, interactive course will give you a quick overview of the product, explain what makes it unique, discuss the updates made in this edition, and provide insight into how it was developed. And, best of all, the Training Portal is always available, so you can learn more on your schedule.

To access the Training Portal, use your parinc.com username and password to log in. Don’t have a free account? Register now.

Training courses are also available on the Vocabulary Assessment Scales™ (VAS™), the Test of General Reasoning Ability™ (TOGRA™), the Reynolds Adaptable Intelligence Test™ (RAIT™), the Academic Achievement Battery™ (AAB™), the Child and Adolescent Memory Profile™ (ChAMP™), the Feifer Assessment of Reading™ (FAR™), and many more!

PAR is proud to announce the release of the NAB® Daily Living (NAB DL) by Robert A. Stern, PhD, and Travis White, PhD.

The NAB DL gathers the daily living tasks from each NAB module and combines them in one form for ease of use.

• The Attention Driving Scenes test taps into an examinee’s visual working memory, attention to detail, and selective attention skills.


• The Bill Payment Daily Living test taps into auditory language, reading comprehension, speech output, and writing ability.


• The Daily Living Memory test involves explicit learning, delayed recall, and recognition recall of information likely encountered in daily living.


• The Map Reading Daily Living test involves orientation, visuospatial skill, and spatial/directional skills.


• The Judgment Daily Living test features medical issues and situations likely to be encountered in daily living.

For more information or to order the NAB DL, visit the product page.

Learning WHY a student struggles in math so you can determine HOW to intervene just got easier! The FAM is a comprehensive assessment of mathematics designed to examine the underlying neurodevelopmental processes that support the acquisition of proficient math skills. It not only helps determine if an examinee has a math learning disability, but also identifies the specific subtype of dyscalculia, which better informs decisions about appropriate interventions.

With the FAM on PARiConnect, you can:

• Receive Score Reports instantly for the FAM battery and FAM Screening Form after entering scale-level data.


• Obtain brief interpretive statements available only through PARiConnect.


• Generate Reliable Change Reports to track performance after multiple administrations of the FAM.

Try the FAM on PARiConnect today!

Free 24/7 training on the FAM is available on the PAR Training Portal!