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This week’s blog was contributed by Terri Sisson, EdS, educational assessment advisor, national accounts. Terri spent more than 20 years in public schools as a licensed school psychologist. She is a past president of the Virginia Association of School Psychologists. 

 

Many students with executive function deficiencies find their performance in both the home and classroom environments is negatively impacted. When I practiced in the schools, I wrote my recommendations with parents and teachers in mind, as these were the people who would read and use my recommendations. I found that if the intended audience understood executive functions and how they impact learning, they were more likely to be effective at implementing successful strategies. 

Lauren Kenworthy, PhD, coauthor of the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function, 2nd Ed. (BRIEF2) and the Unstuck and on Target! curriculum, and her colleagues have created a free video series designed for parents and teachers that explains different executive function concepts and provides recommendations for intervention.

Some videos are designed specifically for teachers and offer free training (with continuing education credits). For parents, informative videos and tip sheets help explain the executive functions in a way they can easily understand. Some videos are available in Spanish.

Although the videos support the Unstuck and on Target! curriculum, which improves flexibility, planning, organization, problem solving, and coping, they provide useful information for all parents and teachers about how to improve executive functioning in students. Check out the videos for teachers or parents and share them with others who may benefit.

 

Learn more about Unstuck and on Target!

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Administration and scoring for the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) is now available on PARiConnect! The WCST assesses perseveration and abstract thinking, and is considered a measure of executive function due to its reported sensitivity to frontal lobe dysfunction. Now with the WCST on PARiConnect, you can assess for executive functions in a way that fits your practice and your patient’s needs. Plus, the WCST on PARiConnect allows you to: 

  • Practice social distancing by administering remotely. 

  • Save valuable clinical time by letting PARiConnect score for you. 

  • Choose 64- or 128-card version—one inventory gives you added flexibility! 

  • Know that research has demonstrated general equivalence between computerized and card administration of the WCST. 

 

Now you can purchase the quantities you need without the expense of software or licenses! Learn more about the WCST on PARiConnect

 

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Do you see students or clients with symptoms like restlessness, excessive talking, or difficulty staying on task? Sometimes, it can be difficult to know if the behaviors are age-appropriate and typical or if they might be signs of ADHD–the primary developmental disorder of executive function.

Find out quickly with the new BRIEF2 ADHD Form.

Using results from the BRIEF2, the gold-standard instrument for assessing executive function, the BRIEF2 ADHD Form takes a three-step approach to predict the likelihood of an ADHD diagnosis. This knowledge helps parents, clinicians, and educators get children and adolescents ages 5 to 18 years the supports they need—both in and out of the classroom.

Scoring is quick and straightforward, and existing BRIEF2 scores (or PARiConnect results) can be used–there’s no need to retest. Scores are first plotted alongside skylines of scores from children and adolescents known to have ADHD to help evaluators get an at-a-glance view of how their clients’ and students’ ratings compare.  Next, using classification statistics and an evidence-based approach, scores from the BRIEF2 Working Memory and Inhibit scales are used to predict the likelihood of ADHD and determine likely subtype. Finally, specific responses on individual BRIEF2 items are compared to DSM-5™ ADHD criteria.

Results from the BRIEF2 ADHD Form can help professionals develop Individual Education Plans and provide academic interventions and accommodations and help get students on the path to success.

Coming to PARiConnect this summer!

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PAR is proud to announce we have added a white paper to the BRIEF-P product page. This resource will help users learn more about enhanced interpretation of BRIEF-P ratings. The BRIEF-P is the first standardized rating scale designed to specifically measure the range of executive function in preschool-aged children.

 You can find the new white paper under the Resources tab on the BRIEF-P page or via direct download from parinc.com/BRIEFP_white_paper.

 

 

Since 2000, school psychologists have turned to the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function (BRIEF) to examine executive function in the everyday, real-world environments of children ages 5 to 18 years. A revision to that groundbreaking test, the BRIEF2, was published in 2015. Featuring more concise scales, increased sensitivity to executive function problems in key clinical groups like autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and new screening forms for parents, teachers, and students, the BRIEF2 is the gold-standard for executive function testing.

A new companion piece, developed and written by the BRIEF2 authors, is now available.

The BRIEF2 Interpretive Guide helps school psychologists and educators gain a deeper understanding of BRIEF2 scores, write reports, plan intervention strategies, and monitor progress of students with executive function concerns.

Using case examples of students with ASD and ADHD and written in a straightforward, reader-friendly style, the authors weave a narrative that will be familiar to most education professionals. This helpful guide offers optional interpretive steps and demonstrates uses for screening, basic, and advanced interpretation.

Included are step-by-step guides to interpreting BRIEF2 scores and parallel sentence-by-sentence guides to help professionals write findings in reports using language that is concise, accurate, and clear to parents and teachers.

“It is so enjoyable to witness how outstanding clinicians learn what they know, teach what they know, and practice what they know,” writes Elaine Fletcher-Janzen, EdD, ABPdN, professor of school psychology, in the book’s foreword. “This book is a glimpse into how clinical practice and the assessment and treatment of EF should be done, or how the experts do it. The reader is left with a comforting thought that if the practices and recommendations in the book are followed, then the best has been done for the child and the family. I feel very comfortable handing this book over to my students and saying, Do what they do!”

The BRIEF2 Interpretive Guide is available in both hardcover and electronic formats. Order or learn more.
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®, 2nd 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!
The wait is over! The gold-standard rating scale you’ve come to trust for executive function assessment is now even better. Developed by practicing pediatric neuropsychologists, the BRIEF2 continues to be as efficient, comprehensive, and consistent with current models of executive function as its predecessor but with enhanced features.

  • Parallel structure. Parent, Teacher, and Self-Report forms are now in one manual. Items are now more parallel across forms.

  • Concise scales. New scale structure reduces the burden on the parent, teacher, or adolescent respondent.

  • Increased sensitivity. Quickly identify executive function problems in key clinical groups such as ADHD and autism spectrum disorder.

  • New screening forms. In 5 minutes, determine whether a full executive function assessment is needed.

  • Updated norms. Normative data were drawn from a large, diverse, nationally stratified sample of individuals from all 50 U.S. states.


The BRIEF2 is available now! Order today: A Comprehensive Parent/Teacher/Self-Report Hand-Scored kit is just $330 or a Parent/Teacher Hand-Scored kit is just $250! The BRIEF2 is available for administration, scoring, and interpretation on PARiConnect.
If you are looking to exercise both your body and your mind, then you may be interested in some new research conducted at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Neha Gothe, a graduate student at Illinois who is now a professor of kinesiology at Wayne State University, led a research team to uncover data that shows a 20-minute session of hatha yoga significantly improved participants’ speed and accuracy on tests of working memory and inhibitory control. Participants showed significantly better results on these tests of retention of new information after a yoga session than after completing a moderate to vigorous aerobic exercise.

Participants underwent a 20-minute progression of seated, standing, and supine yoga postures, concluding with a meditative posture and deep breathing. They also completed a 20-minute aerobic exercise where they walked or jogged on a treadmill for 20 minutes, with each subject maintaining 60 to 70 percent of her maximum heart rate throughout the workout. All subjects in the study were female undergraduates. No significant improvements in working memory or inhibitory control were found after the aerobic exercise.

Researchers believe that following a yoga practice, participants were better able to focus because the breathing and meditation exercises aim to calm the mind and body, possibly translating into better mental performance beyond the yoga practice. Furthermore, meditation and breathing exercises are known to reduce anxiety and stress, which may help improve scores on some cognitive tests.

The full study is available in the May issue of the Journal of Physical Activity and Health.
When an important task requires your attention, do you get right to it or do you put it off? When you’re faced with a paper to write, a report to review, or a memo that needs a detailed response, does the laundry—or the latest YouTube video—suddenly emerge as a more interesting alternative? Procrastination is an occasional challenge for many of us. But chronic procrastination can be a real problem for students, significantly affecting their academic success.

In a study published recently in the Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology*, authors Laura Rabin, Joshua Fogel, and Katherine Nutter-Upham look at procrastination and its connection to the self-regulatory processes that make up executive function.

Dr. Rabin and her colleagues examined nine clinical subscales of the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Functioning–Adult Version (BRIEF-A) in a sample of more than 200 college students. These subscales include measures of impulsivity, self-monitoring, planning and organizing, ability to “shift” behavior or mindset when necessary, initiative, task monitoring, emotional control, working memory, and organization of materials. The authors found that all nine of the clinical subscales measured by the BRIEF-A showed a significant correlation with higher academic procrastination.

What can be done to help students whose procrastination is hindering their success? In his Psychology Today blog “Don’t Delay: Understanding Procrastination” (http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/dont-delay), Timothy A. Pychyl describes implications of the Rabin, Fogel, and Nutter-Upham study, summarizing some key strategies for students who struggle with procrastination. They include:

  • setting proximal sub-goals along with reasonable expectations about the amount of effort required to complete a given task;

  • using contracts for periodic work completion;

  • requiring weekly or repeated quizzes until topic mastery has been achieved;

  • using short assignments that build on one another with regular deadlines and feedback;

  • focusing on the problem of “giving in to feeling good” by developing an awareness of the problem and its subversive effects on achievement;

  • developing volitional skills, such as managing intrusive negative emotions and controlling impulses;

  • establishing fixed daily routines;

  • blocking access to short-term temptations and distractions such as social media; and

  • using peer monitoring and self-appraisal methods to improve academic conscientiousness.


Pychyl’s blog includes a podcast interview with Laura Rabin in which she describes how a neuropsychological perspective can inform our understanding of the role of executive function in procrastination. To listen to Dr. Rabin’s interview now, click on http://iprocrastinate.libsyn.com/a-neuropsychological-perspective-on-procrastination.

To learn more about how the BRIEF measures executive function, visit the PAR Web site (www.parinc.com) and navigate to the BRIEF product page.

*Rabin, L. A., Fogel, J., & Nutter-Upham, K. E. (2011). Academic procrastination in college students: The role of self-reported executive function. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 33, 344-357.
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!).

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