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.

Are you attending the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) Annual Convention? Make sure to stop by the PAR booth while you are in San Antonio! You can use your conference discount to order your favorite assessment products or learn about our newest releases while visiting with PAR staff and authors.

Stop by the PAR booth to meet the following authors and experts:

Cecil Reynolds, PhD, Wednesday, February 22, 12:30 to 1:30 p.m.

Scott Poland, DEd, Wednesday, February 22, 4:30 to 5:30 p.m.

Steven Feifer, DEd, Thursday, February 23, 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

Peter Isquith, PhD, Thursday, February 23, 3:30 to 4:30 p.m.

 

And don’t miss these presentations:

Reynolds Intellectual Assessment Scales, Second Edition (RIAS-2): Development, Psychometrics, Applications, and Interpretation

Cecil Reynolds, PhD

Wednesday, February 22, 2:30 to 4 p.m.

 

Increasing the School Psychologist’s Role and Improving Defensible Threat Assessment

Scott Poland, DEd, and Julie Alexander Gettman, PhD

Wednesday, February 22, 2:30 to 4 p.m.

 

The Neuropsychology of Mathematics: Diagnosis and Intervention

Steven Feifer, DEd

Thursday, February 23, 8:00 to 9:50 a.m.

 

A Neuropsychological Approach for Identifying and Remediating Specific Reading Disorders

Steven Feifer, DEd

Friday, February 24, 8:00 to 9:20 a.m.

 

A Neuropsychological Approach for Identifying and Remediating Specific Math Disorders

Steven Feifer, DEd

Friday, February 24, 10:00 to 11:20 a.m.

 

Memory Assessment Matters: Recent Developments in Memory Science, Assessment, and Intervention

Julie Alexander Gettman, PhD, and Kathleen Woodward, EdS

Friday, February 24, 12:00 to 1:50 p.m.

 

Looking forward to seeing you in Texas!

The PAR Training Portal is designed with your valuable time in mind, giving you a quick way to become acquainted with select PAR assessments. Whether you become more knowledgeable about a test you know and use or you preview an instrument you are considering purchasing, the PAR Training Portal is a free, on-demand resource available 24/7.

Here are five things you should know about the PAR Training Portal:

1. You can watch the whole course or skip to the parts you are most interested in! Each interactive course offers a course topics menu on the left-hand side of the screen that allows you to navigate to any page within the course. You don't need to watch every screen and can select the parts that are most important for your needs. Arrows allow you to move to the next page or previous page in the course.


2. There are many types of offerings! In addition to interactive courses, there are also recorded Webinars, supplemental materials, author videos, and notifications of upcoming live events and sessions!


3. We are always adding new material! If you haven’t visited in a while, there is so much to see! In fact, a recorded Webinar on the PDD Behavior Inventory was just added recently! Check it out!


4. All courses are free… and you can watch them as many times as you want! Sometimes you just need a refresher on the finer points of an assessment. Stop by the portal for a quick reminder of what you need to know.


5. The PAR Training Portal is a great way to train an individual or a whole staff! Many schools have used the portal to train all the individuals in their group. It’s an efficient and cost-effective solution for training.

Visit www.parinc.com/training today for FREE training!

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.