When it comes to common fears, snakes, heights and confined spaces seem to grab all the headlines. But there are hundreds of other phobias we struggle from, including some you may never have heard of:

1.  Chionophobia: February 13, 2010 must have been a particularly bad day for Americans suffering from Chionophobia – a fear of snow. On that day, 49 out of 50 states had snow on the ground. The holdout? Hawaii.

2.  Coulrophobia: Finally! A proper name for our fear of clowns. Coulrophobia often originates with an early childhood experience that’s, well, not very funny.

3.  Phronemophobia: This could win the award for being the world’s most difficult phobia to treat -- the fear of thinking.

4.  Telephonophobia: No word on whether this phobia – a fear of telephones – extends to text messages.

5.  Geniophobia: We were certain this referred to a fear of genies, but the only genies that could scare a Geniophobe would be those with … chins.

Assuming that you don’t suffer from Sesquipedalophobia (fear of long words), we’d like to hear about other unusual phobias you know about. Please use the comment section below to add to our list.

PAR is proud to announce that the following software products are now available for direct download to your computer through our Web site, www.parinc.com:

• Reynolds Intellectual Assessment Scales™ Interpretive Report (RIAS™-IR)


• Wide Range Achievement Test 4 Interpretive Report (WRAT4-IR)


• Wide Range Achievement Test 4 Scoring Program (WRAT4-SP)


• Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function® Software Portfolio (BRIEF®-SP)


• Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function®–Adult Version Software Portfolio (BRIEF®-A SP)


• Personality Assessment Inventory™ Software Portfolio (PAI®-SP) Counter Serial Numbers


• Personality Assessment Inventory™–Adolescent Software Portfolio (PAI®-A SP) Counter Serial Numbers

Simply click on the product page link and select the Download item code or the Download with CD-ROM item code to have a backup CD mailed to you.

We hope you will enjoy being able to download software products directly from PAR and hope to make more products available in this way in the future. We are conducting a survey to see which other software products you would like to be made available in this format.


We appreciate your feedback. Thank you for helping us to understand how we can better serve you.

Recently PAR held a contest and asked its Customers to describe, in 300 words or less, their involvement in their favorite local charities. The winners are listed below and will receive cash donations in their names to the charities they submitted and support - $500 for the first place winner, $350 for second place winner, and $250 for the third place winner.

The winner of the PAR Community PARtners contest is Robert Mintz from Short Hills, NJ. Robert nominated a charity called Down The Block (http://www.downtheblock.org) that provides assistance to local residents who find themselves in financial distress. Robert described the charity as a “hyper-local” non-profit organization located in Millburn Township, NJ that focuses on assisting those who are not eligible for traditional support.

The second place winner is Shaun Keel who nominated Foster A Life (http://www.fosteralife.com). The organization’s mission is to provide services and opportunities to foster children to promote a more positive self-image and an increase in their self-esteem. They are a 100% volunteer organization, so all funding goes directly to the children.

The third place winner is Judith Mathewson who submitted an organization named Welcome Home Vets (http://www.whvets.org). This organization focuses on providing psychological, financial, or spiritual help to veterans returning home from combat as well as to their families.

Our congratulations and thanks to each of you for all the good work you do in your communities!

Download the entries from the winning contestants.

 

For more information about PAR's involvement in the community, please visit Community PARtners.

Due to Customer requests for a non-iPhone version of our successful application, the PAR Assessment Toolkit is now available on a variety of platforms and devices!

The PAR Assessment Toolkit can be accessed for free on any internet-enabled computer or mobile device. This helpful resource includes...

• A Normal Curve, along with associated standard score conversions for a variety of metrics, that can be used to convey results to clients or professionals;


• A Conversion Chart, which enables you to rapidly convert between T scores, z scores, percentiles, and standard scores;


• An Age Calculator, which quickly generates an individual’s exact age in years, months, and days after you input his or her birth date;


• A Mental Age Determiner, which enables you to input an individual’s chronological age and IQ and receive an estimate of his or her mental age;


• A Stopwatch, which assists in the monitoring of timed assessments or performance tasks by enabling you to count down from a specified amount of time or count up from 00:00; and


• A Compliancy Calculator, which helps you to comply with state and/or district mandates by quickly calculating the deadline for initial appointment set-up.

Dear Colleagues,

There are so many new and exciting things to tell you about—our newly updated Web site, our first blog, and the release of several innovative new products; and the availability of the Mini-Mental® State Examination, 2nd Edition™ (MMSE®-2™) forms in 10 new languages. I encourage you to take a few minutes to browse our Web site or download a PDF of our latest catalog and discover all that we have to offer.

Download a PDF of our latest catalog.

I am delighted to announce the upcoming release of four new products: the NEO™ Inventories (NEO-PI-3™/NEO-FFI-3™), the Emotional Disturbance Decision Tree™–Parent Form (EDDT™-PF), the Inventory of Legal Knowledge™ (ILK™), and the Memory for Intentions Test™ (MIST™).

• The NEO-PI-3™ is a concise measure of the five major domains of personality, as well as the six traits that define each domain. Designed to provide a detailed assessment of personality in adolescents and adults, this new edition is appropriate for use with adolescents ages 12 years or older. Thirty-eight items have been revised or edited to lower the reading level and make the instrument more appropriate for younger examinees. In addition, new NEO tools have been created to enhance the usability of the NEO-PI-3™ in occupational and clinical settings. The  also has been revised.


• The EDDT™-PF is designed to assist in the identification of children who qualify for the federal special education category of emotional disturbance (ED). Because many school districts require parental input when making eligibility decisions, the EDDT™-PF was developed to provide a standardized approach to the assessment of ED that encompasses the federal guidelines and addresses the broad emotional and behavioral nuances of this population.


• The ILK™ is a 61-item, orally administered interview designed to help practitioners and researchers quickly evaluate response style in adolescents and adults undergoing evaluations for competence to proceed.


• The MIST™ is an examiner-administered performance-based test of prospective memory skills—the ability to remember to carry out a task in the future.

Additionally, the new MMSE®-2™ forms are being translated into 10 languages, including Spanish for the U.S., German, Italian, Chinese, Dutch, Latin American Spanish, French, Russian, European Spanish, and Hindi. These translations will be available soon. Contact our Customer Support Center for more information.

Finally, I want to thank you for your continued support and for your business. We sincerely appreciate the opportunity to serve you.

R. Bob Smith III, PhD, Chairman and CEO

P.S. PAR has evaluated its proprietary software for compatibility with the recently released Windows® 7. Download our Windows 7 Compatibility Chart to find out if the version of PAR software you are using is compatible with Windows 7. If you have further questions, please call Technical Support at 1.800.899.8378.