Related Posts

• What’s coming from PAR

  

  At PAR, we are always working on updating, enhancing, and creating new assessment offerings to help you better serve the needs of your clients. We are currently working hard on several new releases and wanted to take this opportunity to give you a sneak peek into what is coming soon.  Emotional Disturbance Decision Tree (EDDT)  Coming later this summer, PAR will introduce a more streamlined way to use the EDDT products—both online and on paper. This update to the EDDT will combine all three versions (Teacher, Parent, and Self-Report) into one manual, further simplifying the assessment of emotional disturbance (ED). Additionally, updates to the PARiConnect administration experience will allow users to decide at the time of administration which form they wish to use, enhancing flexibility.  The EDDT is the first instrument of its kind to provide a standardized approach to the assessment of ED that maps on to all the federal IDEA criteria and addresses the broad emotional and behavioral nuances of children who may require special education services for ED.  “This will update will help users by combining all the EDDT information ...

• Coming soon! A new neurocognitive screener

  

  This fall, PAR will add a new neuropsychological assessment instrument to our lineup: the Older Adult Cognitive Screener (OACS), an all-digital informant rating scale that enables you to make quick decisions about your older clients’ (ages 55 to 90 years) mental status. The OACS is designed for early screening of dementia symptoms and will assist with follow-up determinations, including initiating or referring your clients for comprehensive diagnostic testing. Administration and scoring take only 10 minutes. Working with authors Cecil R. Reynolds, PhD, and Erin D. Bigler, PhD, our goal as we’ve developed the OACS was to provide a rapid, cost-effective, and valid means of screening older adults for cognitive dysfunction based on the observations and knowledge of a reliable caregiver, family member, or friend (e.g., spouse or home health care worker). Unlike on similar measures, OACS items map directly onto the six principal domains of neurocognitive function identified in the DSM-5®: executive function, complex attention, language, perceptual–motor, social cognition, and learning and memory. Activities of daily living (ADLs) are also assessed. Related article: TICS: ASSESS FOR COGNITIVE IMPAIRMENT REMOTELY Another significant ...

• Overcoming Your Inner Critic

  Beginning on September 14, PAR author Lisa Firestone, PhD, will be offering a six-week online eCourse entitled, “Overcome Your Inner Critic: How to Free Yourself from Imagined Limitations.” Dr. Firestone explains, “Each of us has an ‘inner critic’ judging our every action and instructing us on how to live our lives. But how much are we letting this inner critic control us? Are our actions based on what we really feel and believe, or are we living our lives based on our inner critic’s negative programing? Learning to effectively overcome our ‘critical inner voice’ is central to all areas of life: personal development, healthy relationships, self-esteem, and career success.” In the course, participants will learn about ways to counter self-critical thoughts, develop a healthy outlook, and focus on positive goals. For an interesting visual introduction to the topic, be sure to check out Dr. Firestone's whiteboard animation, “The Critical Inner Voice.” For more information about the eCourse and how to sign up, visit the PsychAlive eCourses Web site. Dr. Firestone is the Director of Research and Education at The Glendon Association and author ...

• Understanding and Preventing Violence: Two Upcoming Webinars

  Noted psychologist and violence prevention expert Dr. Lisa Firestone will be conducting a CE webinar for mental health professionals, as well as a free webinar for the public, this March and April. Dr. Firestone is the coauthor of several PAR publications including the Firestone Assessment of Self-Destructive Thoughts™ (FAST™) and the Firestone Assessment of Violent Thoughts ™ (FAVT™). Violence Prevention: Understanding and Assessing Risk A CE Webinar for Professionals with Dr. Lisa Firestone Tuesday, March 8, 2011, 7:00–8:30 pm EST The prodigious rates of violence in our country establish a need for an understanding and accurate assessment of violence risk. This webinar will address these concerns by providing participants with a developmental understanding of violence and a method for assessing violence risk. To more effectively deal with the public health problem of violence, it is important to integrate knowledge from several disciplines to enhance our understanding of the many factors that contribute to an individual’s potential for violence. In this webinar, Dr. Firestone, a leading expert on violence, will integrate findings from the fields of neuroscience, attachment, and psychology. Learning objectives for this ...

• Coming this fall: PAI Plus!

  

  We’ve heard the requests. And we listened! The PAI Plus is coming this fall! The PAI Plus takes the existing PAI items and gives users an updated way to interpret the data. Using the PAI, an objective inventory of adult personality, the new PARiConnect report offers: • DSM-5® update: Updated diagnostic possibilities align with the DSM criteria. • Alternative Model Profile: An optional new profile scores in accordance with the Alternative Model for Personality Disorders. • Additional supplemental indices: Based on years of academic research, 15 new supplemental indices provide additional profile information related to negative and positive distortion and random responding. Supplemental clinical indicators provide profile information related to suicidality, aggression, level of care, presence of ADHD, and more. • Context-specific norm groups: Including profile overlays for bariatric surgery candidates, child custody evaluations, chronic pain patients, college students, deployed military, egg donors/gestational carriers, motor vehicle accident claimants, police applicants, and potential kidney donors. This profile is overlayed onto the examinee’s profile to allow for comparison. • Updated report: An updated look and feel create a streamlined and modern-looking report. A manual supplement details the research, theory, and development behind this update. To determine the right ...

• Coming this summer, reordering will be a snap!

  

  We are hard at work on a brand new www.parinc.com experience! Visit us this summer, and it will be even easier to reorder your favorite products. Simply log in and we will show you your recent orders and allow you to quickly restock your inventory and get back to what you are do best--helping people! This is just one of the improvements you will find on our new site. If you have any questions, please visit our overview blog.