Related Posts

• Testing clients with disabilities: Modifications vs. accommodations

  

  During our recent PARtalks webinar series on assessing individuals with disabilities, PAR received some questions about adapting, modifying, and accommodating assessments. It is important to be mindful of a range of psychometric, social, clinical, and disability-related issues. We hope the following will provide helpful guidance when determining if modifications or accommodations are necessary. Considerations when assessing individuals with disabilities There are many issues to consider that may complicate the psychological testing of people with disabilities. It is important to attend to issues of bias, reliability, and validity. Language,  motor, sensory, medical, and cognitive disabilities can impact aspects of an assessment. Additionally, comorbid conditions or secondary disabilities can be a complicating factor. It is crucial for examiners to consider each individual's disability and how it relates to other functions to develop a strategy that ensures the appropriate construct is being measured. For example, disability-related symptoms such as fatigue and pain can confound psychometric tests and artificially inflate measures of depression. Or a motor-functioning disability that affects fine motor control may create results that mistakenly imply cognitive impairment. Examiners who do not take these issues into ...

• Assess written language disorders with the FAW

  

  Students spend nearly 60% of their school day engaged in the process of written expression. Deficits in the writing process can wreak havoc on students’ education. The Feifer Assessment of Writing (FAW) examines the underlying processes that support proficient written language skills. In addition to identifying the possibility of dysgraphia, the FAW is able to determine the specific subtype of dysgraphia. And now, clinicians can save time and effort by scoring the FAW on PARiConnect. What is the FAW? The Feifer Assessment of Writing (FAW) is a diagnostic achievement test designed to examine the underlying cognitive, motoric, and linguistic processes that support proficient written language skills. It is the third and final member of the Feifer family of diagnostic achievement test batteries, joining the Feifer Assessment of Reading (FAR) and the Feifer Assessment of Mathematics (FAM). Results of the FAW help specify, from a neuropsychological perspective, exactly why a student struggles with written language so clinicians can develop appropriate, customized interventions. It also provides additional information about a student’s writing skills that allow users to dig deeper into a student’s abilities. A screening ...

• Which RIAS-2 report is right for you?

  

  The Reynolds Intellectual Assessment Scales, Second Edition (RIAS-2), assesses intelligence and its major components. In addition to providing a full-scale IQ battery for less time and less cost than similar measures, the RIAS-2 is ideal for use as a stand-alone intellectual assessment or as part of a larger battery to diagnose specific disorders, such as intellectual disabilities or learning disabilities. The RIAS-2 can also be used to determine educational placement for gifted students.  RIAS-2 Score Report now available!  The RIAS-2 Score Report is now available as a standalone report via PARiConnect. The score report provides raw scores and T scores for the subtest and index scores, as well as confidence intervals, percentile ranks, and subtest and index profiles. View an example of the new RIAS-2 Score Report.  Client Feedback now included with the Interpretive Report!  In addition to what is included in the RIAS-2 Score Report, the RIAS-2 Interpretive Report offers composite norm-referenced interpretations, subtest interpretations, a discrepancy score summary table, discrepancy interpretations, feedback and recommendations based on composite scores and discrepancy information, as well as recommendations for additional testing. The Client Feedback ...

• APA takes on workplace stress

  

  The changing landscape of workplaces has drawn heightened attention to the needs and expectations of employees nationwide regarding the issues of work–life balance and mental health support.  The recent survey by the American Psychological Association (APA) sheds light on the prevalence of toxic workplaces and their detrimental impact on mental health. Of the data coming out of this survey, most startling was the revelation that 19% of workers reported their workplace as somewhat or very toxic. Even more alarming, those in such environments are three times more likely to suffer mental health harm at work than those individuals who are in nontoxic settings.  This blog discusses the importance of these findings, what employers can do in light of this data, and the role mental health providers can play in supporting individuals facing toxic work situations. Understanding the impact of a toxic work environment  The APA survey brought to light the destructive toll a workplace can have on an individual’s mental well-being.  According to the survey, more than one in five workers revealed they've suffered mental health harm at work. Even worse, reported cases of ...

• The FAW Interpretive Report is here!

  

  The Feifer Assessment of Writing™ Interpretive Report (FAW-IR™) is now available!   Students spend nearly 60% of their school day engaged in the process of written expression. Deficits in the writing process can wreak havoc on students’ education. The FAW examines the underlying processes that support proficient written language skills. In addition to identifying the possibility of dysgraphia, the FAW is able to determine the specific subtype of dysgraphia.   In addition to scoring the FAW, the FAW-IR on PARiConnect provides a general overview of a student’s scores, including index interpretations, discrepancy scores, and intervention recommendations. What makes this interpretive report unique is that it provides strategies and recommendations specific to each individual’s scores. Clinicians can use these additional resources to recommend targeted interventions to help their clients.   The FAW is a diagnostic achievement test designed to examine the underlying cognitive, motoric, and linguistic processes that support proficient written language skills. It is the third and final member of the Feifer family of diagnostic achievement test batteries, joining the Feifer Assessment of Reading (FAR) and the Feifer Assessment of Mathematics (FAM).  Results of the FAW help specify, from a ...

• An interview with the authors of the SPECTRA

  

  This week, Sierra Iwanicki, PhD, project director, spoke to Mark A. Blais, PsyD, and Samuel Justin Sinclair, PhD, the coauthors of the SPECTRA: Indices of Psychopathology to gain more insight into the development and uses of this instrument. What motivated you to create the SPECTRA? Mark A. Blais, PsyD: Several factors combined to motivate the SPECTRA’s development. Like most psychologists, we were concerned about the shortcomings of the DSM’s categorical diagnostic system (e.g., excessive comorbidity, arbitrary thresholds, and within-disorder heterogeneity) and the problems this system created for psychological assessment. Therefore, we were excited by the emergence of multivariate research exploring the structure of adult psychopathology. And as this research accumulated, we became convinced that an instrument based on a hierarchical–dimensional model of psychopathology would have great utility for clinical assessment. Unfortunately, to our knowledge, none of the existing psychological inventories were fully congruent with the hierarchical model. Confident that the hierarchical model of psychopathology had significant clinical utility, we decided to develop the SPECTRA. With funding from the Massachusetts General Hospital’s Department of Psychiatry, we undertook a rigorous development process ...