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A Consultation and Training Role for the Behaviourally Oriented Educational Psychologist in School Settings: A Clinical Note

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 October 2014

Ray Wilks*
Affiliation:
Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology
*
Department of Psychology and Intellectual Disability Studies, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Plenty Road, Bundoora VIC 3083, Australia
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Abstract

A 1981 national survey of 335 American educational psychologists found psychological/educational assessment and consultation with teachers and parents are the two most frequently engaged in activities of school psychologists. A behavioural approach to these two activities is considered in the literature to be more effective than a number of other approaches and practices. This clinical note describes a behavioural consultation and training role for educational psychologists which was applied to the issue of improving the reading skills of 12 integrated primary school children. The behavioural consultation involved four phases: problem identification, problem analysis, intervention, and evaluation. Results of the consultation and training indicated a substantial increase in the number of books read, letter-sound knowledge, sight vocabulary, and passage comprehension of the 12 integrated children. Informal assessment of teacher satisfaction with this approach to consultation and training was found to be very positive.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 1994

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References

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