On Vacation

PsychoEd @ TheDatabase.org will be on vacation for a few weeks as I am off to Europe! Updates will begin again upon my return.

Workshop: ONBIDA Toronto 2007

A little late notice on this one, but it looks like sessions are still open. The Ontario Branch of the International Dyslexia Association always produces a great conference focused on reading disabilities. Sessions are targeted towards Psych, SLP, SERTS, and also have the occasional parent based session (already full for that one unfortunately).

You can view the conference by CLICKING HERE.

Here's a break down:

Conference: IDA Ontario, 3rd Annual Conference
Date: Saturday, May 26, 2007
Location: Toronto

Keynote: Written Expression: From Sounds through Sentences

• Speaker: Dr. Pamela Hook
• Description: The missing link for many students who struggle with writing is automaticity and fluency of writing at the word and sentence levels. This session will focus on processes involved in spelling and sentence level writing as important factors in written expression. The relationship of these skills to underlying spoken language abilities will be highlighted. Error analysis will be used to demonstrate areas of difficulty, and strategies and techniques for enhancing skills in these areas will be presented.

Title: Using Assistive Technology to Improve Written Expression

• Speaker: Kendra Grant
• Description: This workshop will provide an overview of assistive technology and an exploration of the pros and cons of each one (cost, prerequisite skills, availability, ease of use, suitability, etc.) Through demonstration, participants will learn how the various software programmes bypass roadblocks to written expression: Word prediction software; Voice recognition software; Screen reader software; Visual digital organizer software

Title: Strategies for Boosting Adolescent Writing at the Paragraph and Multi-Paragraph Level

• Speaker: Dr. Charles Haynes
• Description: Students with deficits in retrieving and manipulating speech information typically struggle to express themselves in writing. These same adolescents are at risk for failing socially and academically. Through lecture, discussion, and hands-on activities, participants will learn practical strategies and techniques for supporting, or ‘scaffolding’, students’ development of oral and written expression. Examples of theme-centred skills instruction at the paragraph and essay levels will be explored, and special attention will be given to techniques for developing self-monitoring, elaboration and flexibility. Examples from seventh through twelfth grades will be provided. This session will be of particular interest to regular education teachers, speech-language pathologists, reading-writing specialists, English as a Second Language instructors, advocates, and others who want to learn research-based ideas for spoken-written language intervention. Comprehensive handouts will be provided.

Title: Early Intervention – Reading, Writing, Phonemic Awareness

• Speaker: Dr. Pamela Hook
• Description: The importance of individualizing instruction as early as possible in areas related to reading and writing has become increasingly evident. This session will highlight issues related to phonemic awareness and reading acquisition for the beginning and struggling reader. Specific techniques will be addressed for 1) assessing skills related to phonemic awareness and reading/writing; 2) identifying salient patterns of strengths and weaknesses: and 3) implementing generic techniques for developing these skills. Implications of the three-tiered model and response to intervention will also be discussed.

ADHD Medication & Real World Distractions

The University of Virginia has an interesting ongoing study in the works that will examine the effects of ADHD medications on real world distractions. The concern of the authors is that current clinical studies on the inhibition of distractibility with ADHD medications are based on highly controlled settings, and thus may not translate well to the real world.

Given the high rate of auto accidents within the young adult ADHD population the current study uses car mounted cameras to examine the effectiveness of stimulant usage. One interesting previous study they note found that manual shift cars actually decreased the incidents for students compared to automatics. My guess is that the act of having to shift requires the subject to frequently be reengaged into the driving process. An interesting result.

If you would like to follow the study you can find some information HERE and HERE.

Questions ...

Nothing interesting in a post today .. just some random thoughts.

I was reading an amazingly uninteresting article on item order effecting subtest outcomes (nothings more interesting then the writings of statisticians!) that was suggesting that the order of items (difficulty gradients, potential for success/failure, etc.) can effect testing results beyond simple predefined test ceilings due to children reaching discontinue rules. Basically students reactions to test items can effect performance on future items. It makes sense how this can occur since previous items obviously effect future frames attitude and many other factors.

You could see this with children with low frustration tolerance and poor nonverbal skills who do poorly on WISC-IV's block design and get frustrated right from the start of the testing session (on a side note: to avoid this setting a trend that testing will be a negative experience I would suggest using a supplemental measure or another brief test). It can take a bit to get them back on board.

What this had me wondering about is how this same problem may also occur on non-ceiling or power (speed) tests that children may face in school. I remember one ADHD college student I came across who needed a lot of priming to reach optimal attention levels. As a result this student absolutely had to start with the hardest questions on a test. This would cue the student in and bring his/her a level of focus that would transfer backwards to easier items. If the student started with the easiest items he/she would quickly lose all focus and perform quite poorly.

Cognitive Models in Educational Measurement

I came across an interesting article in the journal Educational Measurement: Issues in Practice (Summer 2007) regarding the use of varied cognitive models in educational based assessment. Coverage goes from large scale group type assessments (like Stanford Achievement's) all the way to individual domain specific diagnostic assessments (like progressive matrices).

The article suggests that there is three primary trends in cognitive evaluation (they use the term cognitive and behavioural pretty loosely):

1. Cognitive Model of Test Specific - Academic oriented evaluations of foundational and applied achievement skill sets. Interestingly they refer to it as "curriculum" free though it very clearly is material learned in academic contexts. Test design is based on expectations of what test takers should be able to do regardless of where they attended school. This is essentially the beginning and ending of foundational hypotheses for this model. They use college based entrance exams as an example.
2. Cognitive Model of Domain Mastery - Tapping similar domains as above but is essentially the hallmark of curriculum based assessment. District specific and adaptable measures like DEBELS and AIMSWeb would be examples of this.
3. Cognitive Model of Task Performance - This is more in line with our ability/cognitive batteries in that they evaluate theoretically driven models of thinking as opposed to the resulting output of that organized thought (achievement). The article states that this is the most theoretically sound type of evaluation but that it is limited in the range of skills it covers.

The main purpose of the article was to note the limitations of each of these domains and that administrators need to be aware of them when devising measurement strategies. I found the article interesting in that it validated to me that a thorough psychoeducational assessment clearly falls within each of these domains to some degree. But are awareness of the degree in which this is true is helpful. While, achievement testing clearly involves parts of both test specific and domain mastery it is further loaded towards a norm validated test specific model. This explains to some degree the variation that we see between the results of standardized achievement testing and teacher reported and CBM results.

The article is a worthwhile read and is available online (for a fee) at THIS LINK.