School psychology training within a competency framework: Transcending the past, present, and future.

In this special issue, Conoley et al. (2020) repeat the call for a paradigm shift in school psychology graduate education from the individual level to the system level and from secondary and tertiary intervention to primary prevention and implementation science to optimize environments for children's overall health and success. This article describes how school psychology training, as organized by professional standards of practice and credentialing, has evolved to its current status as a recognized specialty of practice within psychology. A review of the history of the accreditation and approval of school psychology programs, as well as the current status of competencies within these standards and procedures are presented. In addition, school psychology as a distinct specialty; various certifications, credentials, and licensure; professional identities; and recent developments in technology, telehealth, and cross-state credentialing are examined. The article includes a summary of how competencies are reflected in the most recent revisions of American Psychological Association accreditation, National Association of School Psychologists approval standards, and credentialing organizations such as Association of State and Provincial Psychology Boards. Finally, we conclude with the assertion that development and adoption of these standards, competencies and professional recognition certifications, which are informed by the current zeitgeist in both health and education more broadly, might propel school psychology to fulfill the promise not yet achieved as outlined by Conoley and colleagues (2020). (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

The effects of training parents in functional behavior assessment on problem identification, problem analysis, and intervention design.

In this study, parents were trained in four sessions to identify problems, conduct a functional assessment, and design an appropriate intervention based on the function of the problem behavior. First, parents were trained to operationally define problem behaviors, given examples of consequences, and discussed the functions of behavior. Second, parents were given examples of antecedents and discussed replacement behaviors. Third, procedures to increase appropriate behaviors were discussed. Fourth, procedures to decrease inappropriate behaviors were discussed. Prior to the first session and after each session, parents watched a videotaped vignette of a child exhibiting a behavior problem and completed a Problem Identification Questionnaire, Problem Analysis Questionnaire, and Intervention Design Questionnaire. A repeated-measures ANOVA was used to test for significant differences on each of the dependent variables. Results indicated that parents' scores on each of the measures improved significantly. Limitations, future research ideas, and implications for school psychologists and other professionals are discussed.