What is a School Psychologist?



School psychologists provide a variety of services that promote student success and improve school support systems, including:

Consultation and Collaboration

  • Give healthy and effective alternatives to teachers, parents, and administrators to address difficulties in learning and/or behavior
  • Help others understand child development and how it affects learning and behavior
  • Strengthen working relationships between educators, parents, and community services
  • Work with teachers to support effective, individualized instruction
  • Participate in assessment and eligibility teams to determine a student's most appropriate educational placement

Assessments

  • Conduct psychological evaluations to assess abilities, learning strengths and weaknesses, and emotional/social functioning
  • Design and implement curriculum based assessments
  • Conduct functional behavioral assessments (FBAs) to drive the design of Behavior Intervention plans (BIP)

Interventions

  • Utilize a problem-solving framework to identify and address learning and behavior problems that interfere with school success
  • Provide counseling, social skills training and mentoring for students struggling with social, emotional and behavioral problems.
  • Help families and schools deal with crises such as death, illness, or community trauma
  • Assist with development and implementation of individualized academic and behavioral interventions (i.e. through the Child Study process)
  • Monitor and collect data to determine intervention effectiveness

Prevention

  • Design programs for children at risk of academic failure
  • Provide parents and teachers with the skills to cope with disruptive behavior
  • Implement school-wide prevention programs that help maintain positive school climates

Adapted from NASP article "What is a School Psychologist?"
http://www.nasponline.org/about_sp/whatis.aspx  (English)