Quiz Flashcards
What criticism of school psychology exist in regards to theory?
- training, research and practice is poorly linked to theory, models and frameworks
- interventions are atheoretical and focus solely on effectiveness and not causal processes or mechanisms of change
What were the findings of Mercer, Idler, and Bartfai (2014) regarding theory in school psychology research?
about 50% of research articles in this field do not attend to theory or contribute to theory
What are common theoretical orientations of counselling psychologists? And to what do they contribute the cause of mental health problems?
- Feminist, multicultural, and social justice
- social environmental explanations
What are common theoretical orientations of clinical psychologists? And to what do they contribute the cause of mental health problems?
- Cognitive behavioural, psychodynamic or psychoanalytic
- With-person causes
Why should we use theory?
- Provides structure to guide our practices and help us solve problems
- Helps us conceptualize data
- helps us increase intervention effectiveness by focusing on the important aspects
- Allows us to flexibly consider other angles and theories if we understand our own
- Helps us to best move the field forward in research and practice
What is a theoretical framework?
- A school of thoughts or domains
- A broad approach or orientations with processes applicable to many different intervention targets and procedures
What are the core domains within school psychology?
- Behavioural
- Cognitive
- Developmental
- Social
- Biological
What is the layout of theories in psychology?
- Broadest category is domains
- Small Theories
- Conceptual framework
What are psychological theories (small theories)?
- a testable set of principles that are well researched and can be used to predict human behaviour
- connected to a particular domain, and lead to particular practices
- help us identify the causality of intervention and expected outcomes
What are conceptual frameworks?
- A network of interlinked concepts that together provide a comprehensive understanding of a phenomenon
- Similar to theory, as they help with data interpretation and conceptualizing underlying constructs
- Less researched, more complex, and more narrow than theories
What is an Integrative or Eclectic Theoretical Approach?
- looks beyond the confines of a single domain approach
- Allows flexible approaches to customize to unique needs and contexts
- Consistent with a call for practitioners to rely on integration of theory and empirical research
What are criticism of eclectic approaches?
- Lack of Organization and structure
- Equated with lazy, sloppy, or unorganized practices
What are the 3 ways to integrate approaches into an eclectic framework?
- Technical Integration
- Theoretical Integration
- Assimilative Integration
What is Technical Integration (eclectic)?
- Systematic selection of techniques from many approaches without necessarily the underpinning theory
- “A variety of tools in the toolkit”
- effectiveness determined by therapists flexibility, versatility, and technical eclecticism
- not heavily theory based
What is Theoretical Integration (eclectic)?
- Create a conceptual framework that synthesizes the best of two or more approaches
- Integrates underlying techniques for each theory
- Most difficult
What is Assimilative Integration (eclectic)?
Grounded in a single orientation, but drawing techniques from other models in as seamless a fashion as possible
What are the benefits of an eclectic practice in school psychology?
- Consistent with calls for SP’s to rely on integration of theory and empirical research
- Consistent with recognition that many major theories are consistent with and build on each other more than competing
- Attends to the diversity in our practice
What is the traditional school psychology service delivery model?
- Refer - test - place and Aptitude - by - treatment interaction (ATI)
- These are largely based on the beliefs that results on tests can be used to drive instruction and intervention
- Largely correlational approach
What are the criticisms of the traditional school psychology service delivery model?
- It is deficit focused
- The empirical support equivocal
What is some of the research against traditional service delivery models?
- Biased decision making and referrals limits the SP’s ability to support all students or even the right students
- the Wait to Fail model often means we are intervening when students are already too far behind
- It does not meaningfully inform intervention as many areas assessed cannot be directly changed, and we have a hard time understanding whether interventions are working
What is behavioural psychology?
focus on changing observable behaviours
focus on single-case design methodology
What are some theories under behavioural psychology?
- Behavioural learning theory
- social learning theory
What are some examples of academic interventions under behavioural psychology?
direct instruction
reinforce accurate responding
functional analyses of academic problems
What are some examples of behavioural interventions under behavioural psychology?
determine if a consequence is negatively reinforcing the behaviour
daily report cards
check in-check out
What is cognitive psychology?
informed by cognitive processing theory, it seeks to modify cognitive abilities or processes such as attention or working memory, most often to improve academic performance
What are some theories under cognitive psychology?
Information processing theory
Cattell-Horn-Carroll (CHC) Theory
Schema theory
Academic Interventions under Cognitive Psychology
repeated rehearsal of associations
reducing retroactive interference
testing effect
mnemonic strategies
Behavioural interventions under Cognitive Psychology
self regulation
social scripts
promoting alternative thinking strategies
What is cognitive-behavioural theory
conceptualizes thoughts and perceptions as mediators of the relations between environmental events and emotional responses, as well as incorporating principles of cognitive and behavioural therapies to address targeted thoughts, behaviours, and/or emotions
What is ecological systems theory?
Under developmental psychology
the study of the multiple interconnected environmental systems that influence individual development
What are theories under developmental psychology?
Ecological systems theory
psychosocial development theory
moral reasoning theory
social development theory
Examples of academic interventions under developmental psychology
teach at an instructional level
early intervention
address developmentally appropriate skills and prerequisite skills
parents support academic learning
Examples of behavioural interventions under developmental psychology
conjoint behavioural consultation
use effective classroom management practices
coordinate efforts across agencies
Incredible Years training
What is social cognitive theory?
incorporating observational learning, self determination theory, or social information-processing approaches
Theories under social psychology
attribution theory
drive theory
social comparison theory
stereotype threat theory
academic interventions under social psychology
provide social supports for academic skill
peer tutoring
behavioural interventions under social psychology
social learning of appropriate behaviour
teachers model behaviour
Assumptions of ecological systems theory
- the student and system are inseparable
- the issue is not solely within the student, but reflects a divergence between student and system
- a disparity exists between the expectations of the student and the students ability
- the focus of intervention should be to close the mismatch between student and system
What are the four areas of student engagement?
- affective engagement - a sense of belonging
- behavioural engagement - participation in school and extracurricular activities
- cognitive engagement - the student’s perception of the relevance of school to future aspirations
- academic engagement - completion of school tasks
What is the learning hierarchy?
a tool to understand the phases of learning through which all people progress when they learn a new school
What are the four phases of the learning hierarchy?
- acquisition - slow and inaccurate performance, need explicit instruction and modeling
- proficiency - students are sufficiently accurate but remain slow and require repetition for automatization
- generalization - the student has speed and accuracy but learning to apply skill to different situations
- adaptation - student can generalize
What is Applied Behaviour Analysis
a branch of professional psychology concerned with the scientific study of important human behaviour and its controlling variables
What are the observations of Skinner’s operant conditioning paradigm?
- organisms emit a variety of behaviours that act or operate on the environment
- certain behaviours but not others are repeated based on the consequences they produce
- organisms have the capacity to learn from the consequences of their actions
What is experimental control?
demonstrating that a treatment is capable of producing changes in behaviour that are large enough to be seen when graphed, occur repeatedly for all participants, and occur for all participants
Characteristics of contemporary ABA
application of a wide variety of principles from experimental operant research, functional analysis, empasis on reinforcement-based procedures, training of direct care providers, and program for the maintenance and generalization of effects
Similarities between RTI and ABA
- emphasis on assessment informing intervention
- systematic monitoring of student progress
- decision-making process based on a student’s response to evidence based interventions
What is Functional Behaviour Assessment?
Assessing problem behaviour to identify its immediate antecedents and consequences (ABC)
What is Functional Behaviour Analysis?
involves the experimental manipulation of conditions that occur before and after a problem behaviour as brief test conditions
goal: to identify with confidence the type of reinforcement that this behaviour uses
What is Brief Experimental Analysis?
involves rapidly exposing a student to different treatment conditions and assessing each condition/s effect on a target behaviour
What is a basic tenant of ABA research>
behavioural treatments should be techological and conceptually systematic, meaning that their principles and procedures should be fully specified and should eliminate, reverse, or weaken the variables actually influencing the occurrence of problem behaviour
What is systematic formative evaluation?
ongoing evaluation of instructional programs based on direct repeated measures of student outcomes
How does postnatal brain development happen?
through selective subtraction of neurons, not addition
humans are born with most of their neurons already developed
What two areas of the brain develop new neurons after birth
hippocampus - used for forming certain types of new memories
Caudate nucleus and putamen (collectively the striatum) - used for forming new memories, especially around skills and habits
How does alcohol impact the developing brain?
- impairs production of neurons
- impairs migration of neurons to their final destinations
- increases apoptosis - programmed cell death
How does the slow development of the prefrontal cortex relate to adolescence?
- inhibition of impulses is lacking, which many attribute teen’s risky and antisocial behaviours to
1a - however, the most risky and antisocial acts are done by a small population with a history of such things - better explanation - lack of inhibition of impulses leads to desire to engage in exciting, thrill-seeking events especially if there is peer praise
How do synapses communicate?
- some synapses that are very exact communicate with electrical signals
- most communicate through the use of neurotransmitters
- three types of synapses - ionotropic, metabotropic, neuromodulators
What is developmentally regulated plasticity?
brain plasticity is greatest during a certain age range, but there is capacity for change outside of that range
What types of activities can enhance brain function?
- near transfer - teach skills we want children to learn and have them practice
- growing up in an enriched environment
- physical activity - increases blood flow to the brain
What is far transfer?
the supposed benefit to cognitive processes from practicing something that is unrelated or distantly related
overall has a weak correlation with improvement in psychological processes
What are common measures of brain activity?
- EEG - electroencephalograph
- MEG - magnetoencephalography
- SPECT - single-photon emission computed tomography
- CAT - computed axial tomography
- PET - Positron emission tomography
- MRI - magnetic resonance imaging
- fMRI - functional magentic resonance imaging
What does an electroencephalograph (EEG) do?
using electrodes glued to the head to measure the mean activity of neurons under the electrodes
often used to measure stages of sleep or seizure activity
limited to measuring neurons at the surface of the brain