Alphabet Soup

I once worked with a 6-year old boy who was referred for a special education assessment following a report from a clinical psychologist that diagnosed him with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Anxiety Disorder—Not otherwise Specified (NOS), Tic Disorder, Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and a Speech and Language Disorder. He was also being seen by a neurologist for a sleep disorder. The summary page read a lot like, ASD, ADHD, ASD, LMNOP. XYZ. That is a lot of diagnoses for a 6 year old.

I expected this child to be falling apart in the classroom. After all, he was anxious, hyperactive, inattentive, autistic, couldn’t speak or understand language, was having tics, and was working on barely any sleep. What I found was a friendly little boy working in a small group of students on an art project. He was sharing his art supplies, taking turns with the green marker, and sitting in his chair. At one point, he went to the teacher and gave her a hug. He used a robot-like voice with her, saying "I sure am glad you are my teacher." During an academic setting, he struggled with math—he counted 1-2-5-7-8 on his fingers when working out if there were more red or green marbles. Reading appeared to be a strong skill for him. He read outloud fairly fluently when called on to read from a predictable rhyming book.

On the playground, I observed him playing ball with some other boys. He was bossy. He demanded that they all play kickball and ignored other suggestions. There was nothing outrageous about his behavior though. After double-checking that I was indeed observing the same child as the report, I was perplexed.

Did I catch this kid on the best day of his life? It was unclear where the symptoms of his hefty portion of alphabet soup o’ diagnoses had gone. What was clear is that I needed more information. The teacher and mom shared that the boy sometimes “misperceived social situations” or “got upset for no reason.” I asked the teacher and parent for examples. His teacher said that last week, he told the boy to “Put your eyes on your own paper!” and he screamed “No!!! Gross!!!” The week before, he started crying when the teacher asked him to “Give me your hand.” He yelled “No!!! It’s mine!” His mom said that one time he went up to a man on the street and asked him if he wanted to go to school with him. Now that’s kind of odd, you have to admit.

What disability results in these types of social difficulties? He had a hard time interpreting metaphors and abstract language. He was bossy with peers. He had major difficulties in math (and ultimately on all visual tasks I gave him). This was a student who on the first day of testing bounded over to me like Tigger and grabbed my hand to show me where the testing room was; the next day he gave me a huge “hi-five,” and then one second later asked point blank, “Wait. Do I know you?”

A number of hypotheses came to mind about what was going on for this little guy---and most of them fell somewhere along the Autism Spectrum. School psychologists could write multiple dissertations on the differential diagnoses of Autism from Aspergers, Nonverbal Learning Disabilities, ADHD, PDD, and all the other diagnoses this boy had from the clinical setting. And after we published said dissertations, we would still meet a kid the next day who didn’t quite fit in any of these diagnostic categories. We might say to a colleague, I’m working with this kid whose kind of “spectrumy.”

After obtaining all the information, this little guy was ultimately diagnosed with a Nonverbal Learning Disability (NLD)*, based upon his poor visual processing, difficulties with language pragmatics, and problems reading social cues. Making differential diagnoses is one of the most difficult parts of our jobs. Some have argued that these diagnoses are arbitrary, and that we should just give kids what they need. It is tempting, I must admit, to pour the alphabet soup o’ diagnoses down the proverbial drain. I am torn though, because a good diagnosis can provide information about how to intervene. I will take the middle road and say that a diagnosis is good to the degree that it provides access to services and appropriate intervention.

*The best book on NLD I’ve found is called (big surprise!) Nonverbal Learning Disabilities: A Clinical Perspective, by Joseph Palombo. It details the diagnosis, assessment, and intervention with this population of students.

What's Right in Education?

I received my Teachers Union* magazine today, made a face of disgust, and promptly deposited it in the recycling. My fiancée raised an eyebrow, but didn’t inquire. Unsolicited, I explained that though I like to be informed about issues in education, it’s depressing to read my Union magazine. Once, a roommate of mine saw that it arrived and told me that my Bitter Teachers’ Quarterly had arrived. She called it this because there is usually a picture on the front cover of either a) Angry teachers picketing for a living wage/health insurance/school supplies, or b) Haggard-looking teacher leaning over a quasi-interested student. And the articles pretty much follow the cover themes, every month.

I’m all for unions and fighting for social justice, but I wish BTQ would expand their coverage. I don’t mean they need to turn into Teachers Unions for the Soul, but throw us a positive bone once in a while! Maybe they could integrate stories of union victories and how to advocate within your own district, positive policy changes, or inspirational stories of working within a less than perfect system. And if someone made me Editor, I would promise to never, ever, use the phrase “No Child Left Behind” or “Highly Qualified Teacher” ever again. Ever.

It’s a hazard in education (especially urban education) to fall into telling only the horror stories, injustices, and tribulations of our profession. I am guilty too. It is the fodder for teachers’ lounge conversations around the country, psychologist staff meetings, and sometimes my very own dinner table. It usually starts with “You are not going to believe that [insert injustice] happened at school today.” Rare are the days that I get together with my psychologist colleagues and compare notes about what is working well in our respective schools. It is far more juicy to tell the tales of our job in a Fox Reality Show fashion. **

Part of the problem is the nature of our jobs. We help determine when the students are failing enough to require special education services. Our job is largely to find disabilities, processing deficits, emotional problems, developmental and social problems, and areas of academic weakness to determine that general education is not going to cut it. Though I try to integrate student strengths in my assessment reports, usually they are in one paragraph or peppered in my report as areas of “relative strengths.” One might call me Debbie Downer, Ph.D.

Fortunately, there is a movement toward Positive Psychology. The entire NASP conference this year is on Resilience—how students succeed in the face of adversity. It’s a great step in the right direction.

*In my district, Psychologists are in the Teacher’s Union. We aren’t cool enough to have our very own union.

**I could produce the first season of When Middle Schools Go Wild!

Can I Get Another Helping?

In the sprit of Thanksgiving, I am going to tell a tale about over-helping.

A few years ago at one of my middle schools, I fell into the over-helping trap, which is essentially solving a child’s problem for him or her. It’s easy to do. After all, I’m a therapist! I help people! They need me! That’s why they came to ME for help! But if I always solve the child’s problem for him or her, what is the implicit message or mental representation of the situation? You cannot solve problems on your own—you must always go to a helper. Of course, there are situations in which it is appropriate to solve a problem for a child, like in an emergency situation, but this is referring to the run-of-the-mill peer conflict.

Here’s a quick exercise. Think of your favorite helping moment. Go ahead, I’ll wait. Mmmm…coffee break…oh! You’re back. Great. What was your favorite helping moment? Was it a time when you were helped by someone? Maybe when someone helped you move? Or when a friend was really there for you? Most likely not. When I do this exercise live, most people think of a time when they helped someone else. Why? Because it feels good to help.

Back to our regularly scheduled middle school story. The research on aggression has indicated that girls participate in relational aggressionwhich consists of everything on the continuum from eye rolling to spreading rumors and a personal favorite of middle schoolers: exclusion and loyalty turf war. It’s a phenomenon I like to call “Fren-a-mies”—one day friends, the next day, enemies.

Two 6th grade girls were plopped in my office—one in tears, one with arms crossed and eyes-a-rollin’. Turns out that Teary Girl was sad that Mad Girl was hanging out with her “enemies” and Mad Girl was mad because she has a right to hang out with whomever she pleases. It became clear that the “enemies” were mad at Teary because they heard she said Enemy #1 was fat. Teary denies it. Enemy 1 would not join the mediation. Enter Enemy #2, cousin of Enemy #1. E2 asked Teary if she said E1 was fat. Teary denied it. E2 says she was mad because ever since the beginning of school, Teary's cousins were mugging E1 and E2 in the hallway and E2 thought they were going to fight after school. Deep breath…..and then it was all uncovered that Teary doesn't even know E1, let alone call her fat in the first place. Mad Girl and E2 were still torn between loyalties without talking to E1. But E1 wasn’t ready to talk yet.*

So the “conflict mediation” was left with: “sometimes people aren’t ready to work things out when they are mad. Teary, call off your cousins. And Good Luck.”

My instinct was to pull out E1 later and find out the story and get her to see Teary’s perspective and help all 4 girls (plus extraneous cousins) put their problem in a box, tie it up neatly, and voila! It’s solved. I felt unsatisfied with the outcome. Teary was still Teary, Mad Girl was still Mad, and the "Enemies" were still excluding Teary. I felt helpless (probably not as helpless as the girls though).

Fast-forward two days. Things move quickly in middle schools, try to keep up. Teary runs up to me in the hall, eyes lit up with exuberance and she exclaims, “Dr. Bell! Dr. Bell! We resolved the conflict!!!” I couldn’t have been prouder. It was a far better resolution to me solving the problem for them and giving a nice little lesson on rumors. If I had done that, I would have denied them the opportunity to work through the difficulty and feel proud that they had resolved the conflict on their own. From then on out, they were all Best! Friends! Forever!**

*Image for you: Me and 3 girls trotting down hall to pull out E1 from class. E1 sees Teary and says, "Oh Hell No!" and returns to class. How do these things get so complicated?
**Until the Halloween Dance, when boys got in the mix.

You Totally Forgot My Holiday

This week is National School Psychologist Awareness Week! Surprisingly, I haven’t heard one salutation, no flowers, no candy, no cards, nothing. Why? Because I forgot to tell anyone. I’m my own worst P.R. agent. The National Association of School Psychologists gave me fair warning, too. In fact, they sent a real shiny poster of happy children with their school psychologist to display kids’ resilience. And the poster is smashed in my trunk next to all my test kits. I meant to put it up, really! I just got busy. I had 5895729857938 meetings and 58495723875983 kids to test and 879845793875 messages to return, and the week slipped away.*

And herein lies the problem. Besides being known as the Lady Who Puts People in Special Ed, I don’t make time to explain how school psychologists are so much more than special education assessors. Why? Because I’m usually assessing a kid. Now I love doing assessments because I get to have positive interactions with kids, but I am also trained to do prevention, intervention, counseling, consultation, and program development. That’s tough to squeeze that in between assessments.**

We as school psychologists must advocate for ourselves and push our districts and legislators for expanded roles if we want our profession to be viewed as more than special ed gatekeepers. In fact, I’m going to get that poster out of my trunk tomorrow and proudly display it in my janitors-closet-turned-office. And fret not, you still have tomorrow to lavish me and/or your local school psychologist with accolades!

*I never exaggerate. EVER.

**Made up school psych fact based on my own experience (N=1): The average assessment for a learning disability from start to finish, including the IEP meeting takes about 10 clock hours. Assessments for more complex disabilities such as Emotional Disturbance, AD/HD, Autism, etc. take about 20 clock hours. I carry on average 10 assessments at one time, all due in 60 days (including weekends, so it’s more like 45 school days). Assuming half LD, half others, I average 15 hrs per assessment.

Assume there are no field trips, assemblies, minimum days, tests the kid can’t miss, or absences. There are about 250 instructional minutes per day (about 4 real testing hours) after lunch, recess and transitions, so total about *beep boop beep boop calculator noise* 180 hrs for testing and I have 150 hrs of work. That’s if I don’t have to drive to another school, do any paperwork, go to a staff meeting, or talk to anyone. And that, my friends, is why one of my counselors at a school said I should get roller skates so I can move quicker from one student to the next.

Ch-Ch-Changes!

Who wants to try an experiment about change? Don't all raise your hands at once!

Here's the experiment: Before reading this post, change one thing about your appearance, like switch your watch to your other hand, wear your hair down instead of up, put your wallet in a pocket you normally don’t put it in, move a ring to another finger, etc. I’ll get back to you. Seriously do it for real, it doesn’t work if you just think about what you would change!

***
I received a memo today from one of my school principals that detailed all the events of the week, which was mostly consumed by parent-teacher conferences. I remembered one of my high school teachers once saying to the class on parent-teacher conference week (with a smirk): Class, I will not be at parent teacher conferences tonight. I don’t talk to my parents, why should I want to talk to yours? I used to think this teacher was mean, but now I see that he was funny. He did show up to conferences, by the way, he was just being sarcastic. But I have digressed…we now return to our regularly scheduled blog entry.

At the bottom of the weekly memo read a quote:

"If there is anything we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves." -- Carl Jung

Ponder that for a second. That means that if we want our students who aren’t succeeding in school to start doing their homework, raising their hands, not talking back, staying in their seats, participating appropriately, completing work, becoming interested in the parts of a plant cell,we have to change? Why should we have to do all the changing?

Quick sidebar for those of you who actually conducted my experiment: what was it like to have something a little different while reading? No big deal? Kind of awkward? I know for me, that something as simple as forgetting to wear a ring or something can lead to an entire day of feeling around for the ring that isn’t there. Change is hard.

So how much should we as educators and parents change our own behavior to get the behavior change we desire in our students? I have been in many parent-teacher conferences that create an “action plan” for what each person agrees to do to help a student and the entire “Who?” column is Student, Student, Student, Student. As in, Student will turn in his homework. Student will raise hand in class. Student will complete work. Person responsible? Student. If it were as simple as telling the student to do something, they probably would have done it already. If we want a student to change, we must change the way we work with the student. But how much should we pander to our students’ needs by changing curriculum, modifying, adapting, etc.? Shouldn’t we teach them responsibility and consequences?

It is a fine line that educators walk. In my opinion, we should meet the student halfway, by saying, “If you agree to do X, I will agree to do Y.” The student should have some responsibility for change, just not all of it with no support. Make sure that what you as a teacher or parent have agreed upon to change is practical though. Teachers cannot always modify their instruction or assignments for one student, especially at the high school level where they have over 150 students. Likewise, parents may have an erratic work schedule that brings them home when their kids are long off to bed. And students may not have sufficient motivation, skills, or opportunities to simply “change.” Each case is different and the reasons why a student isn’t doing well are as varied as the students we work with.

There are a number of interventions that can be done for one student that benefit all students though. It never hurts to present material in both auditory and visual channels, to frequently check for understanding, and to provide choices and opportunities to personalize the material. I’ve even seen a classroom of student morph into a plant cell with each kid doing his or her part. Now that’s just good fun. Reflect back on your most memorable classes and what you learned. I’m sure you don’t have super fond memories of that one lecture on the Great Depression, but maybe you do if your class ran a mock stock market crash.*

I must say that I am not a teacher, but I know it isn’t always easy to change. I have also seen many teachers change their classroom to benefit a few other students who weren’t doing as well. One teacher developed a class-wide rewards system to help two of her special education inclusion students. She was delighted at the results, because it helped overall classroom management as well as the two special needs students. Like I have said before, positive reinforcement is powerful.

Double Trickery Epilogue: Did you change your one thing about your appearance back yet? When I do this activity with a live crowd, most people revert to how they had things before almost immediately after my experiment. Change is hard. We like things the way they are, thank you very much. But I think Jung might have been on to something too.


****
*Thanks to my 10th grade Social Studies teacher for that one. I actually managed to come out of the stock market crash still a millionaire, but I get what he was trying to teach us. Perhaps I have selected the wrong profession; I should be on Wall St.

Procrastination

Dr. Bell: My name is Dr. Bell. And I’m a recovering procrastinator.
Imaginary Crowd: Hi Dr. Bell!

I used to procrastinate. Big time. It started in high school, when I’d somehow wait until midnight to start an essay that was due the next day. Sometimes, it was worse than that. At midnight I’d start the Cliff’s Notes of a book that I had to write a paper on for the next day.* I convinced myself I work best under pressure and that I was most alert at night.

In college, I found one million things to do before studying. Usually, it involved socializing. I also convinced myself that I was in a “study group” during said socialization.

In grad school, especially during the dissertation years, my procrastination took the form of cleaning. During the disseration writing, my house was always immaculate. I think I even alphabetized my spices, which is harder than it sounds. Do you put black pepper under B or P? I convinced myself that I couldn’t work in a messy environment. My roommates loved me for this.

I don’t know when the change began, but I stopped procrastinating. It probably coincided with getting a job in the school district. But why? A big part of my job is writing, just like in school. It makes sense that if I’m a procrastinator, I would still put off writing reports until the last minute. But I have become disciplined. I know I write best in the morning and set aside 2 hours every morning to write, no matter what. And it works. I’ve never worked at midnight the night before a meeting. How did I recover?

I was reading up on some research on procrastination and was surprised to consistently see it paired with perfectionism, protecting one’s academic self-worth, and fear of failure. Apparently, it’s more than just a bad habit.

The idea is this: Procrastination is a win-win situation for your ego. If you put off studying until the last minute and you do poorly on a test, then you can blame the poor grade on lack of studying. If you happen to do well on the test, then you can pat yourself on the back for being smart enough to do well without studying. I suppose a third option is you attribute it to luck because it was an easy test, but that doesn't really hurt your ego either. I remember doing this in high school. I read the Cliff’s Notes for The Great Gatsby the night before and got a B on the essay the next day.** I congratulated myself on my ability to b.s. through any writing assignment.

Procrastination can also be the result of being fearful of being unable to complete a task perfectly, or not completing tasks because there is always room for improvement. I had a client once who refused to write anything because he was afraid it wouldn't be any good. I see this with gifted kids sometimes. A gifted child may refuse to do activities rather than risk failing to achieve a superior level of performance.

So what does the research say to do about Procrastination?

*** Four Days Elapse ***

Oh Delicious Irony! I started this post on Tuesday and then realized I needed to clean my house top to bottom for a house guest this weekend and put off finishing my post on procrastination. House looks great. Now I can work.

So what does the research say to do about Procrastination?

1) Evaluate your procrastinating style. Do you procrastinate on certain types of tasks? Do you procrastinate at certain times of day? When are you most productive? Are you afraid of doing something less than perfect? Is the task too overwhelming so it is avoided? Do you think you work better under pressure? Are you putting things off because you don’t want to do the task or because you have too much other stuff on your plate? Are you truly procrastinating or are you prioritizing? Did I need to clean my house, or was I putting off the work of finding all the research on procrastinating and trying to synthesize it into witty blog entry? A good clue you are procrastinating is if you are doing X and should be doing Y, and can’t stop thinking about how you should be doing X.

2) Challenge your myths. For example, maybe you don’t need a spotless apartment to begin a writing task. You really need a writing tool and a place to sit and that’s about it. Maybe you do work well under pressure. So then set a time limit for yourself (I will write this paragraph in ½ hour, or I will finish all these math problems/paying bills/whatever before my favorite show on TV).

3) Get an anti-procrastination “coach” such as a friend, roommate, or family member who is supportive. Tell them about your goals and timeline and ask them to determine whether your plan is realistic. Then once a twice a week, email with this person on your progress. If you slip up and don’t do your “homework” than talk about it and see what went wrong (see #1). Be careful in selecting “Study Buddies.” I know if I want to get stuff done, there are those that facilitate that and those who do not.

4) Try the TIC-TOC technique. TIC stands for Task Interfering Cognitions. These are things that get in the way of you or a student starting a task. An example of this may be, “I have all those letters to write tonight” or “I can put off writing those letters until later when I’m in the mood.” The problem with TICs is the thinking trap it creates—that you must do ALL or NONE of the work, or that you must be in the mood to work (emotional reasoning). This leads to avoidance behaviors because the task can seem too big to start and you may never be in the mood to start.

Replace your TIC with a TOC, A TOC is a Task Oriented Cognition. An example to counteract the previous statements could be “I don’t have to do ALL those letters tonight, but I’d probably feel better if I did at least 1,” or “I don’t have to be in the mood to get started. Once I get started I’ll probably feel more like doing it.”

5) If you are procrastinating a writing assignment, try these tips for Writer’s Block.

6) Break down the assignment or task into smaller components. Make a list of the sub-tasks needed and reward yourself when you complete each part. When I was in school, I sometimes tricked myself into thinking I had “all semester” to finish a research project. Writing down all the things that go into said research project can be an eye opener. Try setting mini-deadlines on a calendar in a backward planning technique (e.g. this week I will explore research topics, next week I will look at good examples of research projects, the next I will meet with my advisor and run my topic by her, etc.). Then when it comes to the end of the semester you aren’t scouring the Internet and throwing something together. And as you do each step, cross it off your list, because then you can see you have started the project and made some strides.

7) Nike approach. Just do it. Tell yourself you will work on your project for 15 minutes. Chances are, once you get started, you may just get in a groove and work longer.

*I highly recommend the Cliff’s Notes for Don Quixote. They are funny. I’m told the book is too.
**I did spell Gatsby wrong throughout the entire essay. An unfortunate side effect of my procrastination is that I still have to look up if it’s Gatsby or Gatspy to this day. Should have read the book.

"Kid Problems"

I once went on a blind date in which I was asked the following question about my job as a school psychologist: “So, what’s your favorite kid problem?” In my head, a sarcastic thought bubble popped up and responded, “I just LOVE when they can’t read! It’s my favorite!” But I knew what he meant, so I responded politely that I enjoy working with students with learning disabilities.*

The majority of students I work with in special education for learning disabilities think they are stupid or slow. The reality is that part of the definition of a “Learning Disability” is that you have at least average intelligence, so it’s simply not true. The current definition states that you must demonstrate a significant discrepancy between your ability (intelligence) and achievement (reading, math, writing, etc) and have one specific way that is difficult for you to learn. That specific difficulty is called a “processing deficit.**”

Here’s how I explain what a processing deficit is to my students: There are three main ways kids learn: listening (auditory processing), looking (visual processing), and doing (visual-motor processing). Everyone’s brain works differently. Your brain has difficulty learning by (insert processing deficit). That is why learning (reading/writing/math) is hard for you. But you are very good at learning by (other two processing skills).

I’m a big fan of educating kids with Learning Disabilities on how they learn best. With little kids, you can draw a picture of eyes, ears, and a hand and have them circle the ways they are good at learning. Middle school students usually benefit from having their scores put on a graph of some sort so they can see the intelligence score within the average or above average range. It seems more like “proof” at that point, because they sometimes still feel like they’re stupid even when you try to reassure them they are not. To help with the stigma of special education, one teacher I worked with put up pictures of famous people with Learning Disabilities with the banner: “If these people were still in school, they’d be in Special Ed.”***

For high school students, going over the testing results and the IEP document (especially modifications) together can be helpful as well. High school kids can be empowered to start advocating for their learning needs and ways to accommodate their own difficulties. It seems to really click in high school that having a learning disability or being in special education doesn’t mean you’re stupid or slow. It is one of the best parts of my job when students finally understand that they don’t have (to borrow a phrase) “kid problems.”


*He did not get a second date. But it was for a number of reasons, including that he wore MC Hammer pants to our date and serenaded me with a song about Spam called “Meat Brick.” Weirdest date ever.

**In some states, you do not need to identify a “processing deficit” to be considered eligible as a student with a Learning Disability. States interpret the federal law differently. The federal law is also changing the definition. And if that’s not confusing enough, private practitioners use a totally different set of criteria from the DSM-IV to identify students with learning disabilities.

***Tom Cruise has a Learning Disability. I have stopped using him as an example as he is weird now.

Special Ed Lady

School Psychologists have many roles to play in the schools. On any given day, we are counselors, advisors, consultants, program developers, observers, yard duty stand-ins, problem-solvers regarding discipline issues, early interventionists, reading/math/writing specialists, researchers, special education experts, paralegals (seems like), behaviorists, developmental experts, and assessors for special education services. The latter is the role that is most commonly associated with our profession.

A 10th grade student I had tested for ADHD said it best one day when I bumped into him on the street with his pack o’ friends: “Hey guys, that’s the lady who put me in special ed!” Surprisingly, the pack started inquiring how they could get into special ed because they heard it was “really easy.” Another (less positive) experience was when I came into a middle school classroom to take a girl for an assessment and she screamed, “No! I’m not going! I’m not @&*%ing special ed!”

Even the kids pick up very quickly that the school psychologist can be seen as a “gatekeeper” to special education. School psychologists are well aware that this has been the traditional role for our profession, and are striving to expand this role. Let me tell you a tale about the struggle to make the shift.

It’s 7:52am on a Friday afternoon. I get one foot in the door of my elementary school and I am met by the principal, who does not greet me with hello, but rather, “We have to do something about Johnny! He needs to be in a special education class for emotionally disturbed kids! Get out your assessment plan for special education, I have the mom waiting in my office to sign it.” Apparently, Johnny* had climbed on the school roof the day before and wouldn’t come down for over an hour.

My first thought was, “how is this a special education issue?” I had never heard of Johnny before until this morning and suddenly he was “disabled” and potentially “emotionally disturbed” before I had a chance to put my purse down?

One of the difficult jobs of the school psychologist is to get everyone slowed down enough to look at the facts. It's the first rule in any crisis situation. This process can (understandably) seem to worried parents, principals, and teachers as “gatekeeping” students from special education services. But it is a necessary step. So instead of my assessment plan, I immediately grabbed the cumulative folder and sat down with the mom and the principal and began asking questions. If I could provide each new school psychologist with a toolkit upon graduation, it would be full of questions. Not the cliché questions like, “How does that make you feel?” or the evasive-question-as-response that is the fodder for every psychologist joke, but questions that help identify the problem from a wider perspective:

Is the first incident for this student or is there a history of behavioral difficulties?
Does his behavior typically impede his learning?
Did something happen recently that would prompt this type of behavior?
What did the student say about the incident?
Has the student ever been assessed for special education before?
What interventions have been tried to address his behavioral needs?

After the information gathering session, it became clear that this was an isolated incident and not a longstanding emotional disability. The student had never been in any trouble before, and had all “Satisfactory” marks on his report card. The mom reported that her son had witnessed his cousin being shot last week and was understandably having a difficult time. It didn’t justify her son’s behavior, but it could help explain why he was acting out.

Did Johnny need some help? Yes. Was he “disabled” such that his needs could only be met in special education? Not so much. I’m all for giving students with disabilities what they need, but we must be judicious before jumping to special education assessment as an “intervention” before gathering the facts. I guess on some days, if it means a child doesn’t get prematurely labeled as disabled, I’m okay with being a gatekeeper.

*Why are the examples always about “Johnny” in education? This fictitious “Johnny” is one troubled little boy.

Mean Girls

So after the last post you all went out right away and got Mean Girls and have watched it, right? Well in case you didn’t, here’s the trailer. Once you’ve seen the trailer you’ve pretty much seen the movie and spared yourself 2 hours of your life you can never get back:



In Hollywood, the phenomenon is called “Mean Girls.” In the land of School Psychology, we call it “Relational Aggression.” Anyone who has been to high school probably has first-hand experience with it, either as the victim, perpetrator (not my readers!), or more commonly, as a bystander. We just didn’t have a name for it back in high school.

I went to this seminar called “Mean Girls” a while back to learn about strategies I could use at my schools when I see this usually covert aggression. It’s far easier to see a bruise on a kid from a playground fight than it is to see the emotional pain from exclusion, ignoring, intimidation, eye rolling, and rumors. And differentiating between the “normal” ebb and flow of relationships and relational aggression can be difficult. Here is the method proposed about deciding when to intervene.

Intervene if the relational aggression is:

Severe
Traumatic
Ongoing, or involves a
Power Imbalance

“Conflict Management” or “Peer Mediation” is a commonly used intervention in schools. In some cases, this can be helpful for each girl to see the other girls’ side. In your run-of-the mill “my best friend’s cousin knows this guy who knows this kid whose going with the girl who heard you say you’re seeing my boyfriend” stuff, it is a good idea to sort out the truth and get the two girls in the same room to figure it out. I had a situation just the other day with the friendship loyalty situation—if you are her friend you are not my friend, so now we can’t hang out. We had a tearful peer mediation and the three are all friends again (For the time being. Middle school friendships can be dynamic).

But it becomes true “relational aggression”(RA) when the conflicts are severe, traumatic, ongoing, and involves a power imbalance. At this point, it’s no longer just a misunderstanding among friends, it is bullying. And if it’s relational aggression, conflict mediation is not appropriate. Why? Because it implies that the victim has a role in to conflict as well. If the victim is having rumors spread about her, is being intimidated, taunted, and excluded, then it’s not a conflict, it’s an imbalance of power.

What can schools do?

1. Identify how pervasive the problem is and what the dynamics are. Use an anonymous survey to find out where and when RA takes place. Survey what tactics are used (e.g. name calling, gossip, rumors spread, cyber bullying, exclusion, harassment for race, religion, or looks, physical aggression, watching someone taunt someone, writing a note/email/post on MySpace that wasn’t nice, etc.)

2. Review results of the survey and develop policies or procedures to specifically address RA (increase supervision in “hot spots,” determine consequences for RA, etc.)

3. Have class meetings or in-services about how to recognize and deal with RA. Role play positive behaviors such as good listening skills, expressing feelings, identifying key players in interactions, and teaching how to make good choices when you are a bully bystander, etc.

What can educators do?

1. Most children will not tell their parents or teachers they are being bullied because thy are afraid that word will get out that they “told” and the mean girls will heap more abuse on them. Look for indicators such as an unexplained reluctance to go to school, sleep disturbances, or vague physical complaints such as headaches and stomachaches that happen on school days.

2. Be available to listen and don’t downplay the importance of an incident. Empathize with the student when she is sharing something she sees as important (remember, something as simple as a note given to a boy that you like him or something can be devastating to a middle school girl)

3. Differentiate for students what is “Tattling” and what is “Telling.” If someone’s feeling sad or upset, then it’s “telling” and that’s okay. For older students, some sort of anonymous reporting may be in order, because the last thing a girl wants is for the mean girl to turn on her for “snitching” or tattling.

4. Check out this website for more suggestions and tips for parents and educators.