School Psychologists

Does your student have DIBELS? How would you know? What color are they? Where are they kept?
Last week’s visit with our two school psychologists was revealing, informative and a bit overwhelming.
Surprisingly, schools incur responsibility to provide services to children beginning at age 3 if it is suspected there are special needs. Services can continue through age 21.
Children must be evaluated for suspected significant developmental delays and if needed, services begun. These services may be delivered in a “center-based” facility such as Ewing School or the Ohio Valley Service Center or on an itinerant basis.
Services can take the form of up to 10 hours per week in a pre-school classroom setting to 1 hour per week in the student’s home. Some specialized services can continue through a student’s entire educational career following an Individual Education Plan (IEP) designed to address the student’s special needs.
If a student qualifies for yet other therapies such as speech, occupational or physical, those services may be provided in a center-based setting or at a provider’s facility.
These services continue as needed from age 3 and students may qualify to enter kindergarten if they have reached the age of 5 by August 1. But there are exceptions. Parents may request early admission to kindergarten.
Upon written request to the principal, school psychologists administer IQ tests and if the result is 115 or higher and the student will be 5 by October 1, admission may be granted. If the 5th birthday occurs before January 1 and the IQ is 130 or above they may also qualify for admission. Early admission hinges on a meeting with parents, principal, school psychologists and a kindergarten teacher to determine academic and social-emotional suitability.
Our psychologists find the early admission decision difficult even with testing. Input from pre-school teachers can be helpful, but many students are not enrolled in pre-school and do not have that background to assist the evaluation. Often recommending a pre-school setting is the better choice.
When students experience significant academic, emotional, behavioral or physical problems at school they may be referred for assessment to determine qualification in the following categories: developmental delay, learning disabilities, cognitive disability, deaf-blindness, deafness, emotional disturbance, hearing impairment, multiple disabilities, orthopedic disability, other health impairment, speech/language impairment, traumatic brain injury and visual impairment.
Once determined that modifications or accommodations are required to best meet the student’s needs, an IEP is written to direct those services. Follow up testing is done every three years to determine continued or changing needs and student progress.
Reading is a skill basic to all other learning and is the primary focus of the early grades. It is important to know where our students are in their development and mastery of this skill. Hence, DIBELS. Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills.
This assessment is administered to every kindergarten, first and second grade student in September, January and May by teachers, school psychologists and other staff members. Changes in scores are a good indicator of student progress through the year and from year to year.
My visit with the psychologists was at their request as School Psychology Awareness Week is upcoming November 4th thru 10th. I learned that there are 63,000 school psychologists in the country and 6 in Washington County.
There are a great many other services provided by this department beyond those described here. This letter does not do justice to what I learned about the services we provide, but I was permitted to depart on my own recognizance which I considered a personal success.

This letter written with input and assistance from Karen Binkley and Don Tekavec.