General
What are the four Rs of trauma-informed practice?
Realize, recognize, respond, resist (retraumatization)
What is the main principle in behaviorism?
Positive reinforcement (aka rewards) is most effective in behavioristic interventions.
Immediacy principle: Rewards and punishments must be given promptly after the behavior and must be valued by the person to be effective.
What is IDEA?
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is a U.S. federal law that ensures students with disabilities have the right to a free appropriate public education (FAPE) in the least restrictive environment (LRE).
Why do we need data?
To identify the problem and plan interventions
To increase or decrease levels of intervention
To help determine whether interventions are implemented with fidelity
To decide whether interventions are related to positive student outcomes (effectiveness)
To plan individualized instruction and strategic long-term educational planning
What is social learning theory and what are the main implications?
Social learning theory says people learn behaviors by observing others, especially when those behaviors are rewarded or modeled by people they identify with. Its main implication is that environments, role models, peers, media, and observed consequences strongly shape behavior—not just direct experience.
fidgets, breaks, pause and think, preferential seating, seating with model peer, body doubling with model peer, chunking assignments, extra time, quiet alternative room for test taking, reward system for positive behaviors
What are FBA/BIPs?
An FBA is a comprehensive and individualized method to identify the purpose or function or function of a student's problem behavior(s). FBAs are vital tools for school psychologists. FBAs are used to develop a plan to modify factors that maintain the problem behavior and to teach appropriate replacement behaviors using positive interventions.
BIPs are the behavior intervention plan informed by FBA to increase desired behavior or decrease undesired behavior by teaching replacement behaviors or targeting the antecedent.
What are the 14 SPED eligibilities?
What kind of informal data should you collect at the start of an assessment process?
Student files and records (Cumulative review) Teacher/student/parent interviews. Review of previous interventions (if applicable), Health/Development History/Family history
What kind of interviewing can you incorporate when you're using solutions-oriented counseling approaches? How do you do it?
Motivational interviewing. You use a series of questions to identify their motivations/values and identify barriers to the goals/motivations, and identify potential solutions to overcome the barriers.
A behavior rating scale gives nearly identical scores every time it is administered, but it does not actually measure the student’s anxiety accurately. What psychometric property is high, and what property is low?
Reliability is high; validity is low.
Reliability refers to consistency of measurement, while validity refers to whether the test measures what it is intended to measure.
A student’s disruptive behavior decreases when given frequent breaks, but academic engagement also decreases significantly. Why might this intervention be problematic?
The intervention may reinforce escape from academic demands rather than improve adaptive behavior.
Name the 10 practice model domains OR the 4 broad themes of the NASP ethical standards.
The 4 broad themes of the NASP Ethical Standards are:
Name 3 different kinds of observational techniques and define them.
Whole-interval recording: Behavior is only recorded when it occurs during the entire time interval. (This is good for continuous behaviors or behaviors occurring in short duration)
Ex: You observe a child who often hums continuously during independent
work. You decide to divide the time into 10-second intervals and only
mark the behavior if the child hums throughout the entire interval.
Ex: Method best for continuous behaviors like hand-flapping that are
difficult to count individually
Frequency or event recording: Record the number of behaviors that occurred during a specific period.
Ex: A student frequently calls out during a 15-minute reading lesson. You
tally how many times this behavior occurs.
Duration recording refers to the length of time the specific behavior lasts.
Ex: Most appropriate for tracking how long a student stays on task during a 10-minute math activity.
Latency recording: Time between onset of stimulus or signal that initiates a specific behavior.
Ex: You want to measure how long it takes for a student to begin cleaning up after the teacher says, “Time to clean up.”
Time-sampling interval recording: Select a time period for observation, divide the period into a number of equal intervals, and record whether or not behavior occurs. Time sampling is effective when the beginning and end of behavior are difficult to determine or when only a brief period is available for observation.
Partial-interval recording: Behavior is scored if it occurs during any part of the time interval. Multiple episodes of behavior in a single time interval are counted as one score or mark. Partial-interval recording is effective when behaviors occur at a relatively low rate or for inconsistent durations.
Momentary time sampling: Behavior is scored as present or absent only during the moment that a timed interval begins. This is the least biased estimate of behavior as it actually occurs.
Ex: A teacher sets a timer to go off every 2 minutes and records whether the student is on-task at that exact moment
Narrative observation: Just writing - broad and narrow information from running records
Event recording: frequency count/how often something happens in time period/ documents target behavior as it occurs
What is cognitive-behavioral theory? Explain what it is and give an example of how to apply it in intervention.
Cognitive-behavioral theory says that thoughts, emotions, and behaviors are interconnected, and that changing unhelpful thoughts and behaviors can improve emotional functioning. It assumes people’s interpretations of situations—not just the situations themselves—strongly influence how they feel and act.
Example intervention: a student with test anxiety might think, “If I fail this test, I’m stupid,” which increases panic and avoidance. A CBT intervention would help the student identify and challenge that thought (“One test does not define my intelligence”), practice coping skills like relaxation, and gradually engage in test-taking situations to reduce anxiety over time.
A student has low reading scores, but attendance is poor, English proficiency is developing, and instruction has been inconsistent. What is the main concern before identifying a disability?
The team must rule out exclusionary factors such as limited instruction, limited English proficiency, and attendance.
Little Jonny’s anxiety and fear around public speaking decreases after gradually practicing feared situations in small steps. What intervention approach is this?
Exposure or systematic desensitization.
What are the steps to an ethical decision making model? Give an example of an ethical issue that you can apply the model to.
Identify problem, identify ethical dilemma, consult legal/ethical guidelines, consult stakeholders, understand responsibilities and rights of all stakeholders, consider alternatives, make a decision
What is the difference between curriculum-based assessment (CBA) and curriculum-based measure (CBM)?
Curriculum-based assessment is a broad evaluation approach that uses material directly from the student’s curriculum to assess academic skills, strengths, and needs.
Curriculum-based measurement is a specific type of CBA that uses brief, standardized, timed probes to measure academic progress over time.
Can you name all the ecological systems (Bronfenbrenner) and define them?
Bonus 100 points if you can name Bronfenbrenner's theoretical model he made after he felt like everyone misunderstood his original ecological systems model.
individual, micro, meso, exo, macro, chrono
Bioecological (Person Process Context Time [PPCT]) Model
What's the difference between patterns of strengths/weaknesses and discrepancy model? Walk us through an example.
The discrepancy model identifies SLD by looking for a large gap between a student’s IQ and academic achievement.
The PSW model looks for a pattern where the student has cognitive strengths in some areas, cognitive weaknesses in others, and academic weaknesses that match the cognitive weakness.
For example, if a student has average/high verbal reasoning but weak working memory and very low math calculation, PSW may suggest the working memory weakness helps explain the math difficulty.
A student frequently puts their head down, refuses to participate, and shuts down when corrected by teachers. One teacher recommends stricter consequences for “noncompliance,” while the school psychologist recommends a trauma-informed approach. What is the key difference in perspective?
A trauma-informed lens asks “What happened to the student?” and considers the behavior a possible stress or survival response rather than assuming willful defiance.
There are many key case laws in education you should know. Full points if you can define 3, extra 100 for each case law after that. Brown v. Board of Education, Diana v. State Board of Education, Larry P. v. Riles, Endrew F. v. Douglas County School District, Honig v. Doe, PARC v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
A student’s progress-monitoring graph shows scores increasing over time, but the trend line remains below the goal line. The teacher argues the intervention should continue because “the student is improving.” Based on data-based decision making principles, how would you respond?
The intervention may need to be intensified or changed because the student is not making adequate progress toward the benchmark despite improvement.
A student performs well academically only when a teacher is physically nearby, quickly gives up during independent work, and frequently says, “I’m just bad at this.” A behaviorist, a social learning theorist, and a cognitive theorist would each explain this behavior differently. How would each theorist explain this behavior?