Using Autocrat to Improve Quality of Report Writing and Cut Your Paperwork Time in Half
School Psychologists understand that report writing is a necessary and crucial component to providing effective special education services to students, although it can be an extremely burdensome part of a School Psychologists’ role leading to lower job satisfaction and burnout. Autocrat is a Google Add-On which uses Google Forms to create a personalized Google Document. It can significantly reduce the time required to write high quality reports, allowing more time for thoughtful interpretation and individualization. With the additional time saved, School Psychologists have more time for intervention and systems work. This session will describe the benefits of Autocrat, and demonstrate its utility. Participants will learn the ways in which Autocrat can be used by school staff to enhance work quality in the areas of report writing, MTSS documentation, and intervention data tracking. Participants will receive access to a linked Google Folder that contains templates that can be used to implement Autocrat for immediate application.
Strengths-based Psychoeducation to Teach Kids About Their Diagnoses
School Psychologists often work with students with diagnosed mental health conditions and learn so much about students’ brains during their evaluations. Often, an evaluation ends and students are not part of results meetings or getting to discuss what was learned by their IEP team. In the absence of correct vocabulary or information about their disabilities, kids will label themselves as “dumb, bad, or crazy.” This session will review a strengths based teaching approach using a four week group to learn about diagnoses (ADHD, ASD, Anxiety, Reading Disability). Materials and lesson plans that can be immediately used will be provided.
Supporting Positive Behavior During Testing
We all want our time that we spend assessing students to be meaningful and result in accurate description of their skills. Spending time doing assessment only to end up with incomplete or invalid results is frustrating and defeating. This training will cover test selection, preparing students for testing, rapport building, engagement strategies, reinforcement skills, visual supports, and free resources to support it all. Created by two School Psychologists with a combined 20+ years of experience of testing the most complex and behaviorally challenging students.
Small Group Intervention for Teaching Students Flexibility: An Evidence Based Executive Functioning Curriculum
We all have students who get stuck! This session will provide materials, lesson plans, assessment resources, and all the practical support you need to implement a new small group intervention next week! The Unstuck and On Target curriculum improves the core executive functioning skills of flexibility, planning and organization. From the developers, "Research shows that Unstuck helps children with autism or ADHD become more flexible problem solvers, with better abilities to follow directions, make transitions, and avoid meltdowns and negativity. It also helps reduce parent stress and creates calmer classrooms." Unstuck and On Target is designed for students ages 5 to 11, although within special education, has been applied to students up to age 13.
