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You don’t need to go far to hear about the staffing woes in our schools, and the most critical needs are within the special education and school psychologists' departments. These education professionals and their peers, including SLPs and reading specialists, need to assess more students than ever to identify the students who need instructional, speech, and mental health support — with less time and fewer resources at their disposal.

Summertime is often a welcomed period of fun and rest for students, rewarding them with a much-needed break from their schoolwork. However, mental health never takes a vacation, and there are signs of exacerbating problems in the summer months.

A key challenge is the disruption of routine that summer brings. There’s also the reduced access to counselors, teachers, and other positive adult role models that were either a source of comfort and guidance or a positive reinforcement for their mental health. Financial instability is also a common factor, especially with students who relied on school breakfasts and lunches for their daily meals.  

It’s important to note that students from historically marginalized groups are more likely to suffer from reduced access to mental health resources throughout the school year, not just in the summer.

Support more clients with anxiety and depression assessments

In 1908, Clifford Beers published his autobiography, a chronicle of his experiences while institutionalized as well as along his mental health journey. His words held a lot of weight and reached a lot of important people who helped him begin to influence change. Over the next century, mental health and its effects on every aspect of our lives has garnered growing attention, but never as much as we are seeing today.

As with anything else, there is a “recipe for success” for using Cogmed working memory training, and following it closely almost always leads to the best outcome. I'm Kyra Minichan, Pearson Healthcare Assessment Consultant and SLP for 30 years and I wanted to share with you MY recipe for success in using Cogmed in my practice.

We are proud to announce the new Call for Research published by Pearson Clinical Assessment. Our goal is to ensure that Pearson assessments comply with the highest standards of quality and support research that investigates the validity or efficacy of our products. We are inviting United States-based faculty members, graduate students, and qualified researchers to submit their proposals no later than August 11, 2023.

Here’s what you need to know...

Research tells us that children with ADHD have deficits in working memory compared to their typically developing peers. The same data also tells us that attention and working memory are essential to learning new information, so it should not come as a surprise that when you increase attention and working memory, learning comes faster and is more efficient. 

As schools grapple with the after-effects of the pandemic, they’re focused on potential learning gaps, especially among certain demographics. It’s an issue they’re eager to address, and one that has captured our focus at Pearson. As a licensed special educator, learning disabilities specialist, researcher and published author, I have extensive experience teaching students but also conducting assessments, and my team at Pearson is seeing the effects of learning loss up close.

Data shows us that underserved schools are facing more significant shortfalls in both staffing and funding when compared with more affluent peer districts. A report from SchoolFinanceData.org found that states’ highest-poverty districts spend 17% below estimated adequate levels. In addition, Black/African-American and Hispanic/Latinx students are twice as likely as white students to attend underfunded schools. This means educators in underserved areas must do more with fewer resources.