SPM and SPM-2 Quick Tips Case Study: What’s Behind Challenging Behaviors in the Classroom?

Learn about the role of weighting techniques, such as raking, in reducing bias and enhancing the accuracy of academic testing norm scores for non-representative samples. Explore insights from a paper co-authored by WPS's COO David Herzberg.

Amid record mental health needs and teacher shortages, educators ponder the impact of school culture on students' well-being. Schools are now prioritizing healthier environments, starting with inclusive programs that benefit students with disabilities, fostering a more welcoming atmosphere for all.

Educators and clinicians must make sure D/HH students are carefully, competently assessed early enough to prevent language deprivation. Doing so will mean that more students can spend their school years building skills and friendships. And more students can leave school ready for all the possibilities on the other side of the graduation stage.  

Understanding how executive dysfunction affects students with dyslexia can help you target instruction and interventions that will prove the most effective.  

For the first time, recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show autism in girls at a prevalence rate higher than 1%. While the CDC says autism is around 4 times as common in boys as in girls, many researchers think the diagnostic gap between the sexes is wider than it should be. The gap suggests that many girls and women don’t get the support they need to navigate the world. 

For the first time, recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show autism in girls at a prevalence rate higher than 1%. While the CDC says autism is around 4 times as common in boys as in girls, many researchers think the diagnostic gap between the sexes is wider than it should be. The gap suggests that many girls and women don’t get the support they need to navigate the world. 

Despite the clarity of diagnostic criteria, identifying depression in teens isn’t always straightforward. At every age, depression can look different from person to person, with some people experiencing emotional symptoms and others having more physical ones.  

An experienced LCSW shares some common—and some surprising—signs of depression in young people.

Autism characteristics and behaviors can change as people mature. While some or all core features of autism may remain present from early childhood onward, the degree of impairment or the outward appearance of some traits and behaviors may change. Understanding how and when these changes may occur can be helpful to those who support autistic individuals.

Board-certified child psychiatrist Loucresie Rupert, MD, offers practical advice for recognizing ADHD symptoms in girls and women.

Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS). Risky sexual behavior, substance use, and bullying decrease, but more students experience mental health problems, violence, and suicidal thoughts, according to CDC's Data Summary & Trends Report for its 2011–2021 Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS).

To diagnose developmental language disorder accurately in girls, researchers say clinicians should work across disciplines to erase gendered language stereotypes. 

Across the country, thousands of students are carrying something heavier than the books in their backpacks. Study after study has confirmed what school psychologists, teachers, and caregivers see firsthand: A growing number of young people have depression that began or worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic.