School Psych: Logging CBM Hours for APPIC

[CounPsy584]

Hi all, I've searched the threads and can't come up with an answer to this question, but if anyone finds it already posted please let me know...

For school psych people (or really anyone else who may know) who have applied/are applying to APPIC, how are you logging hours that you assess children using curriculum based progress-monitoring tools/curriculum-based measurement (CBM) systems, such as DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills) or AIMSweb? As these are usually only 1-3 minute probes per child for oral reading fluency, nonsense word fluency, etc., administered on a weekly or biweekly basis, they don't quite constitute a comprehensive assessment but are absolutely used for assessment purposes, e.g. determining responsiveness to intervention, making decisions on whether the intervention is appropriate, and etc. I have progress-monitored and scored so many of these for nearly 80 children this quarter (though only 5 kids' data points were used in integrated assessment reports), and am unsure how to account for these using APPIC.

Any advice here would be appreciated before I turn to APPIC to ask. I've asked my program, but we haven't had many recent students go through APPIC so the amount of progress-monitoring assessment hours we are accruing now is above the norm for the program history, and they aren't quite sure how to log these either...I'm just confused since I can't even say I've used DIBELS for .5 of an hour on one child on one day as really I have administered probes for about 15 kids in an hour using the 3 minute oral reading fluency probes on a weekly basis for 10 weeks...

Thank you!!

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[Teacher07]

I logged them as "other" under Psychological assessment experience and just labeled it Curriculum Based Measurement. Its what others in my very RTI focused program have done as well.

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

Hmm...good question. I used CBMs as part of a research project, so I just mentioned it in my research section. I marked the appropriate assessments on the spreadsheet, though I don't believe I marked anything for "integrated reports". Maybe you can add a line on your CV under the clinical description of the practica site?

 

[CounPsy584]

Thanks for the replies so far!

I logged them as "other" under Psychological assessment experience and just labeled it Curriculum Based Measurement. Its what others in my very RTI focused program have done as well.

Agreed--I could log it as such but the issue I'm running into is connecting the hours with specific clients. For example, in a week at practicum I may use CBM for 3-4 hours with roughly 30-40 kids but for only 3-5 minutes per child, so when I use something like Time2Track to specifically log these hours I am forced to match them to clients...? It's easier to log when I use a general sheet from my program, I just have put down however many hours of assessment, but I'm wondering how I would account for it more specifically, as it seems the latter is what APPIC is asking for on the application?

Hmm...good question. I used CBMs as part of a research project, so I just mentioned it in my research section. I marked the appropriate assessments on the spreadsheet, though I don't believe I marked anything for "integrated reports". Maybe you can add a line on your CV under the clinical description of the practica site?

Yes, I'll definitely add this to my CV, but since it's at my official practicum that I'm using CBM, and it's for so many hours a week this year (makes up a lot of my day at practicum some weeks), I figured it would be good to include for assessment hours on my APPIC application...I just don't know if it makes sense to list specific clients for the 3-5 minute probes or just say cumulatively I did 3-4 hours per week of CBM, or if APPIC even allows that without including the specifics of the clients I tested...Sorry if I am making this super confusing! I appreciate any help or ideas here!

 

[Teacher07]

If you're progress monitoring them, you're seeing the same kids more than once, right?

I helped a school set up its schoolwide benchmarking, which meant I did all of the CBM for several grades in the fall. It wasn't pretty or neat to fit that into the APPIC website, but I just made do. The demographics info doesn't really make sense for school psych since we don't typically track what we do in the school building like that... so basically, I don't have an answer for you, but I did manage to fill out the APPIC website breakdown with my collection of hours.

Thanks for the replies so far!



Agreed--I could log it as such but the issue I'm running into is connecting the hours with specific clients. For example, in a week at practicum I may use CBM for 3-4 hours with roughly 30-40 kids but for only 3-5 minutes per child, so when I use something like Time2Track to specifically log these hours I am forced to match them to clients...? It's easier to log when I use a general sheet from my program, I just have put down however many hours of assessment, but I'm wondering how I would account for it more specifically, as it seems the latter is what APPIC is asking for on the application?



Yes, I'll definitely add this to my CV, but since it's at my official practicum that I'm using CBM, and it's for so many hours a week this year (makes up a lot of my day at practicum some weeks), I figured it would be good to include for assessment hours on my APPIC application...I just don't know if it makes sense to list specific clients for the 3-5 minute probes or just say cumulatively I did 3-4 hours per week of CBM, or if APPIC even allows that without including the specifics of the clients I tested...Sorry if I am making this super confusing! I appreciate any help or ideas here!

 

[CounPsy584]

Yes, Teacher07, you're right, I do see some of the kids weekly for CBM so that's a bit easier, though it's rather odd to mark that I saw them for only 5 minutes... Like you, I also did school-wide benchmarking and it was for several grades so that is difficult to make fit. It would be nice if they had a section for this type of assessment without having to match the specific clients (because truly I will never see some of the benchmarking kids more than once). Thanks for the input, it helps a lot and I'll just try to make CBM fit!

 

[aagman01]

Keep track of the total hours performing CBMs, the total number of children you performed CBMs with, and the demographic backgrounds of each child (race/ethnicity, disability status, sexual orientation if known). Also, keep track of ages of all children, at least in general. APPI asks you to break down interventions and assessment by age range (infants, young children, children in elementary years, adolescents). That should suffice for APPIC.

If I recall correctly from the APPI (which I just completed a few weeks ago), you don't need to report the specific hours for each child for APPIC.

Hope that helps!

Yes, Teacher07, you're right, I do see some of the kids weekly for CBM so that's a bit easier, though it's rather odd to mark that I saw them for only 5 minutes... Like you, I also did school-wide benchmarking and it was for several grades so that is difficult to make fit. It would be nice if they had a section for this type of assessment without having to match the specific clients (because truly I will never see some of the benchmarking kids more than once). Thanks for the input, it helps a lot and I'll just try to make CBM fit!

 

[FadedC]

I had another question about logging hours that I figured I may as well ask here. Like the OP I'm in a school psych program that only has a few people go for APA internships so they don't have as much solid info.

I'm involved in a project through my school giving assessments to children in a school. It's paid and supervised, but it's not technically part of a practicum or externship. Is this something that I can log as assessment experience?

 

[CounPsy584]

I had another question about logging hours that I figured I may as well ask here. Like the OP I'm in a school psych program that only has a few people go for APA internships so they don't have as much solid info.

I'm involved in a project through my school giving assessments to children in a school. It's paid and supervised, but it's not technically part of a practicum or externship. Is this something that I can log as assessment experience?

It's my understanding that you CAN log these hours under "research" clinical hours because it's supervised and it's part of your doc program, but others may know officially...

Keep track of the total hours performing CBMs, the total number of children you performed CBMs with, and the demographic backgrounds of each child (race/ethnicity, disability status, sexual orientation if known). Also, keep track of ages of all children, at least in general. APPI asks you to break down interventions and assessment by age range (infants, young children, children in elementary years, adolescents). That should suffice for APPIC.

If I recall correctly from the APPI (which I just completed a few weeks ago), you don't need to report the specific hours for each child for APPIC.

Hope that helps!

Thank you, that is really helpful! I've been using Time2Track and it won't let me log blocks of assessment hours without connecting them to specific clients...but if the APPIC application doesn't make you do that then that's much more straightforward and I'll just keep track of the clients and the CBM hours separately. Thanks again!

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

It's my understanding that you CAN log these hours under "research" clinical hours because it's supervised and it's part of your doc program, but others may know officially...

This is what I did since the assessments were part of a program-sanctioned experience with proper supervision, etc.