Welcome to the first issue of our journal under the new title Journal of Psychologists and Counsellors in Schools. This issue is a special one on psycho-educational assessment. We have a range of interesting and stimulating articles on this topic, reflecting the important and substantial role that assessment plays in the work of many school psychologists and counsellors. Psycho-educational assessment includes areas such as behavioural, social-emotional and vocational assessment, although most referrals for assessment in schools are related to learning difficulties. The issue has a truly international flavour, with authors from Australia, Greece, China, Ireland, Bangladesh, Peru, Iran and the United States.

For the last issue of the year the journal reverts to a mix of papers after the special edition on psycho-educational assessment. The first is a paper on career choice of Australian secondary school students by Natal'ya Galliott, Linda Graham and Naomi Sweller. We really appreciate these papers on careers as so few are submitted to the journal. Hopefully if you find this paper interesting you might consider writing something on this aspect of our work either as a research paper or for the practitioners’ section of the journal.

This article reports an investigation of the views and practices of 203 Australian psychologists and guidance counsellors with respect to psycho-educational assessment of students with specific learning disabilities (SLDs). Results from an online survey indicated that practitioners draw upon a wide range of theoretical perspectives when conceptualising and identifying SLDs, including both response to intervention and IQ-achievement discrepancy models. Intelligence tests (particularly the Wechsler scales) are commonly employed, with the main stated reasons for their use being ‘traditional’ perspectives (including IQ-achievement discrepancy based definitions of SLDs), to exclude a diagnosis of intellectual disability, and to guide further assessment and intervention. In contrast, participants reported using measures of academic achievement and tests of specific cognitive deficits known to predict SLDs (e.g., phonological awareness) relatively infrequently.

This article reports findings from an empirical study examining the influence of student background and educational experiences on the development of career choice capability. Secondary school students attending Years 9–12 (N = 706) in New South Wales, Australia, were invited to participate in an online survey that sought to examine factors influencing their readiness to make a career choice. The survey included questions relating to student demographics, parental occupation, attitudes to school and to learning, career aspirations, and students’ knowledge of the further education or skills required to achieve their desired goal. We found no significant differences in the proportions of students who were ‘uncertain’ of their future career aspirations with respect to their individual characteristics, such as age and gender. There were, however, significant differences in relation to students’ family background, and their perceptions associated with their own academic abilities and self-efficacy.

This study investigated the social, emotional and mental wellbeing predictors of bullying victimisation and perpetration for boarding students following the transition from primary school to secondary boarding school. Longitudinal data on 76 male and 74 female boarding students in Grades 7, 8 and 9 was used from a larger longitudinal study of 3,462 students. A spike in frequency of bullying perpetration occurred immediately after the transition to secondary school and boarding school, with an increase in bullying perpetration continuing to occur throughout the following 2 years. Those boarding students reporting higher levels of depression, anxiety, and stress symptoms were significantly more at risk of frequent bullying victimisation at the beginning of Grade 8, while boarding students experiencing conduct problems and emotional difficulties were more likely to engage in frequent bullying perpetration. Peer support and feeling safe were found to be factors most likely to decrease frequent bullying victimisation. The sustained nature of bullying behaviour highlights the importance of addressing attitudes towards bullying both prior to and immediately after the commencement of boarding school. It is recommended that boarding schools adopt a targeted and systematic whole school approach to bullying prevention, while promoting positive interactions and relationships with peers.

Students with specific learning difficulties (SpLD) in higher education institutions (HEIs) in the Republic of Ireland are required to have a formal psycho-educational assessment from an educational psychologist to register with Disability Services in HEIs, to be eligible for support through the Fund for Students with Disabilities (FSD). Such assessments are expensive and often beyond the financial means of students and their families. However, there is a sustained demand from students experiencing academic difficulties for diagnostic assessment of SpLD (Association for Higher Education Access and Disability [AHEAD], 2012). This study describes the SpLD screening and assessment practices implemented by HEIs in Ireland (n = 14), finding that (a) there are no defined parameters for assessment of SpLD in higher education (HE), meaning that methods and accuracy of identification of positive indicators may vary across HEIs; and (b) the majority of HEIs screen for dyslexia only, with little or no recognition of the need to assess for comorbidity of learning disabilities. Findings support the requirement for a reliable and valid standardised assessment procedure for Irish HEIs, which would provide equitable access to an initial diagnosis. Finally, a screening model is proposed, which is currently provided by one HEI.

Written language is a difficult endeavour as the demands of transcription require self-regulatory skills from a motor, cognitive and attention perspective. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the relation between the Test of Writing Difficulties (Porpodas et al., 2007) and the Test of Detection and Investigation of Executive Functions (Simos et al., 2007) in a sample of 50 Greek-speaking, 5th-grade students with writing disabilities. The results of our study indicated that there were significant Pearson correlations ranging from .35 to .44 between executive functions and written expression. Furthermore, regression analysis showed that the subscales of the Test of Executive Functions had significant predictive power for spelling correctness and correction of jumbled sentences. Further implications of these findings for a school-based neuropsychological evaluation and planning of individualised educational interventions are discussed.

Victims use social support seeking (SSS) to buffer the negative effects of cyberbullying. It is unknown whether cyber-victims’ perceptions of harm and having poor peer and parental relationships influence SSS. Using a sample of 451 cyberbullying-victims, aged 12–18, 68% girls, this study examined relationships of gender, harm, peer rejection, parental attachment, offline victimisation and online aggression to SSS, and tested the interaction of harm with peer rejection and parental attachment. Findings from logistic regression revealed that poor parental attachment and higher peer rejection decreased SSS, and that the association between parental attachment and SSS was stronger among cyber-victims with higher harm. This study highlights the importance of assessing cyber-victims’ attachment and experiences with their peers when implementing preventative intervention programs.

Increasing ethnic and cultural diversity worldwide and especially in Australia requires that psychologists and counsellors cultivate the knowhow to interact and work effectively with clients and stakeholders in cross-cultural contexts. This study aimed to identify and compare themes regarding challenging intercultural social scenarios experienced by supervising, practising and intern psychologists. Transcripts from five focus groups were open-coded on four occasions and the final themes compared with the EXCELL (Excellence in Cultural Experiential Learning and Leadership) program's six key sociocultural competencies (Mak, Westwood, Barker, & Ishiyama, 1998). We found that many challenges reported by psychologists (regardless of their qualifications) were related to difficulties — for psychologists and clients — in executing one or more of key sociocultural competencies: seeking help or information, participating in a group, making social contact, giving feedback, refusing a request, and expressing disagreement. We also identified barriers to cultural competence in therapeutic relationships, including cultural identity issues, needing to address difficulties in intimate relationships, cultural variation in values/beliefs/social norms, mismatched expectations, psychologists’ perceived deficit in intercultural training, and challenges in self-reflection. Based on our findings, we propose a model of culturally competent counselling practice and discuss implications for counsellor and psychologist training, and for future research.

The psychoeducational report has many purposes and many readers. Given this, it is imperative that psychoeducational reports are well written, as well as acceptable to and understood by the readers. This study aimed to determine from the perspective of both teacher (report reader) and psychologist (report writer) the factors that make an effective psychoeducational report. The current study examined the effects of report style and language on satisfaction with and understanding and perceived utility of psychoeducational reports as rated by teachers and psychologists with varying degrees of experience. We expected that reports which contained a theme-based organisation and a lower grade reading level would receive significantly higher ratings of satisfaction and utility, and be understood by teachers and psychologists at significantly higher levels than reports with neither or only one of these two characteristics. Results indicated that while teachers in the present study were not more satisfied with the theme-based non-technical report and did not rate it as more useful, they did consider non-technical language easier to understand. Psychologists, in contrast, were not impacted by either variation in report style. The impact of differences between writer and reader on perceived understandability of reports is discussed.

This article reports on a qualitative study that set out to understand stakeholders’ perception of the school counselling service in Singapore. Using semi-structured interviews, this study explored the perceptions of three main stakeholder groups, namely teachers and counsellors working within the schools and those working in the communities. Altogether, 19 interviews were conducted. Two key theme areas were uncovered. First, the stakeholders observed and expected differing levels of confidentiality for information obtained during counselling. This presented a barrier for cooperation between the stakeholders. Second, stakeholders, while keen to ensure students’ families were served appropriately, held different ideas of how that could happen. No clear model of collaboration seemed to exist at the time of the study. Implications for practice were discussed.

Recent understanding of education and human development recognises the importance of psychosocial factors, particularly personal resiliency, in the academic success of children and youth. This article presents the examination of resiliency within school settings for the purpose of preventive screening, intervention and outcomes assessment. The Resiliency Scales for Children and Adolescents (Prince-Embury, 2007) is described as an example of an instrument developed specifically for this purpose. This description identifies developmentally sound factors of personal resiliency that are relevant for children and youth in school settings. Also addressed are criteria of psychometric soundness required for universal screening and impact tracking, norm-based profiles of personal resiliency and summary indices of resource and vulnerability for use in screening.

This exploratory study involved a structured group-games intervention to develop first-grade students’ social competence. The effects were evaluated by assessing possible outcomes for the children's social status. A sample of 119 first-grade, mixed-ability students from a Hong Kong primary school participated in the sessions (63 boys, 56 girls: mean age 74 months). Sessions were led by trained parent-volunteers and involved a 60-minute session each week for 8 weeks in the children's own classrooms. Peer nominations were used before and after intervention to assess participants’ social status under five possible categories ― popular, rejected, controversial, neglected and average. Improvement in children's social awareness and social status was noted following the intervention. Children's competence in playing group games was found to be positively correlated with their social acceptance. The findings support the value of early social intervention in classrooms as a practical way for preparing first-grade students for primary school life.

For psychologists in less developed countries, psycho-educational assessment is often challenging due to a lack of specialist training and a scarcity of appropriate, psychometrically robust instruments. This article focuses on school psychology and psycho-educational assessment in three countries: Bangladesh, China and Iran. Despite differences in demographic and cultural features, these countries share similar issues that restrict the practice of psycho-educational assessment. We conclude that it is important for psychologists in Western countries to support professional training and testing practices in less developed countries.

The current study investigated the moderating effects of gender, age, and weight status on the relationship between body dissatisfaction and depression among adolescents. Data were collected on body dissatisfaction, depression, and demographic characteristics from a convenience sample of 1,101 adolescents (505 girls, 596 boys). The relationship between body dissatisfaction and depression differed significantly by weight status (β = −0.318, p < .01), but not gender or age. In addition, their association varied across weight status only in males (βs = 0.501, 0.240, and 0.178 for underweight, normal weight, and overweight respectively, ps < .05) and the early adolescence group (βs = 0.523, 0.282, 0.297 for underweight, normal weight, and overweight respectively, ps < .01). The findings indicated that the association of body dissatisfaction with depression was significant among nearly all weight-status groups of adolescents, and varied across weight status among males and early adolescence groups. This suggests that the prevention programs that aim to reduce depression by reducing body dissatisfaction in adolescents should include all weight-status groups, and pay close attention to underweight adolescents (especially underweight boys and early adolescents who are underweight).

I am pleased to introduce four diverse and interesting articles, all related to the theme of assessment, in the practitioner section of the journal: Applied Practices.

The case is presented of an 8-year-old boy who was referred for psycho-educational assessment because of difficulties with writing. The article provides an example of the way in which a case unfolds as further assessment data become available, and describes a number of challenging aspects of the assessment process. In this case, dilemmas arose when test results were inconsistent at different time points, and when the results were inconsistent with clinical observations. The case report illustrates the ways in which practitioners can collaborate to make sense of such discrepancies, with each contributing a slightly different perspective or set of skills that, in combination, assist to better understand a child's difficulties.

This article advocates for proactive, dynamic and comprehensive psycho-educational assessments for children and young people who have a history of complex trauma, because of its known effects on development and learning. A case study is shared of a young woman with a history of complex trauma because of exposure to parental neglect, multiple foster care placements, and abuse while in the care system. Background information on the impact of both early developmental trauma and interruptions to attachment with an early caregiver on learning and development is discussed, along with the benefits of using dynamic assessment. In particular, the case will expose how delays in thorough, high quality psycho-educational assessment not only impacts on educational outcomes, but also care outcomes. It also illustrates the importance of including measures of social emotional functioning as part of psycho-educational assessments when, as in this case, a review of developmental and learning needs is required in preparation for transition to high school, to assist funding applications for additional support, and to contribute to case planning towards reunification with siblings. Best practice protocols are shared that promote both multi-professional and multi-dimensional assessment, including working between agencies, systems, group and individual assessment, and, most importantly, tools that facilitate both transformation of teaching practice and the voice of the young person; all serving to promote mental health and wellbeing.