The psychodiagnostic educational report : An appropriate tool for effective prescriptive teaching

Date

1968

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Abstract

In recent years, many notable teaching techniques have been developed by educators to facilitate the elimination of student learning disabilities in the remedial classroom. These various techniques are readily applicable in the service of each student's specific needs, interests, capacities and limitations. The writer has discovered, however, that while these remediating techniques are available to her, the teacher actually has little knowledge of What Charlie's particular uniqueness is. The inappropriateness and inadequacy of present transmission of psychodiagnostic educational information from school psychologist to classroom teacher renders the information meaningless. The various forms of currently used psychological reports and other school data from which the teacher must commonly glean her appraisal of Charlie exhausts her willingness to expend valuable time and energy. Those materials mean relatively little to her in view of her limited training in psychodiagnostics. Consequently, her task of teaching each child is unreasonably difficult, and her academic curriculum is undeveloped. This study was designed to assess the need for, and develop, a report method which will truly aid teachers who work with exceptional children. In determining the need for such a means of communication, the writer constructed a questionnaire consisting of seven items, five requiring negative or positive responses and two soliciting recommendations for improvements on the report form. A sample report was attached to the questionnaire. The entire instructional staff of the training center for exceptional children in e local school district received and completed the questions, responding heavily in favor of the report. Analyzation of recommendations for improvement showed all suggestions to deal with degree rather than kinds all were suggestions for more emphasis on the various areas covered. The writer gratefully acknowledges all recommendations, and pointe out that each report writer will naturally emphasize or de-emphasize each such area in his personal considerations of their effect upon the student in question. Primary sources consulted in the development of the psychodiagnostic educational report were student permanent record files, case histories and test results. The sample report exhibited is this document was composed by the writer about a student who is representative of the typical exceptional child. The report demonstrates its give integral sections: identification data, general description, student strengths, weaknesses and needs, educational therapeutic prescription, and 3 learning ability profile. The latter is a two-part graph devised from test data and depicting chronological age and true grade level correlation. The profile allows the teacher to identify at a glance each student's enact operative level with regard to these factors: social and global meatal ages, body image, general academic information, common judgment, abstract thinking, visual attention, memory and understanding, auditory attention, memory and understanding, vocal expression, clerical and simple problem attack skills, ability to perceive spatial relationships, word and paragraph meanings, sight vocabulary, spalling, arithmetic computation and concepts, and total reading and arithmetic abilities and educational level. The educational diagnostic report presented in this thesis was developed to increase accuracy in teacher appraisals of individual students' intelligence and perceptual, linguial and psychological disabilities. It was designed in all its clarity and exactness especially for the classroom prescriptive teacher for ready reference, giving her new recourse to inspiring information about each of her students. Of noteworthy importance is the inherent value of this report in its employment as a guide for heightened communication between the teacher and her school psychologist. It is recommended that school administrators provide more funds for the development of adequate testing, and that those persons responsible for advising teachers on test results seriously consider the merits of the psychodiagnostic educational report as developed in this study. Further research seems warranted, especially in the report sections concerning case histories and prescriptive techniques.

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Keywords

Children with disabilities, Psychodiagnostics, Education

Citation