Basic Information
Name: Allison Suriani
AIM: skiterd84
Year: Senior
Major: Psychology with a minor in Clinical Psych
Interests: psychology, music, movies, skiing
Work: volunteer at
BryLin Psychiatric Hospital, worker in the Canisius Psych Department, secretary of Psi Chi, officer of Psychology Club
Future Plans: Phd in EDU Psych at UB--I start there next fall!!
To see a journal of my volunteer experience go to
PracticumofAllisonSuriani
Annotated Bibliography
My Topic: How asthma affects acedemic achievment
Why Did I Choose This: I had asthma as a child and my little brother has asthma now and even though I dont feel it effected my performance I believe it has an effect on him. I am very interested in performance and learning in school (hence why I am going to grad school for ed psych). So I combined the two interests and that is where my topic came from.
Using Thesaurus: I have never used the thesaurus option before so this was new to me. My first term, asthma, was not a problem. When I typed in my second term, academics, that I had some different options come up. Academic achievement and academic performance both came up as options. So I used both of those terms to search with and found similar articles. So when I search I beleive I will use asthma and academic performance and asthma and academic acheivement.
Using PSYCH INFO and Finding Articles: I have used psychinfo before so it was very easy for me. I came up with over 30 articles that deal with my topic for my first search. Going through these articles though, many were not empirical and many did not have full text available. After searching through the articles I found 4 with full text. The rest had abstracts and information on what journal they were from. So I went to the library to try to find some of these journals. On my first try I found 2 of the journals which gave me two articles. one from the New England Journal of Medicine and the other from Journal of School Health. So then I had a total of seven articles. Two other journals I requested through inter-library loan. I am now waiting for them to come in, hopefully on time. To find additional articles I will search through the references of the articles I already have.
Starting the Annotated Bibliography: I have so far written up summaries on four of my articles. Writing the summaries was not hard just time consuming. I generally followed the set up of the articles, starting with introduction, then discussing methods, results, and finally discussion. Some of the articles had a lot of information on methods and less on results on discussion or vice versa so my summaries reflected that.
More Progress: It was a bit difficult to find the rest of my 10 articles. As I was searching I found there was a lot of research out there regarding actual interventions aimed at children with asthma in schools. So I stretched my topic a bit to include not only the effect that asthma has on children's performance but also on interventions to help children with asthma. By doing this I found the rest of my 10 articles to use. I primarily stuck with the
PsychINFO database but also found some on
PsychARTICLES to use. The main problem I ran into is that a lot of the articles I found were interesting and provided a lot of knowledge, but did not include empirical studies. So even though I found over 20 articles about my topic, only 10 were empirical. After finding all my articles I finished writing the summaries. As I said before, it was time consuming, but not difficult. Most of my summaries were 1 and a half pages long, so all articles together create a packet 20 pages in length.
Interesting Things from my Summaries: I have been finding, as I am writing my summaries, that asthma does not really have a large effect on grades, but more on the emotional state of the child. A couple articles examined the medications used by children with asthma and how that impacts school performance. Also, many of my articles discuss interventions, such as asthma manangement programs within schools. These interventions do not increase grades so much but instead help the coping and maintenance activities of the children with asthma. The interventions used are diverse. While a few articles discussed comprehensive asthma management programs that include such things on educating parents and children on asthma and how to control it, one article discussed a intervention based on relaxation and guided imagery. Another article discussed an actual entire school created specifically for children with chronic diseases like asthma and a different article discused the impact of school health centers on children with asthma.
Articles Used:
Anderson, Mark E., Michelle R. Freas, Andrea S. Wallace, Allison Kempe, Erwin W. Gelfand, and Andrew H. Liu. "Successful School-Based Intervention for Inner-City Children with Persistent Asthma." Journal of Asthma 41 (2004): 445-453.
PsychARTICLES. 20 Apr. 2006.
Clark, Noreen M. "Changes in Children's School Performance as a Result of Education for Family Management of Asthma." Journal of School Health 54 (1984): 143-147. 18 Apr. 2006.
Clark, Noreen M. "Effects of Comprehensive School-Based Asthma Program on Symptoms, Parent Management, Grades, and Absenteeism." Journal of School Health 26 (2004): 456-466.
PsychARTICLES. 19 Apr. 2006.
Guo, J J., R Jang, and K N. Keller. "Impact of School-Based Health Centers on Children with Asthma." Journal of Adolescent Health 37 (2005): 266-274.
PsychINFO. 21 Apr. 2006.
Guo, J J., R Jang, and K N. Keller. "Impact of School-Based Health Centers on Children with Asthma." Journal of Adolescent Health 37 (2005): 266-274.
PsychINFO. 21 Apr. 2006.
Lindgren, Scott, Boris Lokshin, and Ann Stromquist. "Does Asthma or Treatment with Theophylline Limit Children's Academic Performance?" New England Journal of Medicine 327 (1992): 926-930. 19 Apr. 2006.
Naude, H, and E Pretorius. "Investigating the Effects of Asthma Medication on the Cognitive and Psychosocial Functioning of Primary School Children with Asthma." Early Child Development and Care 173 (2003): 699-709.
PsychINFO. 18 Apr. 2006.
Peck, Heather, Melissa Bray, and Thomas J. Kehle. "Relaxation and Guideed Imagery: a School-Based Intervention for Children with Asthma." Psychology in the Schools 40 (2003): 657-675.
PsychINFO. 19 Apr. 2006.
Rachelefsky, Gary S., Julie Wo, Judith Adelson, M R. Mickey, Sheldon L. Spector, Roger M. Katz, Sheldon C. Siegel, and Albert S. Rohr. "Behavior Abnormalities and Poor School Performance Due to Oral Theophylline Use." PEDIATRICS 78 (1986): 1133-1138.
PsychINFO 20 Apr. 2006.
Roder, Irma, Pieter Kroonenberg, and Monique Boekaerts. "Psychosocial Functioning and Stress-Processing of Children with Asthma in the School Context: Differences and Similarities with Children Without Asthma." Journal of Asthma 40 (2003): 777-787.
PsychINFO. 18 Apr. 2006.
Shohat, Tamar, Yael Graif, Ben-Zion Garty, Irit Livne, and Manfred Green. "The Child with Asthma At School: Results From a National Asthma Survey Among Schoolchildren in Isreal." Journal of Adolescent Health 37 (2005): 275-280.
PsychINFO. 20 Apr. 2006.
School Psychology:
I interviewed Janet Orser at Ellicott Elementary in Orchard Park on Feb 17th 2006 at 9:30am with
JillianFitch.
Janet Orser 209-6341
-BA from Canisius
-MA from Alfred U
-used to be part time between schools, now full time at Ellicott elementary
Dr Bayer's Questions:
-Which providers of services in the community do you use for outside referrals?
>Ellicott is located in Orchard Park so many of the students come from families where the parents are usually well-educated and from the middle to upper middle class. Parents usually prefer to seek private treatment and don't go to agencies. Families in this community also obviously have good insurance policies that will cover any treatment.
>She did say that some places that are sometimes used include Catholic Charities, Child and Adolescent services of the southtowns, and the Hamburg Counseling Center.
>She also mentioned that one of the four elementary schools in OP-Windom, which is in a lesser privledged socioeconomic area of the town use the public services more since they may not be able to use private services.
-What special intervention services do you offer in your building(s) that you think are particularly effective?
>Janet felt she intervention services at the school were very very effective. She said everyone works together as a team and there are many different services for the kids.
> One service is AIS (academic intervention support), which is remedial math and english classes for kids who either scored low on state tests or who were referred by a teacher. Janet pointed out that the students usually score very well on state tests, so most are usually referred by teachers.
>There is also a reading and writing specialist and three resource rooms where kids can spend 180 mints a week on skill development. There is also an "outstanding" Special Ed program.
>There are also what she called self contained classes (3 of them). They contain one teacher, one aid, and twelve students. There is one for grade 3, 4, and 5. They are blended rooms with special ed kids and regular level kids. They get to work apart and together so they special ed kids dont feel isolated and get to interact with regular kids.
>There are also people who come in for special needs of blind and deaf students and there are physical therapists.
-What outside agency educational programs does the district use? Any impressions on their strengths and weaknesses?
>Janet talked about 2 programs that Ellicott uses the most
>BOCES, which provides services the distract can't, like for students who are legally blind or deaf, or who have profound learning problems.
>Another program the distract uses is called SETRC, which is a sort of training base where people are trained to know all of the latest knowledge and legislation that is coming out so that anyone in the school system can contact them to learn about new developments in the world of school psychology.
My Questions:
-What courses would you recomend taking in college besides the required classes that either helped you or would have been helpful?
>Janet made the point that sometimes it doesnt matter what classes you take, but what kind of personality you have that makes you a good psychologist. You need to have certain characteristics like patience, flexability, a good sense of self, the ability to look outside yourself, the ability to listen and reflect and communicate effectively, caring, and love children.
>She said one important aspect that a student should focus on is counseling, becaause it teaches you how to communicate, listen, reflect, and develop relationships with people.
>She said one problem she has with UB's school psych program is that they dont emphasis counselling and a lot of the interns she had had to learn it from her.
-What are some of the common issues they have to deal with everyday?
>just typical problems with kids-attendence problems, issues in the classroom, "school politics" aka problems and issues with teachers and administration
>mostly consultation, assessing kids, problem solving with staff and partents and planning intervations
>Janet is mostly involved in assessing children and developing intervention plans for the parents and teachers to implement
-What kind of training have you had?
>she got her BA from Canisius and her MA from Alfred
>When Janet attended Alfred, the grad students worked in a counseling center and the program really emphasized the counseling aspect of school psychology
>She also pointed out the program at Alfred really emphasized learning techniques for interviewing and observation and was not just focused on doing assessments and developing "numbers."
-What is your typical day like?
>One thing that Janet stressed was that every day is different. There is no set schedule and she never knows from day to day what is going to happen. She could be working with teachers on referrals or to develop intervention plans for them to apply. She could also be in communication with parents about plans for their child or making arrangements to assess the child.
>She also really enjoys the lack of routine her job allows for. She says that a school psychologist must be very flexible in order to work like this day to day. Also, Janet previously split her time in between 2 different schools, but is now full-time at Ellicott. She says she prefers this much more becasue it allows her to know the children and the teachers more and she can develop closer relationships with them.
-How often do you work with the teachers of the school?
>Janet works very closely with the teachers at Ellicott. The teachers refer children whom they think need assessment and/or intervention. Janet then works with the teachers and parents to develop an intervention that will work for everyone involved.
>She must know the likes and dislikes and strengths and weaknesses of all of the teachers so she can develop an intervention plan that they can successfully implement.
-How much time do you spend on assessments, consultations and interventions?
>Janet spends the most time doing consultations, which is mostly "problem solving" with school staff and parents.
>She also spends a good deal of time on assessments- she performs cognitive assessments, behavioral observations, and uses emotional scales.
>She also spends some time on interventions-she plans them for the teachers and parents but doesnt get to take part in them herself a lot
>She also does a lot of counselling with the kids and their parents and crisis intervention.
-Do you do anything specific to develop social skills?
>She says social skills are important and she incorpates them into her work and so do the special ed and resource room classes.
>She actually participated in an experimental intervention program where social workers and psychologists worked together in a program that was used in all third grade classes in orchard park many years ago. It was a cutting edge program aimed at prevention-its purpouse was to teach social skills to all the kids and prevent future problems.
>She also noted though that now her work is more aimed at intervention rather than prevention (but shed love to do more prevention if she could).
-Do you enjoy your job?
>I could tell she loved her job. She loves kids and loves the challenges of her job. She also loves how she is never bored and that everyday is different. "With each new problem there is a new solution"
-Any advice for aspiring school psychologists?
>Janet had some really good advice for anyone entering the field. She wanted everyone to remember that when you are entering a school system, you are on your own. You need to understand the school system and the politics that go on. She said you need to remember who runs the building (the secretaries) and realize that there is a pecking order. You need to also realize who you are in terms of experience and you will see that you really can learn a lot from the "veterans" if you are open to learning. People will be willing to teach and guide you if you are open to the experience.
CategoryUsers
Spring2006
Psy370Spring2006
The following 4 pages belong to AllisonSuriani:
