What do Educational/School Psychologists do?

We all know that a good education can drastically improve life outcomes..but what if you have a learning disability, an intellectual disability, or a mental health issue? As a Graduate student in Educational Psychology, I wanted to use this post to briefly highlight what Educational Psychologists do.

Educational Psychology is the intersection of psychology and education. It is the study and application of psychological knowledge (what we know about individual personality differences,different ways that humans learn, what we know about cognition) to help answer questions in the educational context. For example..a teacher or parent wants to know what are the strengths and weaknesses of student x? why is student x struggling with certain academic material? why is student x not able to pay attention in class?

Educational Psychologists that work in the clinical context (ie School Psychologists) would help answer these questions.

How would a School Psychologist go about trying to answer these questions?

1. Interview with parents and child (which will include very detailed history taking..including medical history)
2. Input from parents/teachers/student (often filling out rating scales of some sort to gauge emotional/social/behavioral functioning)
3. Comprehensive assessment tools (objective assessment of academic/language skills, IQ, cognition (memory, attention, etc)

I hope this brief little post will give you a better idea about Educational/School Psychology!

Have you had a child assessed by a School Psychologist? What were your feelings?