1996 - 97 Reports

The Professional Development Programme (PDP) is managed by the Association of Scottish Principal Educational Psychologists (ASPEP) in collaboration with Local Authorities and funded by the Scottish Office Education and Industry Department. This is the second cycle of the Programme, which involves groups of psychologists in cross-boundary project work and other professional development activities, around agreed themes, over a period of about one year. The outcomes from this work are disseminated to colleagues and others in the field of education. This booklet gives a summary of the activities and findings of the three themes addressed by the 1996-97 programme, namely:

• Collaborative Assessment : Issues in Context and Practice
• Service Level Agreements and Negotiating Skills
• Early Identification and Intervention.

The 1995/96 group studying Assessment had indicated a number of issues they were unable to address fully. This year's topic tried to complete these studies and suggest ways forward for the profession. They looked in particular at:

• Difficulties;
• Affective and Metacognitive Aspects of Achievement;
• The Identification of Specific Reading Difficulties Through Assessment of Listening Comprehension Skills.

This group considered whether the negotiation of Service Level Agreements were justified between Psychological Services and their employers i.e. local councils. They further looked at the skills required for practising educational psychologists to reach satisfactory practice level agreements with schools and other departments. They produced a training package which was piloted with a group of Eps and evaluated.

One of the major practise issues for multi-disciplinary work with young children is the model which is followed, whether medical, often involving an assessment centre approach , or educational/community where the child is assessed in contexts familiar to her/him. These competing models were evaluated. A further area of debate is the use of screening to predict 'at risk' children. A critique of the issues involved in both identification and intervention is provided and advice offered. Due to the number of early intervention programmes which are currently in place in Scottish local authorities a database of these was constructed to aid networking and sharing of good practice.