Educational Diagnosticians

Here's a link to Dr Rasinski's website where you can read more about his books: https://www.timrasinski.com/index.html He talks with us about his newest book, Artfully Teaching the Science of Reading. You can purchase the book here: https://www.routledge.com/Artfully-Teaching-the-Science-of-Reading/Young-Paige-Rasinski/p/book/9781032080864

We wonder why RTI doesn't really take place in schools. Maybe it's because people would rather discredit the system rather than commit to actual school improvement? How do we assess in the context of a system that uses RTI by name only? What are the discussions around how to diagnose learning disabilities?

Dr. Schultz from MSU, Dr. Cavin from Tarleton State, Dr. Rueter from UT Tyler, and Becki Robertson from Region 10 join to tell us about some of benefits various programs offer and some of the challenges they are faced with.

CBM may not be the answer to bringing an intervention frame of mind to education, but they certainly are a step in the right direction! Nazzie Pater-Rov discusses reasons for using CBM in our FIEs, misunderstandings about CBM, and the various types of CBM that are available.

Dr. Nathan Clemens describes the concepts presented in his newest edition of a book he co-authored with his late mentor, Dr. Edward Sharpiro. The book, Academic Skills Problems, demonstrates how a good quality academic assessment has the potential to drive intervention.

Collaboration between the diagnostician and the Adapted PE teacher has the potential to add richness to Full Individual Evaluations. Dr. Linda Hilgenbrinck is a leader in her field at a national level.

In this episode we talk to Dr. Deborah Speece, a leading researcher in learning disabilities who later went on to be the commissioner of the National Center on Special Education Research under the Institute of Educational Sciences. She is introduced by Dr. Nathan Jones, the current commissioner.

Dr. Cecil Reynolds joins to tell us about how to prevent dyslexia through early and systematic screening and progress monitoring.

Dr. Ed Schultz tells us about the important features of C-SEP that we need to keep in mind to be sure that we are implementing C-SEP with fidelity.

In their book: Related Services in Special Education: Working Together as a Team, Dr. Bateman and Goran give guidance on making sure that related services are provided with good justification. Dr. Hope McCarroll, OT, gives her reflections as well on how to use our related service specialists to help all students in the school.

Dr. Mehta from TWU tells us about a study she's conducting using imitation therapy to help nonverbal children learn to talk. She also discusses issues around assessing these students.

Dr. Johnson and Dr. Feifer explain that trauma can impact brain neurology. Children who experience trauma over experience changes in their attention and emotional regulation. The slightest triggers can remind them of the trauma that they experienced.

Dr. Russell Skiba joins to talk with us about the way disproportionality is measured, what it says about our society, and how it can be improved.

Some countries around the world have less resources but better outcomes than the US. Disproportionality resulting from inequitable funding in education is a big reason for this outcome.

Dr. Byron McClure joins us to talk about the impacts of disproportionality in special education and how we can make a difference by focusing on what's strong, not what's wrong.

Sarah Holman is tells us how various questions from the referral can help to influence our hypothesis and choose the tests we want to use to verify that hypothesis. We talk about what resources to refer to for a standard referral, how prevalence of referrals and disability identification relate to the quality of systems of supports, and the barriers to receiving good information in our referral.

Robbi Cooper is one of the parents who pushed HB 3928 through the legislature last spring. She joins to tell us why this legislation was important, what the parent advocates hoped to achieve, and all of the work that went into creating the bill.

Dr. Miller uses correlations to create profiles of strengths and weaknesses of WJ IV cognitive and achievement subtests for various ages for each disability area. He answers questions about how he uses scientific statistical methods to achieve the evidence of these patterns. He cautions against not using IQ tests and explains how neuropsychological studies and psycho-educational have started to ov...

Special Education was built on the vision of Evelyn Deno. She wanted us to fully realize separate is not equal and had a vision of an inclusive education system that saw special education as a safety net that would bring up the rear of those who fall behind in general education. However, there are those who blame her vision for issues in special education like defining LRE and what makes special e...

Dr. Martin Bloomfield from Dyslexia Bytes and Dyslexia Compass tells us about his mission to create discussion and awareness regarding the challenges that various countries and cultures present when faced with the challenge of literacy and dyslexia. Candace Vielma joins to help with the interview.

Representatives from Region 10, Region 11, and clubhouse regulars put our heads together to find a way to summarize the new legal updates resulting from the last legislative session.

12 new courses are available on the TEA website to help you be in the know about DBI and it's role in MTSS. We talk to Deanna Clemens, the Director of Integrated Special Programs at TEA about these.

Tammy says people often don't understand why we decide to be diagnosticians, and we often forget ourselves. Our profession is in a crisis from the increased numbers of referrals. We struggle to focus on the child's story and put too much focus on scores. We've been through a lot of changes and we can go through these changes over time. CSEP was a lead in making the changes that TEA is...

Dr. Katie Maki does research on the elements that influence our decisions as evaluators and how consistent we are in our decisions.

Dr. Erica Lembke is pioneer researcher, creating CBMs and developing RTI research at the University of Missouri. She tells us about her work with the NCII to bring better RTI to Texas. Texas is one of 9 states taking on the DBI system of interventions and support for our students.