Emily Goodman-Scott

Aligning Comprehensive School Counseling Programs and Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports to Maximize School Counselors' Efforts

School counselors are tasked with contributing to a safe and preventative school climate serving students’ academic, career, and social/emotional needs through comprehensive school counseling program implementation. Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) prioritizes a positive school climate, is widely implemented in the United States, and has been recommended by influential educational stakeholders. School counselors can assist with PBIS implementation; however, no thorough description exists of the alignment between comprehensive school counseling programs and PBIS. In this article, the authors conceptualize this alignment, aiming to increase school counselors’ and stakeholders’ understanding of and advocacy for this alignment to maximize school counselors’ efforts. The article provides school counseling implications and recommendations.

School Counselors' Roles in Creating and Implementing Social Stories to Serve Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

The percentage of students educationally identified with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is on the rise and school counselors are called to serve this population. Social stories are recommended in t...

Using Universal Screening for Early Identification of Students at Risk: A Case Example from the Field

This study describes the benefits of systematic universal screening (US) for school counselors engaged in the creation of effective, multi-tiered systems of support that address academic, social, emotional, and behavioral student concerns. The authors used an action research framework to present a case example of one school districts pilot of US and the role of the school counselor in the identification of students in need of social-emotional support. This article discusses implications for school counselor collaboration with other school-based mental health professionals.

How School Counselors Implement Social Stories: Results of a Qualitative Study

Social stories are an evidence-based intervention that have been used for decades in the educational field to address youth’s social skills. In recent years, scholars have begun discussing the use of social stories in school counseling; however, limited research exists on the topic. This article describes a qualitative thematic analysis (N = 12) investigating how school counselors implement social stories. In answering the research question, researchers found the following themes: social story utilization, student population, student goals, and social story characteristics.

Ramp and Pbis: "They Definitely Support One Another": The Results of a Phenomenological Study (Part One)

Scholars have explored the impact of comprehensive school counseling programs on student outcomes, including those programs that garnered the RAMP (Recognized ASCA [American School Counselor Association] Model Program) designation. A surfeit of empirical examinations of positive behavioral interventions and supports (PBIS) outcomes also are extant. Although researchers have investigated RAMP and PBIS individually and conceptual articles have suggested models for aligning these two frameworks, scholarly investigations of their interaction are scarce. Researchers in this study conducted a phenomenological inquiry with 10 school counselors employed in schools that featured both a RAMP designation and implementation of PBIS with fidelity. The researchers determined four resulting themes regarding school counselors’ lived experiences working in schools with both the RAMP designation and high levels of PBIS implementation: (a) RAMP–PBIS interaction, (b) “the data is amazing,” (c) “part of the [school] culture,” and (d) challenges and benefits.

Counseling Children and Adolescents with Sensory Processing Disorder: Results of an Exploratory National Study

Sensory processing disorder (SPD) is a neurological disorder impacting the behavioral, emotional, and social functioning of 5% to 17% of children. However, SPD is underrepresented in the counseling literature with few relevant peer-reviewed articles and no empirical research to date. In this article, authors present a brief overview of SPD and a description of and results regarding a national, exploratory, qualitative study of self-identified professional counselors’ (N = 204) preparation for, knowledge of, and experiences with child and adolescent clients with SPD.