Jeff L. Cochran

Gifted Students From Low-Education Backgrounds

Gifted children from low-education backgrounds often experience barriers to educational and career success. This article reviews the growing body of literature regarding gifted students from low-education backgrounds and the related literature on the challenges and characteristics of first-generation college students. A mother and daughter interview provides a contextual example of the issues identified in the literature review. Implications for educators and practitioners are suggested, including ways in which elementary and middle schools can proactively address the issues facing low-education background students in gifted programs.

Effects of child-centered play therapy for students with highly-disruptive behavior in high-poverty schools.

Authors examine effects of child-centered play therapy (CCPT) within a service-research project. Students were referred for highly disruptive behavior by principals, with teacher input, following guidance through referral definitions and indicators provided by the authors. CCPT services were provided in high-poverty schools by counseling interns or beginning play therapists in close supervision. Findings include significant differences for treatment versus control groups and moderate to large effects from 9-session hours across total problems, externalizing, attention problems, and learning related self-efficacy, with no change in internalizing behaviors. Findings support the importance of CCPT in schools and other real-world settings for high-need children.

Pre-Post Demographic Study of Child-Centered Play Therapy for Students With Highly Disruptive Behavior in High-Poverty Schools

As a follow-up to a controlled comparison study of child-centered play therapy (CCPT) for students with highly disruptive behavior in high-poverty schools (Cochran & Cochran, in press), this study considers changes from pretreatment to posttreatment across nine school weeks of CCPT for all served students (regardless of control period), yielding evidence of significant improvement and large effect sizes, and a large enough sample to investigate possible demographic differences. While main effects were found for ethnicity and gender, with students from minority ethnicities in the data set (African American, Hispanic, and Native American) having higher means in externalizing behavior than students from the majority ethnicity in the data set (Caucasian), and girls having lower means in externalizing and higher means in internalizing than boys, no differences in rates of progress were found for ethnicity, gender, or age for each of the five dependent variables, supporting evidence of the wide ranging applicability and cultural sensitivity of CCPT.

The core conditions in counseling chronically undecided career decision-makers

ABSTRACT Authors assert the role of the core conditions from Rogers’ work in increasing effectiveness of career counseling with chronically undecided career decision-makers in college/university settings. After reviewing the needs and context of the population, the authors provide case examples emphasizing the roles of empathy, unconditional positive regard, and genuineness in career counseling helping previously stuck clients become unstuck. The core conditions are seen as building psychological contact, motivating the client opening to self-reflection, self-acceptance, and self-realization, including previously inhibited aspects of one’s self discovered as key to career decisions. The authors illustrate an integrated balance of the personal (attending with the core conditions) with the informational (e.g. formal assessments, knowledge of the world of work) helping the counselor deepen her focus on the person within her decision. The authors’ view of the role of the core conditions with chronically undecided college students provides a fresh look at the core conditions across career counseling and other settings in which (a) client connections are inhibited, and (b) there is a need for clients to also process information, such as from assessments, within counseling.