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There are a variety of skills that are not directly taught in schools yet serve as protective factors for academic success (i.e., self-efficacy, social, skills; emotional well-being; Graziano et al (Journal of School Psychology 45 3-19 2007); Minnard (Children and Schools 24(4) 233-246 2002). An intervention strategy for promoting such protective factors in school-aged children involves mentoring. Despite the dramatic increase in the implementation of mentoring programs in the first decade of the current century (Herrera et al (Making a difference in schools 2007); Portwood & Ayers (Children and Schools 30 177-185 2005), there remain few systematic program evaluations and even fewer meta-analyses examining the effects of mentoring. Specifically, there is a paucity of research examining the potential benefits of mentoring on emotional well-being. The current study addresses this gap in the literature by providing an overall assessment of the relationship between mentoring and emotional functioning of mentees. A qualitative analysis, as well as a quantitative meta-analysis, examining the effects of mentoring programs on the emotional well-being of school-aged children is presented. Overall, findings provide evidence for a small to moderate positive effect of mentoring on the emotional well-being of youth. Additional analyses focusing on specific emotional constructs indicate that mentoring has a small negative effect (d = 0.20) on negative affect, a medium negative effect on internalizing behavior (d = 0.45), and a medium positive effect on self-esteem (d = 0.45). For children, success in school requires more than reading, writing, and arithmetic thus, mentoring may be one approach to developing the necessary protective factors that can lead to greater success.

The study tested whether deficits in executive function are associated with adolescent risky behavior engagement. At baseline, adolescents (n = 102) aged 12 to 19 years were administered a performance-based measure of executive function and self-report measure of broad-based risky behavior engagement. Additionally, a teacher report for each participant delineating executive function was obtained. In line with our hypothesis, hierarchical multiple regression analyses indicated that adolescents exhibiting poor observer-reported executive function (i.e., teacher report) were more likely to engage in a greater frequency of risky behaviors. Conversely, there was no relationship between the performance-based measure of adolescent executive function and risky behaviors. These findings highlight the importance of obtaining teacher input when operationalizing youth vulnerability, particularly as this relates to understanding executive function deficits. Clinical implications for in-school intervention programs are discussed.

This study examined the efficacy of the school-based Program for the Education and Enrichment of Relational Skills on the social functioning of young adults with autism and cognitive deficits. The program was administered bi-weekly at a private school for students with special needs. Students' social etiquette knowledge, friendship engagement and teacher reported levels of their social functioning were assessed pre- and post-intervention. All participants experienced significantly improved knowledge of appropriate social etiquette. Further, students with cognitive deficits, but not those with autism, reported a significant increase in friendship engagement. Overall, the PEERS school curriculum benefited young adults with cognitive deficits, but the students with ASD experienced more challenges applying their new social skills outside of the program.

The paper examined the effectiveness of an in-school intervention for adolescents designed to target emotional regulation skills related to risky behaviors. The Cognitive Emotion Regulation Intended for Youth (CERTIFY) program was delivered to at-risk adolescents in Montreal, Canada. Participants were drawn from an alternative high school and a dropout prevention program within an urban high school. The pilot was a student-focused therapeutic modality without parental intervention for maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation (CER) and engagement in risky behaviors. CERTIFY is a school-based group intervention targeting CER strategies and was implemented with 28 adolescents from two English language secondary schools. The intervention was conducted for 12 weeks for the intervention group versus controls who were offered usual school supports. Program outcomes were evaluated using the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire and Risky Behaviors Questionnaire for Adolescents. The intervention group made significant gains with regard to using adaptive CER strategies. Specifically, the intervention resulted in increases in self-reported use of positive reappraisal and refocusing on planning. No significant gains were found for reducing the use of maladaptive CER strategies or risky behaviors. This school-based intervention program for high-risk adolescents increased overall use of adaptive CER strategies and provided insight for future intervention design.

In the current study, the authors examined whether the fatigue level of children diagnosed with cri du chat syndrome was associated with the expression of autistic symptoms. Sixty-nine children with cri du chat syndrome were compared with 47 children with moderate to severe intellectual disabilities who did not differ on intellectual severity. Participants were assessed using the Infant Sleep Questionnaire (J. M. B. Morrell, 1999) for fatigue-level rating and the Childhood Autism Rating Scale (E. Schopler, R. J. Reichler, & B. R. Renner, 1988) for autism-level rating. In support of the authors' hypothesis, results indicated that children who exhibited high levels of fatigue were more likely to express high levels of autistic symptoms. Contrary to the authors' hypothesis, children in the comparison group who exhibited high levels of fatigue conferred the greatest vulnerability to the expression of autistic symptoms.

School psychology is a dynamic field that has moved from a primarily assessment-based practice to a more complete and intervention-centered profession. Although this shift has been mainly positive, the present article addresses a potential gap in the current model. Specifically, technological advances have allowed for significant gains with regard to genetics. As a result, incorporating new genetic findings into the practice of school psychology allows for opportunities to advance the delivery of services, especially with regard to early identification of problems, prevention of negative outcomes, and specific interventions. Genetic research has led to earlier diagnoses for many disorders and will undoubtedly discover new causal genes for many disorders with currently unknown causes. School psychology remains a largely behavioral practice, but the advances in genetics provide an opportunity to improve assessment and interventions in the practice of school psychology. A major concern is not whether there should be a place in modern school psychology for genetics, but whether current practitioners will embrace such a union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]