School Psychology graduates Joaquin Aganza, Armando Godinez, Liliana Gonzales, and Deidra Smith built on a well-received National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) workshop and fine-tuned their work for publication with the support of faculty mentor Carol Robinson-Zañartu. Their manuscript on using cultural assets to enhance the assessment of Latino students will appear in Contemporary School Psychology, the official journal of California Association School Psychologists. This work drew on their studies in school psychology, a federally supported Bilingual Consortium Project and on their current work with Latino students and families as school psychologists. Working from a strength-based approach to assessment, they detail how to identify and use cultural assets and introduce their Cultural Assets Identifier (CAI) as a tool to assist in the identification and application of cultural assets to assessment and intervention with Latino youth.
Additionally, graduate student Vanessa Valenzuela, as a culminating master’s project under the mentorship of Drs. Katina Lambros and Gutierrez, implemented a Tier 2 multi-component mathematics intervention with four culturally and linguistically diverse second-grade students within an RTI system of support, evaluating its effectiveness using single case design methodology. The manuscript emerged from their presentations at the 2014 NASP and California Association of School Psychologists (CASP) annual conferences, and is currently featured in School Psychology Forum: Research in Practice, a refereed journal published electronically by NASP.
Finally, Dr. Brandon Gamble, an SDSU School Psychology graduate (now faculty at CSU Long Beach), collaborated with Dr. Lambros on a qualitative study examining perspectives of school-based mental health providers serving students in urban and ethnically diverse settings. Findings indicate efforts to promote minority access are often hindered by culturally-related factors, and that more careful data-based tracking and decision making is necessary to improve mental health services. This manuscript is featured in the Journal of Urban Learning, Teaching and Research.
Story submitted and written by:
Carol Robinson-Zañartu and Katina Lambros Ortega
Department of Counseling and School Psychology