As an extern in the Psy.D. program at the Adler School of Professional Psychology I am currently fulfilling the year-long assessment practicum training requirement. My responsibilities include initial interviewing and intake, intake reports, diagnostic testing batteries, diagnosis, treatment planning, and the writing of psychological reports for client use, school use, or forensic use. The client population is multicultural, child to adult age range, and a wide range of SES. Contact and clinical hours: 20 hours per week.
I am currently serving as an extern volunteer in the Prison Aftercare Program of the Dreikurs Psychological Services Center of the Adler School of Professional Psychology. The program provides group and individual therapeutic services to the residents at the adult transition center, which is a locked facility, but offers passes based on good conduct, participation in educational programs, and participation psychological counseling. The services which I am providing include group psychoeducational therapy focusing on cognitive and behavioral strategies for anger management, emotional regulation, goal setting and goal planning. They also include individual therapy. Residents are mandated three sessions of therapy, but any residents who volunteer for further therapeutic services receive a full intake interview and psychological testing when indicated. Intake reports and psychological reports follow. The resident population is all male, largely African-American, and most are finishing sentences for drug and related criminal offenses. Contact and clinical hours: 5 hours per week.
As a graduate student in the Reading and Learning Disabilities Program, I spent a year working with a culturally diverse population administering formal diagnostic testing and providing prescriptive tutoring. The testing, assessment, diagnosis, and case report writing involved intelligence testing including the (WISC-R, Slosson, PPVT,) cognitive testing including (The Detroit Test of Learning Aptitude, The Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities,) perceptual / psychomotor instruments including (The Bender Gestalt, The Wepner,) and various specific achievement tests including the (Woodcock Johnson, Grey Oral Reading Test, TOWL.) Other informal measures were administered as well, like the House-Tree-Person. The training involved not only the assessment, but also the scoring and interpretation of the testing, formal diagnosis, development of a treatment plan, and execution of the treatment plan in one-on-one tutoring.