Educational Diagnosticians

Representatives from Region 10, Region 11, and clubhouse regulars put our heads together to find a way to summarize the new legal updates resulting from the last legislative session.

12 new courses are available on the TEA website to help you be in the know about DBI and it's role in MTSS. We talk to Deanna Clemens, the Director of Integrated Special Programs at TEA about these.

Tammy says people often don't understand why we decide to be diagnosticians, and we often forget ourselves. Our profession is in a crisis from the increased numbers of referrals. We struggle to focus on the child's story and put too much focus on scores. We've been through a lot of changes and we can go through these changes over time. CSEP was a lead in making the changes that TEA is now making. She'd like to create a book of our stories and why we chose to be diagnosticians.

Dr. Katie Maki does research on the elements that influence our decisions as evaluators and how consistent we are in our decisions.

Dr. Erica Lembke is pioneer researcher, creating CBMs and developing RTI research at the University of Missouri. She tells us about her work with the NCII to bring better RTI to Texas. Texas is one of 9 states taking on the DBI system of interventions and support for our students.

Dr. McGill wrote When Theory Trumps Science in 2016, an article about the lack of statistical reliability for our assessment methods. Since then, he's written similar articles examining the reliability and validity of cognitive assessments for predicting academic performance.

Anise Flowers, Ph. D, has moved on from Pearson learning and now works for Presence. Presence uses telecommunication technology to match evaluators with districts who need evaluations. She tells us about the benefits of the platform and the validity of using it.

Dr. Monica McHale-Small tells us about the position of the Learning Disabilities Association of America's position on identifying a learning disability and the work of the LDA to bring awareness to the issues surrounding learning disabilities.

The Texas Educational Diagnostician Agency celebrated its 50th Anniversary and became golden this year. Many didn't get to go because the conference was quickly sold out. I share my take aways from the conference for those of you who didn't get to attend.

Dr. Sarah Brasiel joins for Educational Diagnostician Week to tell us about the Institute for Educational Sciences.  The organization offers lots of information and services to teachers and evaluators. Because they encourage the science of education, their work provides hope that one day, we will use science to find ways to prevent learning disabilities.  In recognition of Educational Diagnostician Week, she wrote a blog about our Clubhouse and the researchers that have been interviewed through this project who have also been awarded grants for research from the IES.