Dr. Cecil Reynolds, author of the Behavior Assessment System for Children – 2nd Edition (BASC-2) and the Reynold’s Intellectual Assessment Scales (RIAS), will present three workshops at the Forrest City Jr. High School auditorium in Forrest City, on October 21 and 22, 2004. The auditorium is located at 1133 North Division Street.
An all day session on October 21 (9:00 to 3:00) will focus entirely on the BASC-2. The BASC, originally published in 1992, has become the most widely used set of objective rating scales and self-report scales for diagnosis of disorders of emotion and behavior among children and youth in the public schools throughout the United States. In 2003, the BASC was applied with an excess of one million children in the U.S. and Canada. A major revision of the BASC, the BASC-2, was released in September of 2004. The BASC-2 is composed of a variety of components including a teacher rating scale, parent rating scale, a self-report scale, a structured developmental history, and an adjunct scale allowing direct observation and quantification of observed behavior. Multiple new scales have been added to the BASC-2 along with some entirely new components, and the BASC age range has been expanded. This workshop will review the years of developmental work that went into creating the BASC and the BASC-2, along with the BASC-2 model. The BASC-2 is presented as a multi-method multidimensional system for objective determination of mental disorders in children. The current workshop will be of interest to both current BASC users (emphasizing the transition from BASC to BASC-2), and also to the novice BASC-2 user. Advantages of the new BASC-2 scoring and interpretive software will be reviewed along with the BASC Portable Observation program (BASC POP).
The first session on the October 22 (8:30 to 11:30) will feature a presentation on neuropsychological models of intelligence and basic neuroscience for educators. This session will focus especially on the design of the assessment process, understanding neuropsychological tests, and designing teaching strategies based on the presence of cognitive/neuropsychological strengths of children. Last spring, Dr. Reynolds presented a similar workshop in Helena, and it was requested that he expand upon it this fall.
At the second session, on October 22 Dr. Reynolds will present an overview of the RIAS, enabling participants to 1) understand the concept of (general intelligence) and its relationship to profile analysis of IQ scales; 2) define the constructs assessed by the RIAS; 3) describe the RIAS development, standardization, and scaling processes; 4) administer and score the RIAS accurately; 5) interpret RIAS scores; and 6) understand the importance of complex memory as a component of intellectual assessment and predictor of academic achievement. An introduction to the Comprehensive Trail Making Test (CTMT), a recently published, rapid measure (6-12 minutes) of executive functioning will be included.
These workshops will be of particular help to those engaging in providing mental health services to schools.
If you plan to attend, please email Dr. Donald A. Boyd at: dboyd@arkedu.k12.ar.us, or call: 1-800-482-8437 by October 7, 2004.