Science

School Psychology is an outlet for research on children, youth, educators, and families that has scientific, practice, and policy implications for education and educational systems. In this editorial, a summary of the last 5 years is provided regarding journal impact and use, award winners, special topics, and editorial leadership. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)

The COVID-19 pandemic created unique challenges for adolescents, impacting their well-being. The present study sought to answer the questions: (a) What are the latent classes of youth according to their self-reported adverse experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic? (b) To what extent do behavioral health outcomes differ across these latent classes? And (c) to what extent do youth sociodemographic characteristics predict latent class membership? This study used data from a nationally representative sample of United States high school students who completed the Adolescent Behaviors and Experiences Survey in early 2021. Latent class analysis categorized youth based on their self-reported pandemic-related adversities, including parental and personal job loss, food insecurity, physical and verbal abuse in the home, social disconnection, and difficulty with schoolwork. Most participants were assigned to the class labeled generalized lower adversity, followed by the heightened academic and/or economic stressors class, and finally, the heightened adverse home experiences class. Across the three classes, significant differences in proportions of latent class members reporting poor mental health, increased alcohol use, and increased drug use during the pandemic were found. In addition, identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or questioning was consistently associated with higher odds of membership in a higher risk latent class. Conducted to inform school crisis preparedness efforts, this study highlights opportunities for strengthening universal and targeted prevention systems, and tailoring supports for student subpopulations during societal crises and schooling disruptions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)

School psychologists take on many tasks and responsibilities in their practice, whether that be in schools, clinics, or private practices. In this role, they risk experiencing ongoing stress that can result in burnout. Although previous literature on this topic has mentioned methods of coping with stress and preventing burnout, there has been little research on the impact of mindful self-care methods on levels of stress and burnout in school psychologists. Using data from a sample of 350 practicing school psychologists, this research examined the interplay of mindful self-care with stress and general and specific features of burnout in school psychologists. School psychologists reported moderate to high levels of stress, general burnout, and emotional exhaustion. They reported engaging in mindful self-care activities 2–3 days per week, on average. Moderation analysis revealed that the interaction of mindful self-care and stress was not a statistically significant predictor of general burnout; however, it was a statistically significant predictor of emotional exhaustion. The interaction terms represented small to medium effect sizes, respectively. Mindful self-care appeared to strengthen the relationship between stress and emotional exhaustion. These findings indicate that, despite experiencing notable work-related stress, school psychologists do not appear to be reaping the potential benefits of mindful self-care in terms of decreased feelings of emotional exhaustion at high levels of stress. Because mindful self-care is not a comprehensive solution to burnout among school psychologists, systemic changes should be made to their work environments and their expectations to address the stress and burnout they experience. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)

Automated writing evaluation programs have emerged as alternative, feasible approaches for scoring student writing. This study evaluated accuracy, predictive validity, diagnostic accuracy, and bias of automated scores of Written-Expression Curriculum-Based Measurement (WE-CBM). A sample of 722 students in Grades 2–5 completed 3-min WE-CBM tasks during one school year. A subset of students also completed the state-mandated writing test the same year or 1 year later. Writing samples were hand-scored for four WE-CBM metrics. A computer-based approach generated automated scores for the same four metrics. Findings indicate simpler automated metrics such as total words written and words spelled correctly, closely matched hand-calculated scores, while small differences were observed for more complex metrics including correct word sequences and correct minus incorrect word sequences. Automated scores for simpler WE-CBM metrics also predicted performance on the state test similarly to hand-calculated scores. Finally, we failed to identify evidence of bias between African American and Hispanic students associated with automated scores. Implications of using automated scores for educational decision making are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)

Therapeutic processes are important in potentially facilitating psychosocial treatment outcomes. Our aim in this study was to evaluate clinician skills and behaviors (i.e., clinician adherence, clinician competence) and relational factors (i.e., working alliance, adolescent treatment engagement) as predictors of academic and organizational skill outcomes in a school-based, multicomponent skills training intervention for 84 high school students (83.3% male, Mage = 15.0, SD = 0.8) with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Clinician adherence and competence as well as working alliance, after controlling for baseline functioning and other therapeutic processes, did not account for a significant amount of variance for any treatment outcome. Alternatively, adolescent engagement emerged as a predictor of parent ratings of organizational skills and homework performance at posttreatment. These findings highlight treatment engagement as a key component in the mechanisms of effects in skills training interventions for adolescents with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and important areas for assessment (e.g., measurement of engagement) and implementation support (e.g., training in engagement enhancement strategies) in school-based mental health practice at the secondary level. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)

We review how various forms of randomization can be applied in single-case experimental design (SCED) methodology to help control various threats to internal validity. Randomization strategies that can be added to various SCEDs include phase-order randomization, between-intervention case randomization, within-intervention case randomization, and intervention start-point randomization, along with two- and three-way combinations of each. Specific examples of how these forms of randomization can be applied in numerous variations of SCEDs wherein replication is a primary internal and external validity feature (e.g., intrasubject replication or ABAB, alternating treatment, multiple baseline) to increase the scientific credibility of these methodologies are discussed. We also provide examples of the utility of randomization to control validity threats in nonconventional designs where replication is not part of the design structure. Previous recommendations to adopt randomization have assumed implicit advantages of this strategy but without specific details of how randomization serves to control validity threats. We make explicit how each form of randomization controls for internal validity concerns that traditional replication alone may not address. Additional benefits of randomization in SCED experiments include improving the status of this methodology and increasing the likelihood of researchers including SCED intervention research in their literature syntheses. In addition, design randomization allows for various randomization statistical tests to be conducted, thereby increasing data-evaluation/statistical-conclusion validity. Implications for future SCED intervention research methodology are discussed, along with recommendations targeting the need for randomization standards in SCED research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)

Immigrant-origin youth (IOY) are a growing population within the United States with a high risk of mental health challenges as a consequence of unique stressors and risk factors, disparities in access to mental health services, and disproportionate distress associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. This study examined the effectiveness, utility, acceptability, and cultural fit of the virtual Youth Mental Health First Aid (YMHFA) training program for school staff who work with IOY. Educators and school staff working predominantly with IOY (n = 36) attended a standard virtual YMHFA, completed surveys at pretraining, posttraining, and 3-month follow-up, and participated in virtual focus groups at posttraining. Results revealed significant improvements in mental health knowledge (d = .48), confidence to help (d = .70), and attitudes toward mental illness (d = .35) that were sustained at 3-month follow-up. The content and format of the virtual training was highly rated in its utility and acceptability. Qualitative themes related to virtual YMFHA’s general utility and acceptability, perceptions of its cultural relevance, and recommendations to improve the cultural relevance of YMHFA were identified. Based on these results, several implications for implementation of YMHFA training in schools, improving the training’s cultural relevance for helping IOY in schools, and future directions in research are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)

The adolescent mental health crisis has prompted a need for an improved understanding of developmental trajectories of psychopathology to promote understanding of risk and protective factors and bolster prevention and intervention efforts. The present study describes the Substance Use and Risk Factors Survey, a universal screener of mental health, substance use, and school and contextual factors administered in public middle and high schools in Massachusetts (N₂₀₂₀ = 3,522, N₂₀₂₁ = 6,484, N₂₀₂₂ = 23,915). Using a seven-question linking code approach, a subset of students were longitudinally linked across administrations (N2020–2022 = 563, 58% female sex, 30.4% minoritized racial/ethnic identity, Mage = 13.2 years; N2021–2022 = 1,545, 51% female sex, 28.9% minoritized racial identity, Mage = 14.3 years). Linking using minimally invasive questions such as the ones presented here may reduce risk, increase privacy, and offer a low-burden opportunity to link observations across time. This work aims to characterize longitudinal trajectories of mental health including substance use in large, community-based samples, as well as the individual-, school-, and community-level risk and protective factors that may modulate the expression of mental health symptoms over time. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)

Early adolescence is a pivotal time for academic development; however, the vast majority of research on reading and math development within a multitiered system of support has been conducted among elementary students. Using triannual (Fall, Winter, Spring) academic screening data, we examined the transactional development of reading and math skills among sixth and seventh grade students (N = 1,693) using Bayesian longitudinal structural equation modeling (SEM). We find equivocal support for four of the five types of longitudinal SEMs tested (dual-change, linear change, proportional change, latent curve with structured residuals, and random-intercepts cross-lagged models). Stable between-person differences in math and reading (i.e., latent/random intercepts) are strongly correlated regardless of the modeling approach (r = .70–.77), consistent extensive prior research in this area. However, correlated growth processes at the between-person level and within-person transactional relations of math and reading were inconsistent across models. We discuss the practical implications of these findings as well as the methodological issues with detecting within-person instructional response in triannual screening. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)

The use of self-report measures evaluating social, emotional, and behavioral risk can be an important element of universal screening with older children and adolescents. Research has demonstrated discrepancies between teacher ratings and student self-report ratings of social, emotional, and behavioral risk, which commonly result in incongruent risk classifications. The present study explored classification incongruence and informant discrepancies on the teacher- and student self-report versions of the Social, Academic, and Emotional Behavior Risk Screener. Screening data from over 600 high school students and their homeroom teachers were examined. Results showed classification congruence was highest for the Social Behavior subscale and lowest for the Emotional Behavior subscale of the Social, Academic, and Emotional Behavior Risk Screener, with teachers endorsing lower levels of risk compared to students. Analysis of potential sociodemographic predictors of informant discrepancies indicated that grade, sex, free and reduced-price lunch eligibility, 504 plan status, and special education status were significant predictors of classification incongruence on at least one Social, Academic, and Emotional Behavior Risk Screener subscale. Implications for practice and limitations are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)