What are the experiences of educational psychologists when working with adolescent girls in mainstream education with social communication difficulties? An exploratory study
The author undertook semi-structured interviews, to investigate the experiences of Educational Psychologists, in order to consider how their role can be adapted to support girls with social communication difficulties.
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Theme: Specialist support
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Strength: Robust
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Breadth of Impact: Robust
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Status: Quality Assured
The author undertook semi-structured interviews, to investigate the experiences of Educational Psychologists, in order to consider how their role can be adapted to support girls with social communication difficulties.
They found that multiagency working was felt to be essential in providing comprehensive support to this population. However, there were contradictory opinions around the most effective and appropriate way of forming multiagency working relationships. In some cases, the freedom and flexibility were valued, and how overlapping boundaries could allow each professional to fulfil a slightly different, individualised. In contrast, others felt blurred boundaries led to confusion and made multiagency working more difficult.
This grey literature was appraised using a validated checklist. The AACODS checklist provides guidance when dealing with diverse formats of grey literature (Tyndall, 2010). AACODS includes the following items: Authority (who is responsible for the intellectual content) – Accuracy – Coverage (parameters which define the content coverage i.e., reference to a particular population group, or certain type of publication) – Objectivity (identify bias, if it is unstated or unacknowledged) – Date (that confirms relevance of information)- Significance (value judgment in the context of the relevant research area). The checklist can be used for any discipline area and prioritises expert opinion and expertise over source format (Tyndall, 2010).