Project #2 - Psychological Processing Checklist

Learning disabilities represents one of most common disorders affecting school-age children and adolescents. Conceptualizations of this disorder stress it's relationship to various psychological processing disorders (how we organize and integrate information we receive through our various senses). Estimates of the incidence of learning disabilities in the school-age population range from 2% to 20%.

This research project involves investigating the psychometric properties (i.e., how consistent the measure is and whether or not it is measuring what the test is designed to measure) of the Psychological Processing Checklist (PPC) developed by Dr, Swerdlik and two of his colleagues here at ISU (Dr. Jef Kahn and Peggy Swerdlik). Multi-Health Systems will publish this checklist this summer.

The PPC is a rating scale completed by teachers of students suspected of having learning disabilities in grades K-5. The PPC measures various psychological processes in children including Auditory Processing, Visual Processing, Visual-Motor, Social Perception, Organization, and Attention auditory, visual, attention, organization.

As a member of the research team you will be involved in the development and implementation of research studies that would involve communicating with teachers, working (e.g., perhaps administering brief psychological tests) with children, coding data, and assisting in data analysis. Participating as a member of this research team will be worth credit in either PSY 287 (Independent Study) or PSY 290 (Special Projects: Research Apprenticeship). Typically students commit to 9 hours of work on this research per week in exchange for 3 credit hours of PSY 287 or 290.

If you are interested in learning more about how you may be involved in this research, contact Dr. Swerdlik at 438-5720 or by e-mail at meswerd@ilstu.edu.