Using Bug-in-the-Ear Technology to Facilitate Trainees’ Use of Behavior Management Strategies During Child Assessments

ABSTRACT

Many clinicians provide psychoeducational assessments to children with a variety of mental health concerns; however, the literature is sparse with regard to training clinicians to provide assessments with this population. This brief report describes the use of an innovative training model desired to increase trainee competencies in the use of behavior management strategies during child psychoeducational assessments, a common training activity for clinical psychology graduate students. Bug-in-the-ear (BITE) technology, although utilized for training in other fields, is not regularly used for clinical training by clinical psychology doctoral programs. Child psychoeducational assessments provide a unique training opportunity to utilize BITE technology to provide live supervision to trainees while helping to ensure that an accurate representation of the child’s ability is obtained and not obstructed by the presence of disruptive or other maladaptive behaviors. A model for using BITE to improve trainee use of child behavior management and ways to measure outcomes are presented. In addition, an example trainee case is discussed. BITE-facilitated supervision represents a creative and efficient method to improve trainee use of behavior management strategies during child assessments and should be considered by graduate programs training students to conduct child psychoeducational assessments.

Funding

This work was supported by a Small Teaching Grant from Virginia Commonwealth University awarded to Heather A. Jones.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a Small Teaching Grant from Virginia Commonwealth University awarded to Heather A. Jones.