“Even before COVID-19, as many as 1 in 6 young children had a diagnosed mental, behavioral or developmental disorder. New findings suggest a doubling of rates of disorders such as anxiety and depression among children and adolescents during the pandemic. One reason is that children’s well-being is tightly connected to family and community conditions such as stress and financial worries,” co-writes Sandra Chafouleas, a Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor in the Neag School of Education.
“As many schools in the U.S. figure out how to safely and fully resume in-person instruction, much of the focus is on vaccinations,” says Neag School Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor Sandra Chafouleas. “But there’s another type of ‘vaccine’ that may be beneficial for some returning K-12 students that could be overlooked. Those are known as ‘behavioral vaccines.'”
“As education leaders navigate our emerging new reality, it is critical that their decisions, and guidance that informs their decisions, be effective and usable. The evolving education environment demands nimble decision-making that relies on the best available knowledge,” say Neag School’s George Sugai and Sandra Chafouleas.
Nearly a year since the nation went into lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, just about everyone is struggling to maintain a semblance of normality. Parents of school-aged children have taken to social media and countless news stories have been written on the difficulties of balancing remote learning with remote working.
Representatives from Connecticut school systems, state agencies, higher education institutions, and nonprofit organizations gathered at the University on Wednesday, Oct. 23, to develop collaborative plans to broaden school and community mental health services across the state and address issues surrounding childhood trauma.
Professor Sandra M. Chafouleas in the Neag School’s Department of Educational Psychology has been named a University of Connecticut Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor — the highest honor that the university bestows on faculty who have demonstrated excellence in scholarship, teaching, and service.
For teachers, administrators, and school psychologists, finding an easy, efficient way to track student conduct during the school day has long posed a challenge. Thanks to a new online behavioral assessment tool developed by Sandra Chafouleas, professor in the department of educational psychology and associate dean for research in the Neag School, and T. Chris Riley-Tillman, a professor at the University of Missouri, educators and school personnel can now quickly and efficiently monitor behaviors key to school success – with virtually no paperwork.
As a school psychologist and school administrator who specialized in working with behaviorally challenged children, Dr. Sandra Chafouleas learned first hand that schools are held accountable, not only for educating students, but also for addressing students’ behavioral issues and helping them to develop their social skills. “We’re well beyond the days of reading, writing and […]
