Archived News & Events
The Department of Educational Psychology
& Special Education

Deborah Bruns was contacted by a reporter from the Detroit Free Press and prominently quoted in the January 23 edition of the newspaper, in an article on “A heaping helping of fear: ‘Spoiled’ is not the only reason kids won’t eat.” Speaking about problem eaters, she said, “These are kids who will only eat frosted flakes from Kellogg’s, not the other stuff from the store, and it has to be in the blue bowl and with a yellow spoon or whatever.” Throughout the state of Michigan, dozens of parents are nodding in recognition of Debbie’s observation!

Mohan Dev Pant, a doctoral student in the Educational Measurement and Statistics Program of the Department of Educational Psychology and Special Education (EPSE), co-presented a paper with fellow doctoral student Sunil Lamsal, entitled Regional Differences in Faculty Salaries: Does Faculty Rank Matter? at the annual conference of the Mid-Western Educational Research Association held in Columbus, OH on October 13-16. Mohan also presented a paper, co-written with EPSE faculty member Todd Headrick, entitled Simulating Univariate and Multivariate Burr Distributions at the annual conference of the American Educational Research Association held in Denver, CO on April 30-May 4. Finally, Mohan published a paper co-authored with EPSE faculty members Todd Headrick and Yanyan Sheng: Headrick, T.C., Pant, M.D., & Sheng Y. (2010). On simulating univariate and multivariate Burr Type III and Type XII distributions. Applied Mathematical Sciences, 4(45), 2207-2240.

Mohan Dev Pant	Sunil Lamsal	Todd Headrick	Yanyan Sheng

Jennifer Koran was an invited speaker at a conference on Advances in Longitudinal Modeling in the Social Sciences on June 16, in College Park, MD. She presented on “The Discrimination-Censoring Paradox in Item Response Growth Models.” The conference was sponsored in part by the Society for Multivariate Psychology. Jennifer also made two other recent presentations:

• Koran, J., & Hancock, G.R. (2010). Specification of piecewise latent growth models. Paper presented at the 2010 annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Denver, Colorado.
• Koran, J. (2010). Estimation intensity in item in item response growth models. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Psychometric Society, Athens, Georgia.

Nancy Mundschenk presented a paper with master’s student Joseph Bohannan, doctoral student Kim Johnson-Harris, and recent Ph.D. Graduate Jennifer Palacios-Wirz, entitled “Implementing RtI in Rural Schools: Implications and Recommendations” at the 34th Annual Teacher Educators of Children with Behavioral Disorders (TECBD) Conference that took place in October in Tempe, AZ. At the same 34th TECBD Conference, Nancy and Jennifer (who is now an assistant professor at Central Michigan University) presented another paper on “Curriculum Based Measures for High School Algebra: Implications for Effective Progress Monitoring.”

Deborah Bruns has four recent presentations, all with colleague Stacy Thompson (CI):

• Bruns, D., Clayton, J., Thompson, S. & Morris, A. (2010, October). Have a taste: Feeding strategies for young children with disabilities. Poster session presented at the International Division for Early Childhood Conference on Children with Special Needs. Kansas City, MO.
• Thompson, S. & Bruns, D. (2010, October). Merry mealtimes: Addressing young children’s sensory integration issues to improve feeding experiences. Poster session presented at the International Division for Early Childhood Conference on Children with Special Needs. Kansas City, MO.
• Raisor, J., Thompson, S.D. & Bruns, D.A. (2010, October). Perspectives of EI Stakeholders’ in one Midwestern State. Poster session presented at the International Division for Early Childhood Conference on Children with Special Needs. Kansas City, MO.
• Bruns, D.A. & Thompson, S.D. (2010, October). Feeding young children: The Do’s and Don’ts. Session presented at the Illinois Association for the Education of Young Children Conference, Springfield, IL.

Todd C. Headrick has a recently published book, entitled Statistical Simulation: Power Method Polynomials and other Transformations, that has made the LibraryJournal.com Best Sellers in Mathematics List at #20.

Michael May, has two recent presentations:

• May, M.E. (2010, October). Severity of aggression in adult males with intellectual disabilities is associated with serotonin transporter polymorphisms. Presentation at the Annual Conference of the Tennessee Association for Behavior Analysis, Nashville, TN.
• Brandt, R.C. & May, M.E. (2010, October). Parental attitudes toward genetic screening for aggression in children with autism. Presentation at the Annual Conference of the Tennessee Association for Behavior Analysis, Nashville, TN. In October, the whole Counselor Education faculty and several doctoral and master’s students (EPSE) attended the annual conference of the North Central Association for Counselor Education and Supervision in Itasca, IL.

We took the conference by storm (!) with the following presentations:

• Arnold, J. Ethnic identity as a factor in coping and symptoms of post-traumatic stress in White, Latino, and African American men.
• Arnold, J., Meiling, G., & Pimpleton, A. Wounded warriors: An examination of a program for veterans and their families.
• Asner-Self, K. K. & Vannatta, R. How counselor educators may use Pederson’s Triad Training model in rural settings.
• Asner-Self, K. K., & Vannatta, R. Today’s college students: On-line counseling or face-to-face. o Champe, J., Asner-Self, K. K., Pimpleton, A., Campbell, J., & Arnold, J. An investigation of career self-efficacy in psychoeducational groups.
• Champe, J., Ibrahim, N., Campbell, J., Kamsani, S. R., & Yusof, H. M. “Joe, what is Halloween for?” Navigating culture, faith, & gender.
• Ibrahim, N., Othman, N. A., & Asner-Self, K. K. Islamic women as clients: What do I do?
• Kamsani, S. R., Yusof, H. M., & Zyromski, B. International doctoral students as supervisors: Experiences with basic skills.
• Kardatzke, K. N. Dyadic coping and relationship satisfaction.
• Kimemia, M., Aldrich, N., Hood, M., Sriner, K., Thomas, T. & Weshinsky, N. Managing practicum student anxiety: Implications for counselor preparation.
• Kimemia, M., Campbell, J., Ibrahim, N., Kamsani, S. R., & Yusof, H. M. Multicultural supervision: navigating difficult dialogues.
• Pimpleton, A., Stevens, H., & Othman, N.A. Using peer support in negotiating multiple relationships within supervision.
• Stevens, H. Theory or framework?: Supervising counselors-in-training’s use of solution-focused brief counseling (SFBC).
• Stevens, H. State of the literature of body image and gifted adolescents.
• Zyromski, B., & Asner-Self, K. K. Quantifying Masters Students’ internship experience.

Heath Stevens, a graduate student in the Counselor Education program (EPSE), also presented at the most recent national conference of the Association for Assessment in Counseling and Education in Memphis, TN on “Measuring the body electric: Issues in assessment and research of body image.”

Michael May (EPSE) has two recent publications, with one co-authored with EPSE faculty colleague Rhonda Kowalchuk:

• May, M.E., Lightfoot, D.A., Kowalchuk, R. K., Srour, A., & Kennedy, C.H. (2010). Serotonin Transporter Polymorphisms and Aggression in Adult Males with Intellectual/Developmental Disabilities, Brain Research, 1357, 97-103
• May, M.E. & Kennedy, C.H. (2010). Health and problem behavior among people with intellectual disabilities. Behavior Analysis in Practice, 4, 1-9.

Patricia B. Elmore,Ph.D., Professor, Retires

(Ph.D., Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, 1970) Fellow, American Educational Research Association (AERA, 2009) and Fellow, American Counseling Association (ACA, 2005) Co-Editor, Educational Researcher

Dr. Rob Lyerla

Alumni Achievement Award recipient this year was Dr. Rob Lyerla, who received his PhD in 1994 from our Measurement and Statistics program in the EPSE Department. Dr. Lyerla currently serves as Acting Director of the Division of International Relations at the Fogarty International Center in the United States National Institutes of Health (NIH). Prior to working at NIH, he spent five years as U.S. Government secondee to the United Nations Joint Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) in Geneva, Switzerland in the epidemiology and analysis division. At UNAIDS, Dr. Lyerla was responsible for estimating the burden of HIV infection in most at-risk populations as well as having specific focus on nations in Southeast Asia, China, Russia, and other countries in the former Soviet Union. He also spent eight years as an epidemiologist in the Division of Viral Hepatitis at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia. He received the Outstanding Young Scientist Award from the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps (USPHS) in 1998 and is a Captain in the USPHS Commissioned Corps. We are very pleased that Dr. Lyerla joined us this spring not just as our award recipient but also as our Commencement Speaker on Saturday, May 15, for both ceremonies.

Jason Arnold, a doctoral student in Counselor Education, was interviewed for the winter edition of the Illinois Counseling Association Newsletter. Please read the attached newsletter for more details. Download PDF 14.9 MB]

A graduate of the counseling program at SIUC recently contributed an article to Counseling Today related to counseling internationally. The article can be found online at: http://www.counseling.org/Publications/CounselingTodayArticles.aspx?AGuid=ef57302f-de3c-425b-8429-b2ef1277ad29