Lawrence Balter, Ph.D. proudly announces the October, 1999 publication of his latest book: Balter, L., & Tamis-LeMonda, C. (Eds.). (1999). Child Psychology: A Handbook of Contemporary Issues. Philadelphia, PA: Psychology Press. This new handbook provides an up-to-date, representative overview of important topics in contemporary developmental psychology. In chapters written by leading international authorities in their fields, the volume highlights promising new areas of investigation and reviews controversies in appropriate theoretical contexts. This handbook will be an invaluable resource for developmental psychology instructors, graduate students, researchers, and educators. Dr. Lawrence Balter is a member of the School Psychology Program and professor of Applied Psychology at New York University. He has written extensively on parenting and child rearing for the general public. He appears regularly on television and is a contributing editor and columnist at two leading trade magazines. He also conducts parenting workshops around the country.

The school psychology program at Yeshiva University has been newly accredited by APA as a Combined School/Clinical Psychology Program.The program model is that of Practitioner-Scholar. The program offers training in both school and clinical child psychology. Students are trained to work with infants, school-age children,adolescents and their families in schools, hospitals, mental health centers and early childhood centers.

ASL Translation of the WAIS-III - A formal American Sign Language (ASL) translation of the WAIS-III is now available from The Psychological Corporation. The translation was developed and tested by Christine Kostrubala and Jeff Braden, of the University of Wisconsin--Madison School Psychology Program. This is the first time that a test publisher has developed a formal ASL translation of a psychological test as part of the test development/standardization process. The translation (available on videotape) includes an introduction to issues surrounding the assessment of deaf and hard-of-hearing clients, followed by ASL translations of all WAIS-III test directions and Verbal Scale items. The translation was developed using blind-back translation procedures, and was tested on a small sample (N=30) of deaf adults. Results from the pilot test suggest the translation was successful in meeting blind-back translation goals, and yields acceptable psychometric characteristics when used with deaf clients. The translation is offered to support psychologists who use ASL (directly or via interpreters) to administer the WAIS-III to deaf clients.

E. Scott Huebner received a Distinguished Alumni Award from the Indiana University School of Education. He join Beeman Phillips and Ronda Talley as graduates who have been recognized with this distinction.

Angela M. Oddone, M.S.W. is leaving her full-time position as Interim Director for Policy and Advocacy in the Schools at APA in order to accept an opportunity to work with the National Education Association as the mental wellness program coordinator for NEA's Health Information Network. She is now working part-time at APA to ease the transition. Her responsibilities at NEA include: (1) management of a project for SAMHSA's Center for Mental Health Services to identify sources of and interventions for teacher stress; (2) overseeing NEA's participation in the National Depression Screening activities; (3) coordinating NEA activities in relation to observance of the National Mental Health Association's designation of May as National Mental Health Month; (4) providing fulfillment for requests from NEA affiliates nationwide for presentations and/or journal or newsletter articles on mental health issues; and (5) contributing model language for policies and standards for union bargaining agents to negotiate for mental health parity with health insurance providers. As you can see from the summary of her new responsibilities at NEA, much of what she'll be doing there is highly consistent with the goals and aspirations for the work she’s done with APA. She reports that she is in the office two days a week (Tuesdays and Thursdays) and checks and responds to emails and phone calls on pretty much a daily basis.

Myrna B. Shure, Ph.D., professor of psychology at MCP Hahnemann University in Philadelphia, will publish How to Raise A Thinking Preteen: The "I Can Problem-Solve" Program for Eight-to Twelve-Year-Olds (Henry Holt) in April 2000. The book is a follow-up to her 1996 work, Raising a Thinking Child, which was a 1996 Parent's Choice Award winner and has over 115,000 copies in print.

Alan W. Brue, Ph.D., NCSP, is serving as Chair of the Georgia Association of School Psychologists' Spring 2000 Conference from May 3-5 in St. Simons Island, GA. Alan also writes a column, "Ask the School Psychologist," for the Times-Georgian newspaper in Carrollton, GA, and recently received a grant to study the learning styles of children with learning disabilities.

This past August, Russ Skiba at the Indiana University School Psychology Program received a 3 year federal grant from OSERS under the Projects of National Significance competition. Entitled "Building Safe and Responsive Schools: System-Wide Training in Preventive Discipline," the project will work with school teams at the elementary, middle and high school level to develop comprehensive, preventive plans to address school violence and disruption. Based on these experiences, the project will develop a guide for school discipline reform that will be disseminated nationally.

Nancy Waldron has joined the faculty of the School Psychology Program at the University of Florida. Prior to this position, she was a faculty member with the school psychology program at Indiana University.

The School Psychology Program at North Carolina State University would like to announce that its Psychoeducational Clinic observed its 50^th birthday in 1999. An Open House is planned for March 6 to celebrate this historic event. The Clinic is co-directed by Marcia Bingham and Patsy Collins, who were students of Harold Corter, the Clinic's founder. Other faculty members associated with NC State's School Psychology Program are Bill Erchul (director), Mary Haskett, Pat Horan, and Ann Schulte.