The Behavior Consultation Clinic (BCC) is designed to provide short-term services for parents and children ages birth to five years for a wide range of behavioral and developmental concerns such as parent-child conflict, daycare problems, sleep problems, toileting concerns, and sibling rivalry. Supervision is conducted via a one-way mirror.

Appointments are 45 minutes and therapy focuses on short-term, goal-oriented techniques. There may also be opportunities to participate in resident/medical student teaching. This rotation takes place on Fridays.

Supervisor:

• Jennifer Shroff Pendley, PhD
• Jennifer L. Curran, PhD

The Primary Care externship focuses on providing brief therapeutic intervention and consultation with professionals, including pediatricians, nurse practitioners, medical residents, nurses, and medical students, in a Nemours affiliated primary care office. One full day is spent in clinic, focusing primarily on short-term, goal-oriented interventions.

The experience also includes utilizing brief screening measures (e.g., Wide Range Intelligence Test, Wide Range Achievement Test-4, Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing) as needed to clarify diagnosis and inform educational interventions.

There may also be opportunities to participate in resident/medical student teaching. The patient population includes a wide variety of diagnoses including behavioral disorders, ADHD, learning disorders, mood disorders, anxiety disorders, elimination disorders, as well as many concerns of early childhood including eating and sleeping difficulties. This rotation takes place on Tuesdays.

Supervisor:

• Roger Harrison, PhD

Year-long externship positions are also available through the Weight Management Clinic. This is a multidisciplinary clinic staffed with physicians, psychologists, nurse practitioners, exercise physiologists, and nutritionists. Externs placed with this rotation have the opportunity to work directly with adolescents presenting to our bariatric surgery program, as well as carry outpatient therapy cases.

Clinical work centers around helping children and their families initiate and maintain lifestyle changes, as well as cope with environmental stressors and psychological co-morbidities. Opportunities for pediatric psychology programmatic development and research are also available. This rotation typically requires 1 day (8 hours) per week. This rotation typically takes place on Wednesdays.

Supervisor:

• Jennifer L. Curran, PhD

This clinic provides psychological consultation and therapy for children and adolescents with congenital heart disease and other heart-related conditions. Common referrals include anxiety or adjustment concerns related to a cardiac diagnosis, adherence to medication and lifestyle change, and attentional/behavioral concerns common among children who had open-heart surgery during infancy.

The extern in this clinic will see four patients one evening per week and will have the opportunity to collaborate with medical professionals in the Nemours Cardiac Center. Opportunities to work with other chronic illness populations within this clinic may also be available. This rotation takes place on Thursdays. This rotation can be a stand alone externship placement or can be combined with another rotation (such as the Diagnostic Evaluation rotation).

Supervisor:

• Erica Sood, PhD

The Eating Disorder Psychotherapy Rotation is a multidisciplinary approach to patient care, servicing children and adolescents diagnosed with anorexia nervosa, bulimia, and eating disorder NOS. The extern is expected to carry a caseload of two patients and must be available on Monday afternoons once per month for Lunch Time Rounding with the team from noon to 1 p.m.

Flexibility is permitted in terms of scheduling patients for therapy. Prerequisites for this rotation are high interest, commitment, and dedication to treating children and adolescents diagnosed with
eating disorders and their families. Prior experience is welcome but
not necessary.

Stress, Illness, and Pain Skills (SIPS)

Additionally, under Dr. Vigilante, the Stress, Illness, and Pain Skills (SIPS) group is a weekly 75-minute education and skills-based group serving youth ages 10-19 years with chronic illness-related pain who have medical homes within the hospital. This rotation involves assisting the psychology fellow in facilitating this weekly ongoing group. The SIPS group meets 4-5:15 p.m. Mondays in the hospital.

Supervisor:

• Vanessa Vigilante, PhD

As part of the Early Childhood Psychotherapy Rotation, externs provide evidence-based psychotherapy services to young children (aged 2-6) and their families. Common reasons for referral include disruptive behaviors, anxiety, parent-child conflict, attention concerns, and emotion regulation difficulties. Treatments provided may include Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT), exposure-based cognitive behavioral therapy for anxiety, and parent management training using a family-systems approach.

Externs see patients for one full day or half-day per week and have opportunities to receive live supervision via one-way mirror. This rotation takes place on Mondays and can be a stand-alone externship placement or can be combined with another rotation (such as the Diagnostic Evaluation rotation).

Supervisor:

• Hanna Carpenter, PhD

This position offers the opportunity to provide therapy (individual, family, and group), consultation (classroom teachers, nursing staff), and brief assessment services in a school-based setting for children with a variety of chronic illness conditions.

The First State School at Wilmington Hospital (Christiana Care Health System) is one of the first and only hospital-based schools in the United States dedicated to providing integrated specialized medical and therapeutic care (e.g., nursing as well as psychological, psychiatric, occupational, physical, and speech therapies) with traditional classroom schooling.

Physicians may refer kindergarten age to high school age patients to the First State School because of medical necessity. Typical diagnoses of children attending the First State School include diabetes, sickle cell anemia, hemophilia, HIV, kidney and liver disease, asthma, cancer, and gastrointestinal disorders. Therapy work is predominantly targeted towards medical adherence, adjustment to illness, coping with stressors, and enhancing school academic and social functioning.

There will be opportunities for the extern to consult with the child’s medical team (hospital and school-based), classroom teachers and educational diagnostician (e.g., behavior plans; accommodation plans), and consulting psychiatrist. The extern will be on-site a minimum of 1 day per week (Wednesdays), with the opportunity for up to 2 days per week.

Supervisor:

• Steven Reader, PhD

Diagnostic Evaluations may include assessment of intellectual functioning, academic achievement, attentional and executive functioning, and personality and behavioral variables that contribute to school, family, social, and developmental difficulties.

Assessment of neurodevelopmental functioning to assist in understanding the relationship between brain physiology and behavior may also be offered. Participation is expected in testing and interviewing procedures as well as in providing feedback to families and other involved parties like outside professionals and schools.

Case conceptualization, dissemination of findings and report writing will all be addressed. This rotation typically takes place on Mondays or Thursdays.

Supervisor:

• Rochelle Glidden, PsyD

This rotation involves completion of neuropsychological testing with children and adolescents presenting with neurocognitive or neurobehavioral difficulties associated with medical, neurodevelopmental, or genetic disorders. Test batteries typically include measures of intellectual functioning, attention, memory, language, executive functioning, and psychosocial functioning. Externs would assist with test administration and scoring, report-writing, and provision feedback to families.

1-on-1 weekly supervision would cover test administration issues,
case conceptualization with regards to neuroanatomy and development, and discussion of differential diagnoses. This rotation requires 2 days per week.

Supervisor:

• Hannah Schofield, PsyD

The Attention Deficit Disorder Consultation Clinic focuses on children and adolescents presenting with attention concerns. Often, referred children experience co-morbid difficulty with behavior, learning, and/or emotional functioning. In this experience, externs spend one morning per week completing comprehensive diagnostic consultations with families referred to clinic.

While most patients referred to this clinic do not receive a comprehensive psychological evaluation, academic screening is completed using the Wide Range Achievement Test-4 (WRAT-4). Additionally, patients complete the Conners’ Continuous Performance Test-II (CPT-II), while parents complete behavior rating scales and
the Disruptive Behavior Stress Inventory (DBSI), a new measure of parent stress.

Afternoons are spent providing follow-up feedback, where diagnostic impressions and treatment recommendations are shared with families. This rotation may also include opportunities to conduct therapy with children with ADHD and their families. This rotation takes place on Thursdays.

Supervisor:

• Steven Reader, PhD

When participating in Empirically Supported Evaluation and Treatment of Disruptive Behavior Disorders, externs have two primary responsibilities. Students participate in weekly psychological evaluations of children presenting with behavioral, attentional, and/or learning concerns, and are responsible for administering and scoring tests and writing comprehensive evaluation reports.

Tests used include widely used measures of cognitive ability, memory functioning, academic ability, phonological processing, and attention ability, as well as standardized behavior checklists. Additionally, students will also assist in concurrent child and parent Conduct Clinic groups. Duties include gathering baseline data, participating as a co-therapist for child or parent groups, and assessing outcome data.

The clinic is scheduled such that evaluations are conducted in the morning (Wednesdays), scoring and writing occur in the early afternoon, and groups are conducted at the end of the day (Wednesday and Thursday 5-7 p.m.). Individual and group supervision is provided.

Supervisor:

• Roger Harrison, PhD
• Steven Reader, PhD

An externship is also available conducting Early Childhood and Primary Grade Diagnostic Evaluations with children ages birth through third grade. Developmental and behavioral concerns are assessed with the Bayley III, WPPSI-III, WISC-IV, DAS-II, Stanford Binet-5, and a variety of adaptive behavior and social-emotional measures.

Duties include participation in parent interview and child play, administration of standardized assessment measures, report writing, and providing feedback to parents. This rotation takes place on Tuesdays.

Supervisor:

• Colleen Sherman, PhD
• Douglas Tynan, PhD, ABPP

This evaluation experience considers the complex diagnostic questions that arise when evaluating for an Autism Spectrum Disorder. Children aged 4 to 18 present with the question of an Autism Spectrum Disorder, but other diagnostic considerations such as mood disorders, behavior disorders, language disorders, cognitive disorders, and psychotic disorders are explored as well.

The trainee will gain exposure to the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule, Second Edition (ADOS-2), projective measures (including the Rorschach Inkblot test), and standardized measures of cognitive, academic, emotional, behavioral, and social functioning.

Duties will include conducting parent and child interviews, administration of assessment measures, report-writing, and parent feedback. A strong emphasis will be placed on conceptualization considering differential diagnostic questions and a family systems approach. This rotation takes place on Mondays.

Supervisor:

• Laura Dewey, PhD

The Personality Evaluation rotation serves children ages 6 to 18 years. In addition to measures of intelligence, achievement, memory, learning, and attention, this evaluation incorporates standardized and projective measures of child and adolescent personality. Examples of such measures include:

• Millon Pre-Adolescent Clinical Inventory (MPACI) 
• Millon Adolescent Clinical Inventory (MACI) 
• Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-Adolescents (MMPI-A) 
• Children’s Apperception Test (CAT) 
• Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) 
• Rorschach Inkblot Test 

Externs will learn the administration, scoring and interpretation of instruments and develop the skill sets necessary to write integrative reports with a large focus on understanding the patient within attachment, family systems and personality conceptualization frameworks. This rotation typically takes place on Mondays.

Supervisor:

• Vanessa Vigilante, PhD