Engaging Your Growth Mindset for a Successful School Year

How to Fit Response to Intervention Into a Heavy Workload

New Service Delivery Models: Connecting SLPs with Teachers and Curriculum

You have accessThe ASHA LeaderFeature1 Aug 2019Think Beyond You: Activate the Power of Your School Treatment TeamTap into your creativity to help your team make the biggest possible difference to the most students' speech and language. Kim MurzaPhD, CCC-SLP Kim Murza Google Scholar , PhD, CCC-SLP https://doi.org/10.1044/leader.FTR1.24082019.46 SectionsAboutPDF ToolsAdd to favorites ShareFacebookTwitterLinked In It's probably not a professional skill you saw yourself learning in graduate school. It's likely not even one you see yourself applying in your daily work with students and other professionals. But, chances are, it's a skill mentioned at least once on your resume—maybe even more than that. And I'm betting you draw on that skill just about every minute of every workday. Come on, colleagues. What skill am I talking about? I'm talking about creativity—essential to realizing our charge to provide students individualized, evidence-based services in the least restrictive environment. School-based speech-language pathologists are some of the most creative people I know. It isn't all we need, though. SLPs in schools face an array of challenges: high workloads and caseloads, limited time for collaboration, and seemingly never-ending paperwork. There's no one-size-fits-all solution to these challenges (see "Overloaded With Tasks? Show Them the Numbers" on page 56), but we can take steps toward tapping into that creativity to enhance services for our students. Delivering expert services requires us to make student-centered decisions, collaborate with colleagues and parents, and actively advocate for each child on our caseload. It's hard—but not impossible. All it takes is time, knowledge, skills, relationships, compromise, commitment, organization, and, of course, creativity. No wonder we're tired! Our jobs are tough, but there's nothing quite like the moment when you see a student independently use—outside the speech room—the knowledge, skills, or strategies you taught him. These victories might seem small for us as we focus on big-picture goals. For the students we help—and their families—those small victories can change lives. So, how do we enable more victories, while balancing all the demands of working in schools? It's not possible to clone ourselves or add more hours to the day, but it is possible to be more strategic in our work approach. I suggest we consider playing three specific work roles more frequently: coach, independence facilitator, and advocate. Before exploring what that looks like, let's consider what's likely your current reality. Rotating hats I challenge you to step back and consider the many hats you wear in your current role: Interventionist Scientist Diagnostician Learner Independence facilitator Collaborator Mentor Coach Compliance officer Administrator Educator Record keeper Supervisor Advocate Motivator Which three hats dominate your time? Which three hats would you like to wear more often? Do all the hats allow you to work "at the top of your license"? SLPs bring a set of skills and expertise unique to schools. We also worked hard to call ourselves SLPs (remember graduate school?). If you think about the reasons you devoted your career to helping students communicate, it was likely not to experience lunchroom duty. No one thinks it's easy to balance working at the top of the license with the realities of limited school resources and the need to pitch in for the common good. But if you can see how tackling lunchroom duty to show you're a team player is worthwhile, then try these strategies to help find that balance. An issue of dosage Working at the top of the license certainly includes direct and indirect services. But is the direct work we do with students enough? Consider the importance of generalization and independent use of knowledge, skills, and strategies they learn with us. Think about the students on your caseload. Are you able to make sure the services you provide are the right services provided in the right way for each student? Let's consider a typical week for many students receiving speech-language services in school. Many students spend 30 minutes, twice a week, in a pull-out setting. If the student attends school for seven hours a day, five days a week, this means spending about 3% of their week receiving our services. Is this enough? Wearing all the different hats allows us increase dosage for our students, but something needs to give. Yes, school SLPs get pulled in many directions, but your creativity—with a touch of optimism—can prevent becoming overwhelmed or burning out. Reimagining service delivery in schools requires a reimagining of ourselves as school SLPs. To increase dosage, I suggest we consider wearing three hats more frequently: coach, independence facilitator, and advocate. Coach Educators see firsthand how a communication disorder affects educational access. In early intervention, substantial evidence supports the value of coaching families of young children with developmental disorders. Pro-coaching research also extends to communication-partner training for students who use augmentative and alternative communication. Wearing the coaching hat in schools can increase dosage for the students we serve. You will need to tap into your creativity for this. Communication—specifically language—acts as the foundation of education. So, combining efforts around speech or language goals can potentially reach well beyond the student's speech and/or language IEP goals. Helping teachers, families, and other school staff understand the importance of communication goals means wearing our advocate hat (see below) before our coach hat. Before jumping into coaching, it helps to understand several key principles. For instance, you may need to cultivate the IEP team's collective efficacy: the capacity of educators to collaboratively plan and execute required actions to improve student outcomes. Research indicates that schools with high collective efficacy can see bigger increases in student achievement (see sources). What's exciting here is malleability: SLPs can powerfully shape the collective efficacy of their school team by sharing stories of student achievements. Detailing these experiences and the strategies used to reach them can increase the likelihood of successful collaborative efforts. This requires some forethought and an understanding of collaboration principles. SLPs can take the first step by highlighting the small wins of your colleagues. Celebrating success can do a lot to increase understanding of one another's work and belief in one another's competency. As language professionals, we also want to heed the words we use. The more we speak in terms of the team instead of the individual, the more we encourage our colleagues to think like a team and interact with one another. Consider shifting from using "speech-language goals" to "the student's goals." This supports the notion that the IEP team is responsible for the IEP. Members of the IEP team should understand and support all the student's IEP goals. Members of the IEP team—including family members, general education teachers, special education teachers, para-professionals, and other related service providers—often spend a lot more time with our students than we do. This gives them many opportunities to build on SLPs' direct work with students. Embracing a few principles can make this happen: Recognize our colleagues' expertise understanding their students SLPs helping other educators see themselves as communication partners and independence facilitators (see below) can truly change the game. For example, during this past school year, I worked with a school district that experienced high turnover of their special education teachers. Their paraprofessionals, however, are for the most part veterans. Many worked with the same students for several years and knew them well, while the teachers quickly tried to get up to speed. Empowering the veteran paraeducators as experts and educators made them excited to try new things. Explore the Appreciative Inquiry model of coaching Appreciative Inquiry (see sources) supports a variety of coaching approaches, including the Cognitive Coaching approach many districts use. Certification in Cognitive Coaching requires an eight-day workshop conducted over 18 to 24 months. This certification requires a significant commitment, but extensive research supports the method (see sources). Results do show increased student achievement and positive change in the behavior of educators. The beauty of this framework is that the coach doesn't need to know the answers. Instead, by appreciating what already works in your school team and building on those strengths, SLPs help colleagues answer their own questions about how to grow in their role as extenders of your work. To coach co-workers in a way that helps them support your work with students, try using the "4D" cycle. First, ask questions to help them discover the strengths they bring to the table. Next, work together to dream, or imagine how the team can collaborate best. Then, support their critical thinking by asking questions used to design a plan for making their dream a reality. Finally, support your colleagues in executing the plan: destiny. Independence facilitator Not only is it powerful for the paraprofessionals we work with to think of themselves as independence facilitators, we owe it to our students to plan for independence from the start. SLPs can consider several principles when wearing their independence-facilitator hat: backward design, attribution theory, and student ownership of goals. Backward design The educational approach of backward design involves setting benchmarks and choosing instructional techniques with the end goals in mind (see sources). The method helps us more effectively support our students to reach independence. As the name implies, using backward design means thinking about generalization from the start. Because SLPs are master scaffolders, it's sometimes difficult to "count" our supports. Sometimes we don't even know we're prompting students! To get to independence, though, we need to recognize the scaffolds we use and build in time to hand over the role of prompter to the student. I challenge you to think about the communication partner, environment, and SLP supports currently used with each student. How can you plan now for the fading of those supports? Attribution theory (or growth mindset) According to attribution theory, people attribute their successes and failures to four basic factors: ability, task difficulty, luck, and effort (see sources). Successful, confident people tend to attribute success to internal factors (ability and effort), while those who are unsuccessful with low confidence tend to focus on external factors (task difficulty and luck) to explain their successes and failures. Building on this theory, educators with a growth mindset believe academic ability in any area for any student is not fixed. Achieving this proficiency, however, calls for effective instruction, enough time for improvement, and student effort. Our challenge as independence facilitators is to help our students understand attribution theory and develop their own growth mindset. We can teach them what it means and how to exert that effective effort, give them good instruction/intervention, and make them feel known and valued. Student ownership of IEP goals The bottom line is that SLPs who involve our students in—and let them lead—the goal-planning process support a growth mindset and can build more confidence in students. They're the most important members of the IEP team. By including their opinions in the process, we focus on the right things in the right way. Students who drive the process from the start also gain more motivation to participate in the treatment process than those who don't understand their own goals or why they receive services. Independence facilitators spend time building buy-in from their students and continue to provide opportunities for student feedback in the process. If we begin with the end in mind, we also must plan for handing over prompting to the student. To get to this level of generalization, students should understand each of their IEP goals to the extent they can collect data on their own progress. Helping students become more meta-cognitive about their own growth helps shift external explanations of success and failure to the internal explanations. This approach also helps students realize that with effort, they can achieve their goals. Advocate SLPs automatically act as advocates for our students. However, we often put less energy into advocating for our profession and ourselves. After spending two grueling years in a master's program learning everything speech, language, and feeding/swallowing, I started my clinical fellowship year surprised by how little my educator colleagues and administrators knew about SLP roles and responsibilities. Helping others understand our role wasn't something I was prepared to take on. But I soon realized if I wanted to improve my work life—reduce workload and increase time for collaboration—my administrators and colleagues needed to understand and value what I brought to the school. What's key, here, is to show colleagues your value by letting them see you in action. For your colleagues to believe in the power of the team, they must understand what you do and celebrate your victories with you. To get started, consider wearing your independence facilitator and advocate hats at the same time. When a student achieves a goal with a growth mindset, they can rely on those experiences to show themselves when you work hard you can improve. Celebrate and share this. Why not support your students by sharing their accomplishments with teachers and administrators? This not only shows how you value your students, but also helps your colleagues see the results of your efforts. In turn, celebrating these victories strengthens the collective efficacy of your team and can help secure the support of administrators. Also be ready to advocate for what you need to do your job well. Remember, before considering what could be, consider what is. In other words, before you ask your administrator for more time for collaboration, for example, understand—and be prepared to clearly explain—your current workload. For help with this, try using ASHA's new workload calculator (see page 56). A thorough workload analysis can give you the data you need to advocate for this change. However, data isn't typically enough; so once again, we must rely on our creativity! In 2016, Sam Horn gave the keynote at ASHA Connect in Minneapolis. Horn—an author and executive coach—spoke about her book, "Got Your Attention." For me, her ideas about creating intrigue and persuading people opened my eyes. SLPs don't typically study public communications or sales, so a lot of what she said was new to me. To apply some of her ideas in your school setting, consider what your administrator values most. Is it student test scores? Is it teacher retention? Is it a positive school culture? Think about how added time for collaboration—or whatever you want to ask for—can support that value. Then, consider using Horn's framework of: "Did you know …, Imagine if … ," and, "You don't have to imagine, I've figured it out/created it." If you can grab your administrator's attention with this framework, you can keep it going through engaging dialogue rather than a one-sided monologue: "Did you know more than half of students with disabilities have a specific learning disability or a speech or language disorder? Did you know language is the foundation of learning in school? Imagine if we could support language learning for these students regardless of their labels? You don't have to imagine! With an increase in only 3% of collaboration time for special education teams, I could use my language expertise to coach my colleagues in how to increase their support of language learning for all students!" Can't you just see the administrator reassigning your lunch duty on the spot? Okay, it might entail a little more effort, but at least you increased awareness of the issue. Of course, there is no one-size-fits-all solution for the challenges SLPs face in the schools. But fortunately, we are a creative bunch. And by reading this article, you took the first step. In the meantime, I hope we continue to imagine more for our students and our field, while remembering what Maya Angelou once said, "You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have." Sources Batt, E. G. (2010). Cognitive coaching: A critical phase in professional development to implement sheltered instruction.Teaching and Teacher Education, 26, 997–1005. doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2009.10.042 CrossrefGoogle Scholar Cooperrider, D. L., & Whitney, D. (2001). A positive revolution in change.In D. L. Cooperrider, P. Sorenson, D. Whitney, & T. Yeager, T. (Eds.) Appreciative inquiry: An emerging direction for organization development, pp.9–29. Champaign, IL: Stipes. Google Scholar Donohoo, J. (2017). Collective efficacy: How educators' beliefs impact student learning. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin. Google Scholar Edwards, J. (2016). Cognitive CoachingSM: A synthesis of the research, 12th edition. Highlands Ranch, CO: Thinking Collaborative. Google Scholar Hattie, J. (2012). Visible learning for teachers: Maximizing impact on learning. New York, NY: Routledge CrossrefGoogle Scholar Horn, S. (2015). Got your attention? How to create intrigue and connect with anyone. Oakland, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc. Google Scholar Saphier, J. (2017). High expectations teaching: How we persuade students to believe and act on "smart is something you can get. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin. Google Scholar Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (1998). Understanding by design. Arlington, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Google Scholar Weiner, B. (1974). Achievement motivation and attribution theory. Morristown, NJ: General Learning Press. Google Scholar Author Notes Kim Murza, PhD, CCC-SLP, is an associate professor of speech-language pathology at the University of Northern Colorado. She is an affiliate of ASHA Special Interest Groups 1, Language Learning and Education; 10, Issues in Higher Education; and 16, School-Based Issues. [email protected] Advertising Disclaimer | Advertise With Us Advertising Disclaimer | Advertise With Us Additional Resources FiguresSourcesRelatedDetailsCited byPerspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups5:1 (290-303)21 Feb 2020Perceptions of a Collaborative Professional Learning Program: Seeing the "Bigger Picture"P. Charlie Buckley, Kimberly A. Murza and Tami Cassel Volume 24Issue 8August 2019 Get Permissions Add to your Mendeley library History Published in print: Aug 1, 2019 Metrics Current downloads: 3,209 Topicsleader_do_tagasha-article-typesleader-topicsCopyright & Permissions© 2019 American Speech-Language-Hearing AssociationPDF downloadLoading ...

Purpose: The demands of athletic training students are substantial between academic and clinical responsibilities creating problems with commitment and retention. Grit and growth mindset have been associated with academic achievement and success; however, little research has assessed the presence of grit and growth mindset within athletic training students. Therefor the purpose of this study was to investigate the differences in grit and growth mindset between athletic training students and non-athletic training students majoring in general health sciences and to assess the relationship between grit and growth mindset in both athletic training students and non-athletic training students. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted utilizing a web-based survey to assess demographics, grit and growth mindset in undergraduate students. Univariate analyses and correlations were conducted to determine group comparisons and relationships between variables. Results: A total of 96 undergraduate students participated. Of the respondents 56% were athletic training students, 75% were female, and 83% were Caucasian. There was a significant difference in grit (U=800.50, p=.014) between groups with athletic training students (M=3.70, SD=.408) reporting lower levels of grit than non-athletic training students (M=3.93, SD=.413). Intelligence and talent growth mindset yielded no significant differences. A weak, positive correlation was found between grit and intelligence growth mindset (r=.341, p=.001) as well as between grit and talent growth mindset (r=.342, p=.001). Conclusion: The current study indicated differences in grit between athletic training and non-athletic training students, but not in growth mindset. Further research is needed to identify how these factors influence success and retention within athletic training programs.

Introduction. The subjective well-being index of Korean adolescents has been the lowest among OECD countries. High school students also have the lowest sense of happiness among adolescents. Therefore, this study was to seek a plan to increase the level of happiness of high school students in Korea. Study participants and methods. Participants of this study were 386 high school students enrolled in high schools located in two cities in Chungcheongnam-do. There were 271 (70.4%) males and 114 (29.6%) females. Regarding their grades, there were 245 (63.5%) in the third year of high school, 139 (36.0%) in the first year of high school, and 2 (0.5%) in the second year. For data analysis, SPSS 25.0 and PROCESS macro 3.5.3 were used, and frequency analysis, reliability analysis, correlation analysis, and moderated mediation effect analysis were performed. Results. First, flourishing had negative correlations with depression and suicidal ideation, but positive correlations with a growth mindset and gratitude. The correlation coefficient between depression and suicidal ideation (r=0.602, p<0.01) was the highest, followed by that between gratitude and flourishing correlation (r=0.506, p<0.01). Second, a moderated mediation role of growth mindset in the effect of depression on flourishing through suicidal ideation and gratitude was verified. Conditional indirect effects of depression → suicidal ideation → gratitude → flourishing were significant when the growth mindset was low (-0.7390, -0.1323~-0.0353), medium (0.0000, -0.1148~-0.0311), and high (0.7390, -0.1006~-0.0257). Conclusions. We found that the growth mindset plays a moderated mediation role in promoting flourishing by increasing the gratitude of high school students with depression and suicidal ideation. These results will help improve the happiness of high school students who suffer from entering to college and getting a job. In addition, these results will be used as an important academic basis that can be applied to the development and implementation of programs that can increase flourishing for high school students.

Background. The academic success of students in schools is significantly shaped by their mental attitudes, especially when they face challenging situations that demand substantial effort and resilience. The influence of teachers' attitudes, or mindsets, plays a crucial role within the educational environment, as these directly impact students' own mindsets and subsequently their approach to learning. Specifically, the concept of a 'growth mindset' – which is the belief that one's abilities and intelligence can be developed through dedication and perseverance – has been shown to transform how individuals perceive their capabilities and respond to failures. Objectives. In light of this, a specific study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of 'Growth Mindset Training' targeted at teachers. This training aimed to cultivate a growth mindset among educators, hypothesizing that a shift in teacher attitudes would, in turn, positively affect their students. Materials and methods. To assess the impact of the training, researchers utilized a growth mindset scale to measure the mindsets of 19 participating teachers, comprising 11 women and 8 men, both before and after they underwent the training program. Results. The findings from this study were quantitatively robust, with a T-statistic of -3.529 and a significance level of less than .005, indicating a statistically significant improvement in the teachers' growth mindsets post-training. Additionally, the analysis of mean scores from the pretest and posttest further confirmed an upward trend, suggesting that the mindset of the teachers had indeed shifted towards a more growth-oriented perspective. Conclusions. Thus, Growth Mindset Training emerged as a potent intervention tool, not merely altering teachers' perceptions but potentially setting a foundation for enhancing the overall educational experience by fostering a culture of perseverance and continuous improvement in schools.

Compared to national averages, the Gold Coast, Australia, has a proportionately higher number of children entering their first year of primary school with 'at risk' or 'vulnerable' language skills. This paper investigates the distribution of paediatric speech-language pathology (SLP) services on the Gold Coast, relative to children's language and cognitive skills, and socioeconomic status (SES). SLP service locations were identified through national association data and a manual search and mapped against SES and Australian Early Development Census data, for language and cognitive skills. Data for 7595 children was included, with 943 (12.4%) at risk and 780 (12.6%) vulnerable for language and cognitive skills. A total of 75 SLPs were identified (85.3% private, 14.6% public), which is 1 SLP to every 23 children who might have current or impending speech, language and communication needs. Fewer services were available in areas where vulnerable children were located and most were private providers, leading to further potential barriers to service access. The number of SLP services located on the Gold Coast is inadequate to meet the needs of children with language and cognitive skill vulnerabilities. Consideration of how services might be distributed is explored and warrants further consideration.

This research aims to analyze the importance of a growth mindset in Christian religious education as an effort to improve the quality of student learning. This research was conducted using descriptive qualitative research methods. Data was obtained through observation, interviews and documentation. Data analysis was carried out using several stages such as data collection, data reduction, data presentation and drawing conclusions. The research results show that education has an important role in developing children's intelligence, mindset and personality. Christian religious education teachers have the responsibility to develop students' mindsets through implementing a Growth Mindset and appropriate teaching strategies. This research concludes that developing a Growth Mindset can help students achieve better academic success and personal development. By having a growth mindset, students see challenges as opportunities to learn and develop and do not respond to them as obstacles. By having a growth mindset, students also have more self-confidence. Based on the research results, it is recommended that Christian religious education teachers continue to strengthen the application of the Growth Mindset in their teaching. In addition, further research can be conducted to observe the effectiveness of the teaching strategies used in developing a Growth Mindset in students.

Adults hold a broad range of beliefs about intellectual ability. Key examples include beliefs about its malleability, its distribution in the population, whether high levels of it ("brilliance") are necessary for success, its origins, and its responsiveness to intervention. Here, we examined the structure and motivational significance of this network of consequential beliefs in a sample of elementary school-age children (5- to 11-year-olds, N = 231; 116 girls, 112 boys, three gender nonbinary children; predominantly White and Asian children from relatively high-income backgrounds). We assessed five beliefs: (a) growth mindsets (malleability), (b) universal mindsets (distribution), (c) brilliance beliefs (necessity for success), and beliefs about ability's (d) innateness and (e) responsiveness to intervention. Even among the youngest children, these beliefs were empirically distinguishable and also largely coherent, in that they related to each other in expected ways. Moreover, the five beliefs assessed here were differentially related to children's learning (vs. performance) goals, preference for challenging tasks, and evaluative concern (i.e., concern that mistakes will lead others to evaluate the self negatively). Even when adjusting for age, children with growth mindsets were oriented toward learning goals and preferred challenging tasks; children who believed ability has innate origins preferred performance goals; and younger (but not older) children who thought success required brilliance expressed more concern over being evaluated. These findings speak to the multifaceted nature of children's concepts of ability and highlight their significance for children's achievement-related attitudes and behavior in the early school years. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Background and Aim: Adolescents worldwide face significant mental health challenges. Up to 30% of them suffer from mental health problems such as depression and anxiety. In high-pressure educational environments, such as those in China, approximately 40% of students report experiencing high academic stress. Psychological resilience is crucial for adolescents to handle stress and setbacks, reducing the risk of anxiety and depression. In Dezhou city, Shandong province, China, adolescents face modern academic pressures and are also influenced by Confucian values. Confucianism, including benevolence (Ren), righteousness (Yi), propriety (Li), wisdom (Zhi), and fidelity (Xin), is linked to psychological resilience development, shaping adolescents' moral outlook and enhancing their ability to tackle challenges. For educational management, analyzing psychological resilience in this specific cultural and educational context is vital. This examination can offer insights into supporting adolescents' academic success and well-being amid the unique pressures of the Chinese educational system. This study explores factors influencing adolescents' psychological resilience, such as a sense of meaning in life, a growth mindset, a fixed mindset, mindfulness, and Confucianism. It uniquely combines Confucianism with commonly studied factors to provide a comprehensive understanding of resilience in this context. Methodology: This study used the quantitative research method and data collection through a questionnaire survey. The population was 7,020 adolescents in grades 10-12 from Dezhou city, Shandong Province. The sample size was 365 adolescents obtained by stratified random sampling. The data analysis used the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient and multiple regression analysis. Result: The results are as follows: 1) Adolescents' psychological resilience in Dezhou, Shandong, is positively correlated with sense of meaning in life, growth mindset, mindfulness, and Confucianism (p < 0.001), and negatively correlated with fixed mindset (p < 0.001). 2) Regression analysis indicated Confucianism (β= 0.236, p < 0.001) and the sense of meaning in life (β= 0.234, p < 0.001) were the strongest predictors. Growth mindset (β= 0.167, p < 0.05) and mindfulness (β= 0.107, p < 0.05) also significantly predicted resilience, while fixed mindset (β= -0.186, p < 0.01) reduced resilience. Conclusion: This study reveals that adolescents' psychological resilience is significantly influenced by a sense of meaning in life, growth mindset, fixed mindset, mindfulness, and Confucianism. These factors collectively explain 47.8% of the variance in psychological resilience among adolescents in Dezhou, Shandong Province, China. The research highlights the importance of integrating cultural values with psychological constructs to enhance resilience in specific cultural contexts. This study also shows that building life meaning, fostering a growth mindset, practicing mindfulness, and engaging with Confucianism can boost adolescents' psychological resilience. This helps them handle academic and life challenges, promoting academic and social development. These results offer valuable insights into educational management for creating targeted school interventions and support systems. Schools can strengthen students' moral and psychological development by integrating Confucianism into modern curricula. Implementing mindfulness programs and fostering a growth mindset through teacher training can build resilience. These strategies are beneficial for designing school-based mental health programs to support adolescents in facing challenges.

An increasing number of children in the UK and Ireland are growing up speaking more than one language. The many advantages of bilingualism are acknowledged; however, this increased linguistic diversity presents particular challenges for speech and language therapists (SLTs). The case is often more complex with speakers of minority languages such as Welsh and Irish, which are acquired almost exclusively in bilingual contexts. Lack of appropriate standardized assessments for bilinguals is a key issue for SLTs internationally; however, little is known about the practices, personal perspectives or wider challenges faced by SLTs in assessing minority language skills. We focus on SLTs working with English-Irish bilinguals across Northern Ireland (NI) and the Republic of Ireland (ROI) where status, use and exposure to Irish differ significantly. To investigate the perceptions and practices of SLTs in NI and the ROI in the assessment of bilingual English-Irish-speaking children. A 33-item online survey was distributed to SLTs working with children in community settings in NI and the ROI. A total of 181 SLTs completed the survey. The majority of respondents had bilingual English-Irish-speaking children on their caseloads; however, less than one-quarter had assessed Irish language skills. Responses indicate confusion as to whether best-practice guidelines applied in this particular context where the majority of speakers have English as their first language and limited domains of exposure to Irish outside of the education system. Resources available to assess Irish language skills were found to be limited. Informal analysis of language samples emerged as the most popular assessment tool. SLTs in the ROI had a significantly higher level of competence in the Irish language than SLTs in NI. This reduced the challenge of assessment. Many SLTs reported scoring assessments standardized on monolingual populations when assessing English language skills in bilingual English-Irish-speaking children. Our findings highlight the challenges faced by SLTs in meeting best-practice guidelines in the assessment of speakers of minority languages such as Irish. Further work is needed to ensure clinicians and other professionals have access to information and enhanced training on bilingual language acquisition in minority language contexts and implications for assessment and diagnosis. This study underlines the need for further research on the acquisition of minority languages as well as the development of alternative assessment tools to assist SLTs in meeting the needs of this population. What is already known on the subject Existing research indicates that SLTs face challenges in assessing bilingual clients. Lack of assessment resources is a global issue, particularly with respect to minority languages. Emerging research indicates that SLTs and other professionals are dissatisfied with current resources for assessing Irish-speaking bilinguals and are struggling to meet best-practice guidelines. What this paper adds to existing knowledge The status of the Irish language differs significantly between NI and the ROI, while English is the dominant language in both areas. This study provides the first exploration of current assessment practices for bilingual English-Irish-speaking children as reported by SLTs across both regions. The challenges of assessing bilingual clients in many other countries are mirrored by SLTs in NI and the ROI. The majority of children acquiring Irish are doing so in a specific context: the immersion education setting. This raises uncertainty for SLTs about whether the definition of bilingualism actually applies. Despite clinicians and clients sharing the same majority language, the complexity of minority language assessment remains. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work? SLTs require specific support and resources to help them meet the assessment needs of bilingual English-Irish-speaking children. Ongoing education and training are required for clinicians and other professionals to facilitate understanding of the complexities surrounding bilingual speakers of minority languages and the application of best-practice guidelines. A greater understanding of the context in which children are acquiring Irish and the impact this may have on their acquisition of English would further support clinicians in identifying speech, language and communication needs in this population.

Teaching growth mindset is considered as a significant motivational factor that positively affects language learners. Students who possess a growth mindset will be more minded to have mastery- oriented objectives which inspire them to persevere through adversity. As a result, language teachers who foster a growth attitude in the classroom can support students' language progress as well as academic success. The creation of a growth mindset teaching methodology to promote self-development in Thai language acquisition. The study attempts to address the research objectives as follows: 1) identify the characteristics of a growth mindset; and 2) develop a growth mindset teaching model for the PYP setting to encourage self-development in learning Thai. The initial stage of the investigation included content analysis by the researcher. The findings demonstrated the five main circumstances in which learners' mindsets significantly influence their ability to build a growth mindset. These findings were also used to design the pre-test, post-test, and satisfaction questionnaires for the research. The findings showed that students applied the five key areas where mindset makes a big difference were ranked highest to lowest mean scores such as making an effort, looking to others' success as putting in effort, having success of others as a role model, facing the challenge, overcoming an obstacle, and receiving criticism in improving and learning Thai language. According to the majority of students who responded to questionnaires, they now have more self-confidence to tackle problems like studying Thai and others. The results showed that using a growth mindset teaching approach for teaching Thai language can successfully leverage self-development for Thai language learners.

The relationship between student perception of ability and their academic success rate is a well-known discussion topic within the education field. As the principles of growth mindset have become more prominent practice in teaching practice, there has also been a large focus on asserting that how teachers respond to their student’s success or failure can impact how their students approach their academic work. However, there has not been much research conducted on how parental influence can impact student mindset, with particular focus on how a parent’s mindset of their child’s ability affects the mindset that their child creates for themselves. Through extensive review of important terms and definitions relating to growth mindset and intelligence, the current research literature on growth mindset, along with evaluations on teacher and parental influence on children’s behaviour, the paper sought to prove that it is highly likely that parents are also a major factor in whether or not their children build a growth mindset. The evidence based created through the research allowed for the creation of an applied project, which is a book on growth mindset created for parent and child to engage with together. The purpose of having both parent and child read the book together was so that they could create a co-growth mindset that parents can further help their children develop.

This present study’s consisted of Ghanaian junior high school adolescents, precisely JHS1 and JHS 2. The study duration spanned from January 2019 to October 2020. During the study period, two assessments were done. In the first assessment, primary six students consisting of 425 adolescents, were assessed from 35 schools. During the year 2019, students in primary six who partook in the first assessment were engaged when they had been promoted to Junior high school. They included students who had become part of the classroom experiment. Eventually, this approach resulted in a sample size of 632 students for both JHS 1 and JHS 2. The data collection used structured questionnaires, and the snowballing approach was used for sampling and sample recruitment. The analytical method used for data analysis is structural equation modeling (SEM). This method is reliable for understanding the unique relationship between the dependent and independent variables to reveal their direct and indirect effects. This present study found that a growth mindset and grit are proportionally related to students’ academic achievement. However, grit should be measured by the perseverance of effort, not consistency of interest and conscientiousness, to positively affect academic achievement. Both goal commitment and growth mindset are related to understanding how grit contributes positively to academic success. In essence, the findings imply that students need to have the perseverance to trigger their growth mindset and goal commitment to affect their academic pursuits positively. KEYWORDS: Growth mindset; Grit; Academic achievement; Goal commitment

Individuals with a growth mindset believe that all failures are opportunities and that their baseline intelligence and talent can be used for continuous improvement. Individuals with a fixed mindset believe that baseline intelligence and talent cannot be developed. A growth mindset is associated with greater academic success and greater resilience in the face of failure or stress. Second-year veterinary students completed three surveys to determine mindset, perceived levels of stress, and life change score. Of 57 students, 70% had a strong growth mindset or a growth mindset with some fixed ideas. No students had a strong fixed mindset. Mindset was not correlated with GPA or perceived stress level. Colleges of veterinary medicine can assist students by providing resources and training for stress management, including training in how to further develop a growth mindset.