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Analyzing the use of function words such as pronouns in conversation is an increasingly popular approach in social psychology, but has not yet been applied to the study of school-based consultation. The 2 central purposes of this study were to: (a) examine how language is used by consultants-in-training (CITs) and consultees within a collaborative model of consultation, and (b) to explore the relation between language use and the collaborative relationship, consultee outcomes, and client outcomes. Analyses focused on CITs’ (n = 18) and consultees’ (n = 18) use of pronouns in a problem identification and analysis (PID/PA) session of problem solving. Data indicated CITs and consultees used pronouns differently during PID/PA, particularly first-person plural words (e.g., we, us, and our), and some of these differences were related to consultation outcomes. Implications of this research for school consultation practice and potential avenues for future research are explored.

This study is the first national survey of supervision and mentoring practices for early career school psychologists (ECSPs). Respondents included 700 participants, 38% of whom reported having access to professional supervision. Time, availability, and proximity to a supervisor were found to be the most common barriers to accessing supervision and mentoring; access to technology, supervisor interest, and cost were not found to be as significant. Nearly 30% of ECSPs reported feeling pressure to practice outside their boundaries of competence because they did not have access to mentoring or supervision, suggesting a potential ethical concern. Results demonstrate the need to provide more supervision and mentoring opportunities for ECSPs, particularly given the National Association of School Psychologist's requirement that first‐time Nationally Certified School Psychologist renewal applicants complete a year of mentoring or supervision. Implications of the results, strategies to support the barriers to access, and future directions for research are addressed.

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This study was an exploration of school consultation interactions between instructional consultants and consultees. Of specific interest was how consultants (n = 18) and consultees (n = 18) used verb tense and emotion words during the problem identification and analysis instructional consultation stage, similarities and differences in communication patterns, and whether verb tense and emotion words were related to perceptions of collaboration, consultee outcomes, or client outcomes. Data provided mixed support for study hypotheses. Among the findings, consultants' past tense verb use negatively correlated with the consultation relationship (r = −.62, p = .01), consultees' present tense use correlated with better consultee outcomes (r = .49, p = .05), and positive emotion word use by consultees was correlated with better consultee outcomes (r = .54, p = .05). Implications of these and other findings are explored in the context of interpersonal communication during school consultation. C 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.In schools, consultation is a form of indirect educational and mental health service delivery involving a professional with specialized knowledge and skills (i.e., a consultant) working with a staff member or parent (i.e., a consultee) to support client (i.e., student) needs (Erchul & Sheridan, 2014). Communication interactions are at the heart of consultation, forming interpersonal bridges between consultants and consultees and mediating consultation outcomes. A long history of published research on relational communication in behavioral consultation (BC) has demonstrated that interpersonal interactions/communication make meaningful differences in collaborative problem solving (Erchul, Grissom, Getty, & Bennett, 2014). However, this body of research is limited due to its focus primarily on a single consultation model and a narrow area of interpersonal communication . This exploratory study is an attempt to extend the consultation communication research base by investigating an instructional consultation (IC) approach instead of BC, measuring new dimensions of communication (i.e., affective language and verb tense), and applying an innovative computational linguistics approach, Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) analysis.The study follows up on previous research by Newman, Guiney, and Barrett (2015), which found pronoun usage to be a meaningful factor in school consultation interactions. In the current study, independent variables of interest included consultant and consultee verb tense and emotion words, both of which have been demonstrated to be significant units of analysis in social psychology and communication research (Tausczik & Pennebaker, 2010), but have not yet been extensively investigated in school psychology. Dependent variables of interest included consultation outcomes for consultees (teachers) and clients (students), as well as collaboration in the consultation relationship. Language Analysis in ConsultationRelational communication refers to one speaker's position (e.g., control/sub...