Mohave District AnnexTelephone: 480-484-5084
Special EducationFAX: 480-484-5106
8505 E. Valley View RdWeb site:
Scottsdale, Arizona85250
Scottsdale Unified School District is offering a unique and hands on opportunity to gain practical, clinical experience working with children on the autism spectrum. The structure of this internship is both didactic and experiential. One area of impairment that is common for students with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) is social skills and interaction with other children. This program uses evidenced based research to help ASD children learn social skills in the environment they have the most difficult time practicing those skills: the playground.
ASU students will have the opportunity to learn about autism, asperger’s and pervasive developmental disorders through formal presentation. SUSD psychologists will provide training on how to work with ASD students in unstructured settings, helping to facilitate social interaction with typically developing children. We will also provide monthly supervision that will give you an opportunity to meet in a group with a psychologist and the interns to discuss challenges, successes, problem solve, and hone your clinical experiences.
Previous interns have gone on to Doctoral programs in Clinical Psychology and School Psychology in Boston, Chicago, California, and Arizona. Other interns entered graduate programs in Special Education, or pursued advanced training in Autism or Behavior Analysis.
Here are some quotes from previous interns:
Working with the team of teachers, administrators, school counselors and psychologists in the Scottsdale Unified School District was a great experience! I had the opportunity to participate in multidisciplinary collaboration, research planning, and intervention implementation. My work on the playground taught me how to address and resolve challenges in a creative way, as well as how to interact with children of various ages with different emotional and behavioral difficulties. My time as an intern with SUSD gave me invaluable insight into the many ways psychology (or social sciences) professionals can work with children and adolescents.
Talitha Collins, Intern 2009-2010
This internship really had a positive impact on my educational career. I found it extremely valuable to be able to experience a day in the life of a School Psychologist from interacting and implementing interventions both in social settings, and also in the academic environment. I felt that the experience and supervision the Scottsdale psychologists gave provided valuable insight into the process of data collection and implementation of social skills training.
My experiences with the Playground Program Internship became the catalyst to being accepted into the California State University, Northridge School Psychology graduate program, and all the tools I learned have transferred into my graduate studies.
Paul Vogel, Intern 2009-2010
Interested students should send a resume and letter of interest to Dr. Lindsay Richerson,