School of Education

Avital Deskalo

Ph.D., School Psychology

Helping Children of All Ages, in All Circumstances

Every Friday, Avital Deskalo drives two hours to the Madison Juvenile Correctional Facility from Bloomington to work with young women in the alternative high school who need help with behavioral issues.

“I’m working closely with two students there now. I start with a functional behavioral assessment to collect data on the student’s disruptive behaviors. As I gather more information, I ask, ‘What is the function of her behavior? Why is she doing this? Is the task too hard for her? Is she trying to get attention from the teacher or other students or to escape her thoughts?’ Many of these students have had a traumatic past, and that is sometimes the cause,” says Avital.

A functional behavior assessment is a multi-method, problem-solving process to determine the function of a student’s behavior. School psychologists obtain information from conducting behavioral observations, meeting with the student and teachers, and looking at the student’s file to help develop hypotheses for why the student is engaging in a certain behavior. Other parts of the process include developing hypotheses based on the data collection, verifying the hypotheses, or in other words, verify what’s maintaining the problem behavior by manipulating antecedents or consequences. Then they develop an intervention based on information from the above steps.

After her assessment, Avital works individually with each student to recommend cognitive behavioral therapies, such as relaxation, self-talk statements, and even rubbing Velcro. “Breathing and rubbing Velcro can help people calm down and be more focused,” she says. In exchange, the students get rewarded for improving their performance in school, which then leads to the ultimate reward of getting out of the facility and back to normal life.

As a future school psychologist, Avital appreciates the opportunity to get to work with a variety of teachers and students in their classrooms in her practicums. “That’s one of the great things about the school psych program here,” she says, “It’s really important to work with teachers and to get experience before we start practicing, and we start doing practicums the first semester.”

Avital says her decision to become a school psychologist was one she made early in her life. “I’ve always been interested in a helping profession. My mother was a social worker. I always liked what she did, working with families and the schools and trying to help the students,” she says.

Growing up in Wisconsin, Avital started getting involved in student health issues in high school. “I worked with Planned Parenthood, and I organized these Real Life, Real Talk nights, monthly discussions for teens about healthy relationships and HIV-AIDS awareness. I also advocated for comprehensive sex education in the Milwaukee public school system.

“I don’t know what ages I’m going to focus on in my career, but the breadth and depth of my experiences are preparing me to help children of all ages.”

“Through these experiences, I realized that under a school psychology position, these are some of the things they do, like sexual education, or bullying prevention,” she says, “And I liked how in this role they could do so much to educate the whole student population.”

She got her undergraduate degree in psychology with a minor in education at the University of Delaware, and found out about the IU School of Education from one of her professors when she started researching graduate programs in school psychology.

“I looked at it online and all the school psychology professors had very interesting research,” she says. Now a student here, she is pleased at how supportive the faculty are, both at the School of Education and throughout the entire university. “I’ve found that the faculty are very approachable here. Even if you don’t have the similar research interests as your advisor or faculty, they are still very helpful in explaining the processes and providing encouragement and support.”

Her advice to new students is to be proactive and seek out faculty who share your research interests. This approach worked for her when she reached out to Dr. Nathalie Fontaine in the criminal justice department to discuss collaborating on a research study focused on temperament in pre-school children.

Avital says, “The study is intended to help us gain a better idea of the development of temperament and behavior in children. Children who have vulnerabilities in their temperament, emotions, and behavior might be more prone to developing adjustment problems in the future.”

One of the things she’s enjoyed about her education is the opportunity to work with children from so many age groups. “I don’t know what ages I’m going to focus on in my career, but the breadth and depth of my experiences are preparing me to help children of all ages.”