Our own research, sponsored by the U.S. Office of Educational Research and Improvement and the National Science Foundation, has shown that children have very diverse patterns of abilities, and that all children, regardless of level or pattern of abilities, can learn better than they do now if they are taught at least part of the time in away that fits their pattern of abilities. And our research sponsored byte U.S. Army Research Institute has shown that similar ideas can be applied to adults as to children. About half of our work is in putting theory-based interventions into practice, and if elected, I will strongly support both research and practice. As we psychologists make clear the contributions we have to make to society, I expect that good will toward, and financial as well as other forms of support for, our discipline will increase in Congress and state legislatures. Making the practice of psychology what it should be rather than what it has become.
Several issues arise here.
A first issue is prescription privileges for psychologists. I believe that, with proper training, psychologists should have such privileges. Restricting properly trained psychologists to nonmedical interventions does not make sense, any more than it would make sense to limit properly trained psychiatrists only to medical interventions at the expense of all other kinds of treatments. A second issue is managed care. In an effort supposedly to save money for consumers and companies, managed-care companies have, in many instances, wreaked havoc with the quality of health care that individuals can receive.