Treatment acceptability is an aspect of social validity that refers to participants' beliefs and perceptions about the intervention, such as the helpfulness of the strategies or the interventions' efficacy to improve performance. The purpose of this study was to conduct a systematic review of treatment acceptability measures administered during…

School-Wide Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (SWPBIS) relies on effective implementation of Tier 1 practices to ensure accurate identification of students in need of more intensive supports at Tier 2 or Tier 3. While measures of school-level fidelity are widely used, measures of classroom-level implementation of Tier 1 supports are…

Scholars have explored the impact of comprehensive school counseling programs on student outcomes, including those programs that garnered the RAMP (Recognized ASCA [American School Counselor Association] Model Program) designation. A surfeit of empirical examinations of positive behavioral interventions and supports (PBIS) outcomes also are…

This article describes Getting to Outcomes (GTO), a 10-step framework for accountability designed to facilitate effective implementation of evidence-based programs and improvement of home-grown practices (Getting to Outcomes and GTO are trademarks registered by the University of South Carolina and RAND; Wandersman, Imm, Chinman, & Kaftarian,…

Outcomes for students classified as emotionally disturbed (ED) are among the poorest for any disability group and include disturbingly low graduation rates, poor academic achievement, high rates of school suspensions and school dropouts, and chronic interpersonal problems. Additionally, these students are often underserved within the school…

The involvement of paraprofessionals in the education of students with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) has been both complex and controversial. Many scholars and advocates have raised concerns about the roles these staff members play in schools and the degree to which there is empirical support for their direct work with…

Treatment fidelity reporting practices are described for journals that published general and special education intervention research with high impact factors from 2005 through 2009. The authors reviewed research articles, reported the proportion of intervention studies that described fidelity measurement, detailed the components of fidelity…

Self-regulated strategy development (SRSD) is an evidence-based intervention for use with students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD). To date, there are nine studies investigating SRSD in alternative education settings, including self-contained day and residential schools, with 113 students with EBD in grades 3 through 12. A brief…

This article describes implementation experiences "scaling up" the Cognitive Behavioral Intervention for Trauma in Schools (CBITS)--an intervention developed using a community partnered research framework. Case studies from two sites that have successfully implemented CBITS are used to examine macro- and school-level implementation…

Many children, including those with asthma, remain exposed to secondhand smoke. This manuscript evaluates the process of implementing a secondhand smoke reduction counseling intervention using motivational interviewing (MI) for caregivers of urban children with asthma, including reach, dose delivered, dose received and fidelity. Challenges,…

Although Response to Intervention (RtI) implementation efforts have been occurring in schools across the country for more than a decade, questions and concerns are emerging, as some schools are not observing significantly improved student achievement or behavior outcomes as expected. In the literature on RtI implementation, most authors indicate…

This study explored the prediction of student outcome variables from the ASCA national model level of program implementation. A total sampling of schools from two suburban school districts was conducted. Outcome variables were measures of math and reading achievement scores, attendance and graduation rates. Such measures play a central role in…

Why does evaluation matter so much in school counseling? Most importantly, when school counselors evaluate their interventions and programs, they can be more certain that what they are doing is making a difference for their students. School counselors have a professional responsibility to show that what they are doing is effective. With evaluation…

Children's exposure to violence (CEV)--including direct child maltreatment, witnessing domestic violence, and witnessing community and school violence--can have serious consequences, including a variety of psychiatric disorders and behavioral problems, such as posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, and anxiety. Fortunately, research has shown…

Special education referral and identification rates have risen dramatically over the last thirty years. In fact, several studies report an increase of nearly 200% (Cortiella, 2008; Vaughn, Linan-Thompson, & Hickman, 2003). During the last several years a new model of identifying students with learning difficulties has received much…