The paper looks at philosophical, heuristic, and practical reasons why behavior management approaches have failed to positively impact on the lives of exceptional Black children. Critiqued are behavior modification techniques, contingency management strategies, suspensions, expulsions, and positive and negative reinforcement. Noted among the…

Presents the negative-reinforcement paradigm as a framework with potential to guide development of interventions that increase desirable and decrease undesirable behaviors of students with disabilities. Studies involving children with emotional and behavioral disorders are presented to convey the importance of teachers' awareness of the paradigm's…