The Preventing Relational Aggression in Schools Everyday (PRAISE) Program is a school-based program that has shown promise for reducing aggression. PRAISE, 20-session classroom-based universal prevention program, was designed to be appropriate and responsive to the needs of youth within the urban school context. A preliminary trial of PRAISE…

A growing body of research has documented a link between variation in implementation dosage and outcomes associated with preventive interventions. Complier Average Causal Effect (CACE; Jo, 2002) analysis allows for estimating program impacts in light of variation in implementation. This study reports intent-to-treat (ITT) and CACE findings from a…

Exposure to violence among children and adolescents has been linked to negative outcomes including posttraumatic stress disorder, externalizing problems, low academic achievement, and impaired social-emotional adjustment. Aggressive behaviors specifically are shown to be strongly predicted by both direct and indirect violence exposure. Aggressive…

There is limited research on job-embedded professional development designed to promote paraprofessionals' use of research-based strategies to support students with disruptive behaviors. This study serves as the first clustered randomized controlled trial to investigate the efficacy of the Behavior Support Coaching for Paraprofessional Model…

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationships between language behavior in students with or at risk of emotional and behavioral disorders. School-age students in K-4 grades (N = 300, 76% male) were sampled across three school districts. Students were grouped based on oral language ability and measured on teacher-rated subscales of…

Background: Urban black adolescents' wellbeing in the early high school years can be negatively impacted by exposure to racial discrimination. These impacts may be buffered by supportive relationships with adults at school. We considered both the protective and promotive effects of culturally responsive teachers and caring school police on school…

Background: Urban black adolescents' wellbeing in the early high school years can be negatively impacted by exposure to racial discrimination. These impacts may be buffered by supportive relationships with adults at school. We considered both the protective and promotive effects of culturally responsive teachers and caring school police on school…

Our goals in this study were to examine (a) the degree to which teacher perceptions of children's behavior in kindergarten (averaged across fall and spring for each child) predict retention by Grade 5 and (b) whether these relationships are moderated by student race, gender, or socioeconomic status (SES). Data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal…

This study is aimed to gain insights into adolescents' classroom peer climate by examining descriptive and status norms of academic and social behaviors. Descriptive norm was assessed as the average score for each behavior and status norm was assessed using the correlation between each behavior and social status within each classroom. Expanded…

For socioeconomically disadvantaged children, a positive experience in kindergarten may play a particularly important role in fostering the behavioral adjustment and learning engagement necessary for school success. Prior research has identified supportive student--teacher relationships and classroom emotional support as two features of the…

The current study evaluated the effectiveness of the Superhero Social Skills program in increasing the social engagement skills and decreasing the aggressive behavior of students with externalizing behavior problems as implemented by a resource teacher. There have been no empirical evaluations of the Superhero Social Skills program as implemented…

The purpose of this study was to introduce a motivational property of the group, friendship group engagement vs. disaffection, and to examine different composition models for combining individual reports into an indicator of a group-level property. Data were collected from 312 ninth grade students and their teachers. Self-reported friendship group…