Over the past five years, school exclusions have increased in the UK and have become an accepted method of behaviour management. One way of excluding children from mainstream education is through the use of isolation room punishment where children are removed from their classroom and placed in a designated area away from their peers. Isolation…

Restraint and seclusion (R/S) are practices employed by schools to address severe student behavior. Although the use of R/S has been shown to have harmful impact for students, staff, and schools, there is no federal law that addresses its use in schools. A lack of a universal approach leaves each state to determine its own legislation and policy.…

A restrictive practice (RP) is defined as a practice or intervention that has the effect of restricting the rights or freedom of movement of a person, and includes physical, mechanical, and chemical restraint, and seclusion. If misused or overused, RPs may present serious human rights infringements. In Australia, behaviour support practitioners…

Since challenging behaviors are present in classrooms, it is imperative to understand how teachers acknowledge and respond to these unwanted actions within their schools. The overarching purpose of this study is to understand schoolteachers' perspectives on the causes of students' unwanted behaviors and their responses in the classroom. The study…

Students' misbehaviors at younger ages can lead to more significant issues at the high school level such as dropping out, drug and alcohol abuse, and incarceration. The purpose of this study was to examine high school students' perceptions of positive reinforcement and punishment practices in their high school's behavior system. Two specific…

Information about the use of physical restraint, seclusion, and time-out rooms in Canadian schools has primarily been anecdotal (media reports and anonymous survey data) due to uneven and non-existent mandates for reporting, transparency and public accountability. The absence of clearly articulated mandates to provide written documentation and…

A substantial body of research suggests that a combination of social, organizational, and inner factors impact how educators implement and make sense of new policies. The way educators understand policies can influence how they act on them. This study sought to expand this research body into how educators made sense and implemented Michigan's…

Global implementation of School-Wide Positive Behaviour Support (SWPBS) has grown considerably over the last forty years. SWPBS seeks to provide a multi-tiered approach to strategically frame integrated actions responding to matters of wellbeing, discipline and punishment in schools using Evidence-Based Interventions (EBIs). In this respect, EBIs…

Given that behavioral challenges contribute to learner exclusion in schools, there is a demand for behavior support strategies and practices that (a) extend beyond punitive measures, (b) aid the development of school customs and mores, (c) are based on nonviolence, and (d) promote positive self-discipline. This column explores behavior management…

Although the good behavior game (GBG) has a long empirical record for effectively decreasing inappropriate student behavior, there are fewer studies that have targeted improving appropriate behavior. This article describes why and how the GBG can be used by teachers across grade levels and situations to increase student appropriate behavior and…

Tasked with ensuring that school environments are safe and orderly, school administrators spend an increasingly inordinate amount of time and energy on managing student discipline. Often, when students commit egregious behaviors or violate school policy, schools resort to out-of-school disciplinary consequences, i.e. suspension, expulsion, or…

The only consistency with children, with and without disabilities, is that they are inconsistent. Much of a child's behavior is adult controlled by their reaction, methods used, and consistency in support and discipline. When adults change the way they respond to the child's behaviors, the child gradually will learn to modify their behavior.…

Children with Social, Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties have been shown to constitute a unique class of Special Educational Need, where their 'challenging' behaviour can often result in a disproportionately punitive response, rather than one characterised by a needs-based understanding of behaviour as communication. Such an understanding…

This article presents a formative intervention study, called "Learning Lab" that facilitated the collective design of a culturally responsive behavioral support system at an urban middle school in the United States. Learning Lab united parents, teachers, support staff, education leaders, and researchers, specifically those who have been…

The "IDRA Newsletter" serves as a vehicle for communication with educators, school board members, decision-makers, parents, and the general public concerning the educational needs of all children across the United States. The focus of this issue is "Redefining Discipline." Contents include: (1) Stop the Bad; Do the Good --…