Effective treatment procedures for a nine-year-old boy with elective mutism and selective inactivity included increasing the frequency of situations in which he could already speak and decreasing the frequency of those in which he seldom spoke (specifically coercive situations). (CL)

The behavior problems arising from an open library" policy at an elementary school are explored via an exchange of letters between the librarian and a psychologist. (NH)

Aversive tickling was successfully used with two blind, retarded, adolescent girls as a punishment procedure to reduce frequency of self-destructive head banging in one case and a variety of attention-getting behaviors in the other. (Author/KW)

A behavior management procedure was successfully employed in a demonstration school for culturally deprived children to increase appropriate behavior in a second-grade classroom of twenty children. (Author/WY)

The influence of task difficulty on aberrant behavior was investigated with three severely handicapped students (10, 13, and 15 years old). Noticeably higher rates of problem behavior occurred in demand compared to no demand conditions. In addition, there were higher rates of problem behaviors on difficult versus easy tasks. (Author)

Examined effects of assertion training on aggressive adolescents' behavior. Ninth-grade students judged by peers to be aggressive were assigned to assertion training, placebo, and no-treatment control groups. Results showed that assertion training yielded significant improvement on the assertion scale, but had little effect on peer-judged…

Contingency management programs for modifying aggression in children are strong methods of short-term behavior change in treatment settings but are less than successful when transferred to other settings. Future research should compare cognitive with noncognitive behavioral programs and test the effectiveness of cognitive and noncognitive…

Within educational settings students can choose to engage in assigned academic activities or other, sometimes disruptive behaviors. This paper reviews recent research on assignment preference, choice, and choosing. Results of these studies show how educators can enhance students' academic behaviors, decrease disruptive behaviors, and improve…

This article offers guidelines for developing and using countoons as recording strategies with young children in special education and inclusion classrooms to help them monitor and change problem behaviors. Countoons are simple cartoon representations of appropriate and inappropriate behaviors, a contingency for meeting criteria, and counting…

Twenty suggestions for teachers address ways to identify and reduce bullying in the school setting. Examples include knowing the definition of bullying, watching for warning signs, having good communication with students' parents, creating a support team for the bullied child, taking a proactive preventive approach, using buddies to deter…

Assessed teachers' (N=103) ratings of acceptability of classroom time-out procedure as a function of problem severity (mild versus severe), different interventionists (teacher vs. school psychologist), and reported effectiveness (effective versus no information). Found time-out significantly more acceptable for severe problem behaviors; it…

Belke and Spetch's (1994) work with pigeons on choice between reliable and unreliable reinforcement is discussed. Hypothetical applied examples address variables that influence preference for unreliable reinforcement, including signaling and its context, conditioned reinforcement, and duration of reinforcement schedules. Implications regarding…

This paper identifies and evaluates emerging developments in the behavioral pharmacotherapy of people with developmental disabilities, including such medications as the opiate antagonists, fenfluramine, beta adrenergic blockers, buspirone, antipsychotics, amantadine hydrochloride, and antilibidinal drugs. The need for more well-designed drug…

This paper first reviews four classes of habit disorders in children: motor and vocal tics, nervous habits, stuttering, and Tourette's disorder. It then describes the habit reversal procedure and reviews the literature on its use and variations to treat each of the four classes of habit disorders. Emphasis is on simplified versions of the original…

This article illustrates how to (a) use schoolwide data to monitor student responsiveness to primary and secondary prevention efforts to identify students for tertiary preventions and (b) design, implement, and evaluate a function-based intervention in collaboration with two general education teachers, who served as the primary interventionists.…