Research and recent policy developments in Eire highlight that there is a growing number of children in Irish schools presenting with special educational needs, leading to an increased need for Educational Psychology services. This research utilised case studies of children who were presenting to teachers with academic, social, emotional or…

A recent study evaluated the level of guidance provided by states on their Department of Education websites regarding school-based social, emotional, and behavioral (SEB) screening. The purpose of this follow-up study was to interview a small sample of state-level stakeholders to supplement the findings from the website evaluation study.…

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a complex brain based disorder. Children are being diagnosed with ASD at an alarming rate. Students with ASD present with behaviors that interfere with their learning and the learning of others. These behaviors can be a challenge for the teachers and other staff who work with students with ASD. For the past 25…

This dissertation is comprised of three studies using restricted data from the ECLS-K:1998 to address the questions who is placed in special education? and what happens after they are placed? Though these questions have been extensively studied, existing research has largely ignored the intersection of longitudinal developmental pathways and…

A growing body of research shows that many seriously troubled children and adolescents are reacting to adverse life experiences. Yet traditional diagnostic labels are based on checklists of surface symptoms. Distracted by disruptive behavior, the common response is to medicate, punish, or exclude rather than respond to needs of youth who have…

Objective: This prospective study examined attitudes (ie, hostility toward women, acceptance of rape myths), peer influences (ie, peer pressure to have sex, peer approval of forced sex), and risky behaviors (ie, high-risk alcohol use, number of sexual partners) as possible mediators of the association between fraternity membership and sexual…

Young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) frequently display an inability to self-regulate (use materials appropriately and refrain from self-stimulatory behavior) and self-monitor (complete each step in a task before continuing to the next step) their behavior and therefore experience a great deal of failure within their respective…

The presence of challenging and violent behaviors that pose risks to the overall safety and the educational learning experience in the public education setting have been on the rise in recent years. Traditional reactive, coercive, and punitive measures to address these behaviors have been futile. Congress responded to the national increase in…

This study was designed to measure teachers' self-assessment of elements across 4 domains and compliance in implementing a school-wide positive behavior support (SWPBS) features in an urban elementary school. Within the classroom domain, teachers' perceptions of cultural responsiveness (CR) were assessed. The participants were 14 teachers and 335…

The Colorado legislature has recently taken school discipline policies under review, pursuant to SB 11-133. To inform the discussion in Colorado as well as a national discussion about discipline, this report presents an analysis of the most complete set of Colorado discipline data. It adds to and reinforces existing studies, documenting some…

The present study investigated the impact of social support on the psychological well-being of mothers of adolescents and adults with ASD (n = 269). Quantity of support (number of social network members) as well as valence of support (positive support and negative support) were assessed using a modified version of the "convoy model" developed by…

Emerging evidence suggests that adolescent girls with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) are more socially impaired compared with their peers; however, research has yet to elucidate the nature of this impairment. We investigated overt (e.g., physical, such as hitting or kicking or verbal, such as teasing and taunting) and relational…

Little is known about the ways in which the accumulation of maternal factors increases or reduces risk for girls' disruptive behavior during preadolescence. In the current study, maternal risk and promotive factors and the severity of girls' disruptive behavior were assessed annually among girls' ages 7-12 in an urban community sample (N = 2043).…

This study was conducted to examine the effects literacy-based behavioral interventions have on improving the behavior of students with intellectual disability. A second purpose of this study was to determine if literacy-based behavioral interventions could be an effective intervention strategy when used simultaneously with a group of students…

We investigated teacher versus student seat selection in the context of group and individual seating arrangements. Disruptive behavior during group seating occurred at twice the rate when students chose their seats than when the teacher chose. During individual seating, disruptive behavior occurred more than three times as often when the students…