Middle school teachers frequently struggle with positively managing student behavior. However, praise-to-reprimand ratios (PRRs) have received little research attention. PRRs studied in elementary school have been positively associated with improvements in on-task and prosocial behavior, but limited research has been conducted on optimal PRRs in…

Middle school teachers frequently struggle with positively managing student behavior. However, praise-to-reprimands ratios (PRRs) have received little research attention. PRRs studied in elementary school have been associated positively with improvements in on-task and prosocial behavior, but limited research has been conducted on optimal PRRs in…

The purpose of this study was to determine whether altering parameters of positive and negative reinforcement in identical ways could influence behavior maintained by each in different ways. Three undergraduate students participated in a series of assessments designed to identify preferred and aversive sounds with similar reinforcing values.…

New Zealand students face challenges to their social and emotional wellbeing. There are high rates of school bullying compared with other countries. More needs to be done to foster young people's wellbeing and help them develop skills and competencies to manage their wellbeing. Multifaceted Whole School Approaches are an effective way for schools…

This article contributes to a social psychological understanding of identity by identifying some features of the interactional organization of self-praise. Early conversation analytic work on the epistemics of self-assessment and constraints against self-praise has shown that praising oneself is an interactionally delicate matter that may leave…

A literature search identified 17 articles reporting data on 34 subjects who engaged in precursors to severe problem behavior, which we examined to identify topographical and functional characteristics. Unintelligible vocalization was the most common precursor to aggression (27%) and property destruction (29%), whereas self- or nondirected…

An attempt was made to modify the Gambling Functional Assessment (GFA), which was proposed to identify four possible contingencies maintaining the respondent's gambling behavior. However, previous research found that it only identified two contingencies (i.e., positive vs. negative reinforcement), with some items cross-loading on both…

Special education continues to document the poor within and post-school outcomes among children and youth with Emotional/Behavioral Disorders (EBD). While the poor outcomes are due to a myriad of causes, three issues routinely emerge as problematic in the field. First, the need for early intervention and prevention has been well documented, and…

Some students exhibit behavioral issues as early as preschool and kindergarten. Conventional wisdom suggests waiting to see whether students outgrow these difficulties. However, there is extensive evidence that early detection and intervention is preferred to the wait-and-see approach because it is more likely to result in better academic and…

Students identified with or at risk for Emotional/Behavioral Disabilities (EBD) are being included in the general education classroom with teachers who have little training or exposure to characteristics of and interventions for students with EBD. In this study, we used a simple professional development intervention to train teachers to better use…

In this study, the effects of two secondary tier positive behavioral support strategies, teacher praise notes (TPNs) and peer praise notes (PPNs), were investigated using an alternating treatments single-subject design in residential classroom settings with eight elementary students with emotional and behavioral disorders (E/BD) in grades one…

Middle and high school students subjected to harsh school discipline policies and practices such as suspensions and expulsions are more likely to disengage from the classroom and course work, and increases their chances of dropping out, according to this new report from the Alliance for Excellent Education. The report recommends implementing…

Two experiments with 15 individuals having profound mental retardation found difficulties in identifying reinforcers that were actually effective in treatment of chronic training needs. Research needs in evaluating training alternatives for people with profound multiple disabilities who move very little or who respond with very long latencies are…

This study found that, compared to measuring approach behaviors to a variety of stimuli, a forced-choice stimulus preference assessment used with four young children with severe mental retardation resulted in greater differentiation among stimuli and better predicted which stimuli would result in higher levels of responding when presented…

The American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities' (AAIDD's) Positive Behavior Support Training Curriculum," Second Edition" ("PBSTC"), is a curriculum for training direct support personnel and their supervisors in the values and practices of Positive Behavior Support. The curriculum is designed for direct support persons and…