This dissertation is composed of three articles analyzing the use of sensory rooms in schools to support student need as well as its use in other settings. Sensory rooms are rooms equipped with a variety of resources, strategies, and equipment to support an individual in de-escalation. They have been implemented in various settings including…

Facilitating success for students with behavioral health challenges requires effective collaboration among professionals from traditionally disparate systems (e.g., education, health, and mental health). The current investigation describes a case-study implementation of a school-based learning collaborative model and explores its effectiveness in…

Background: Challenging behaviours are common among children and adolescents with intellectual disabilities. Such behaviours often result in poor quality of life outcomes such as physical injury, difficulties with relationships and community integration. Aim: This systematic review aimed to synthesise evidence from studies that assessed the effect…

The Riroriro programme was a response to the needs of children with extremely dysregulated classroom behaviours, resulting from sustained exposure to traumatic high-stress and high-deprivation environments from pre-birth to school age. Evaluation of the accounts of key individuals involved in the pilot found that participants had improved…

This article reviewed behavioral treatment of restricted and repetitive behavior and interests (RRBIs) specifically for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) 8 years of age and younger. Empirical studies published in the last decade that examined the effects of behavioral interventions for RRBIs in young children with ASD were reviewed.…

Teachers continually seek to find new and innovative ways to create classroom environments conducive to learning to discourage problem behaviors in students. Alternative seating, such as therapy balls and seat cushions, has been widely researched and found to have a positive relationship in decreasing student problem behavior and increasing…

We further extended the use of a microswitch-cluster technology to promote object manipulation and to reduce tongue protrusion in seven children with Angelman syndrome. Study I included seven participants with severe to profound developmental disabilities. An ABB[superscript 1]AB[superscript 1] experimental sequence was implemented. During the…

Behavioral parent training (BPT) is considered a frontline intervention for challenging behaviors in early childhood. Research on outcomes in behavioral parent training include an emphasis on participant engagement, defined as attendance, cognitive readiness, and task completion (Chacko et al., 2016; Gearing et al., 2014; Nock & Ferriter,…

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…

Cognitive bias modification (CBM) is increasingly used to target cognitive biases related to internalising or externalising problems, which are common in neurodevelopmental disorders (NDD). This systematic review assesses the available evidence for using CBM in children and young people with NDD, in particular regarding ambiguous interpersonal…

A multiple probe design across participants was used to evaluate the effectiveness of progressive time delay (PTD) during small group instruction to teach social problem-solving to preschoolers and to assess generalization to novel contexts. PTD was used to teach children to both name and use a variety of problem-solving solutions. Target…

Sleep problems are common in children with autism spectrum disorder. Although previous research has shown the positive effects of parent-based sleep intervention, it was mainly focused on face-to-face modality, which might limit accessibility. This study aimed to examine the efficacy of a telehealth-delivered parent-based sleep-focused…

The Good Behavior Game (GBG) is an effective procedure for reducing disruptive classroom behavior. In this study, students in 3 fifth grade classes selected the rules of the GBG and then experienced the GBG with different forms of feedback delivery for rule violations (vocal and visual, vocal only, visual only, no feedback) on disruptive classroom…

This study is a secondary data analysis that extends knowledge about the effects of the early childhood Family Check-Up (FCU) intervention to trajectories of general psychopathology problems (p factor) across early and middle childhood, and effects on adolescent psychopathology and polydrug use. The Early Steps Multisite study (ClinicalTrials.gov…

Research has demonstrated that behavior specificity is a salient characteristic of teacher praise efficacy. Praise variety may also be an important characteristic to reinforce desired student behavior based on research about the quality of reinforcers. In this study, we used an alternating treatments design to examine the effects of varied and…