Two elementary school students with emotional/behavioral challenges increased task engagement and reduced disruptive behavior when allowed to choose academic tasks. The effects of choice making were distinguished from preference, by yoking a no-choice phase to a previous choice-making condition; the yoked control phase was inferior to the…

This paper reviews functional analysis' historical development as an important pretreatment assessment and analysis strategy for academic and social behavior problems. It examines seminal and influential studies to document historical and contemporary progression, functional analysis' contributions, and future directions. Conclusions focus on…

Systematic implementation of a peer-mediated self-evaluation procedure to improve the recess behavior problems of three second-grade boys was evaluated. Clear improvements in the boys' behavior were found, which were maintained as the self-evaluation procedure was systematically faded. In addition, treatment effects generalized to another recess…

Antisocial behavior patterns and the assessment and management of aggressive and violent behavior in the schools are discussed. Behavioral analysis of aggression should identify its antecedents and consequences to provide the basis for intervention. Intervention strategies include behavior enhancement contingencies, behavior reduction…

Analysis of data on 97 elementary students with and 97 without mild disabilities found that teachers' attitudes toward integration were not related to the social status of students with disabilities. However, teacher and peer perceptions of academic behavior and peer perceptions of disruptive behavior were related to social status for both student…

This study of elementary-level students compared behavioral patterns of 27 children showing a low nonverbal/high verbal (LNV) intelligence test profile and 38 children with a low verbal/high nonverbal (LV) profile. Results confirmed earlier findings that LNV children are perceived by teachers as significantly poorer than LV children in many…

Undergraduate students developed a videotape to provide novice teachers with observation and practice in handling classroom discipline problems. Videotape content came from students' own classroom experience and provided solutions to problems using students' own observations of successful classroom management. The videotape proved to be a useful…

Teachers must learn how to make their classrooms caring cultures, provide caring while enforcing order, and become part of the solution for students with behavior problems. Schools must provide a curriculum of caring so each problem student can have at least one school adult as a concerned advocate. (SM)

Reports on three studies of playground fighting among elementary and middle school age students in Great Britain. Finds that the most common cause of fights were disputes over some aspect of a rule-governed game; teasing; retaliation to an accidental injury; and, to a lesser extent, disputes over space. (CFR)

This article offers a framework for assessing problem behaviors in classroom settings. It explains three prerequisite steps (identification, prioritization, and delineation of operational definitions) and three methods for formulating hypotheses (structured interviews, systematic observations, and experimental functional analyses). (DB)

Describes the activities and benefits of Positive Peer Groups (PPG), a Cleveland-based diocese program involving 40 schools. Designed for students with behavioral or academic problems, it focuses on school service projects that teach students to develop and implement valuable social skills. Describes the positive social and academic effects PPG…

Explored preschoolers' solitary-active play in the presence of peers as a marker for maladjustment among 153 children. Found that, compared to peers, children with frequent solitary-active behaviors were temperamentally less attentive, were more difficult to soothe, behaved more shyly, displayed more externalizing problems, performed more poorly…

This article offers teachers 12 suggestions for dealing with cursing by students, such as teaching students the differences among assaultive cursing, racial insults and slurs, lewd and sexually assaultive insults and slurs, and profanity and epithets; differentially reinforcing less offensive profanity; trying self-mediated interventions; and…

Examines self-enhancement bias among 5th and 11th graders in the United States and Japan by having students listen to stories describing behaviors (aggressive, depressive, oppositional, and school-phobic) of hypothetical peers. Reports that U.S. students showed no greater self-enhancement tendencies, while 11th graders rated themselves less like…

Studies have often shown that while teachers may leave the field because of low pay or societal views toward education, another reason teachers choose to leave is student behavior. On a daily basis, teachers, either inexperienced or experienced, face a multitude of behavioral issues in their classrooms. These behavioral issues may range from the…