This narrative study examined how the life experiences of high school administrators impact how they conceptualize and understand school discipline. These experiences were then positioned within the current context of COVID-19 pandemic related school closures and protests associated with George Floyd's death which brought light to systemic racism…

To succeed in classrooms, students must possess emotional-regulation skills, engage in positive social interactions, and trust teachers. Students coming from backgrounds including poverty and trauma may not possess these, as chronic stress has been shown to lead to impulsivity, poor emotional-regulation skills, and lower executive functioning.…

In 2023, teachers continued to experience reverberations from the COVID-19 pandemic. The closure of schools across the United States required the adaptation of classrooms and a dynamic shift in the practices of teachers. As the pandemic subsided, this project sought to understand the ways that instructional practice, interactions with students and…

Individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) often present with difficulty in sustaining engagement, attention, and have disruptive behavior in classroom settings. Without appropriate intervention, these challenging behaviors often persist and negatively impact educational outcomes. Self-monitoring is a well-supported evidence-based practice…

Although the good behavior game (GBG) has a long empirical record for effectively decreasing inappropriate student behavior, there are fewer studies that have targeted improving appropriate behavior. This article describes why and how the GBG can be used by teachers across grade levels and situations to increase student appropriate behavior and…

Strain theories expect socio-economically disadvantaged students to be overrepresented among perpetrators of school-deviant behavior. Empirical research, however, is inconclusive about the SES-deviance relationship. Recently, strain theorists argued that economic deprivation, rather than a socio-economic status (SES) index is related to…

Managing challenging student behaviors can be difficult for any educator. Lacking knowledge of research-based, positively oriented behavior interventions, educators may resort to punitive, reactive disciplinary strategies. Mindfulness is a positive, proactive approach that may help students with emotional and behavioral disorders improve their…

The Good Behavior Game (GBG) is an effective intervention package for decreasing disruptive behavior in various populations and environments. There is, however, limited research evaluating the GBG with preschoolers. Furthermore, few studies have evaluated the effects of components of the GBG, and of those that have, most have done so only after…

In a midwest, rural, and high-poverty elementary school, teachers expressed concerns about difficult student behaviors in their classrooms. It was important to address the problem because student misbehavior disrupts the learning of all students in the classroom. To provide information to the school that could inform possible interventions, a…

Social stories are a commonly used intervention practice in early childhood special education. Recent systematic reviews have documented the evidence base for social stories, but findings are mixed. We examined the efficacy of social stories for young children (i.e., 3-5 years) with challenging behavior across 12 single-case studies, which…

Potential bidirectional associations between preschool classroom overactive (or externalizing) and underactive (or internalizing) behaviors and language and literacy skills (i.e., vocabulary and listening comprehension) were examined in a sample of children enrolled in Head Start (N = 297). Cross-lagged panel designs using structural equation…

This study examines how the introduction of TeachTown:Basics, a computer-assisted intervention for students with autism spectrum disorder, influenced teachers' use of other evidence-based practices. In a randomized controlled trial that enrolled 73 teachers nested within 58 schools, we used three-level hierarchical linear models to evaluate…

Urban communities are disproportionality impacted by issues such as community violence, leaving children at higher risk of trauma, and increased adverse childhood experiences. This applied study addresses a research-to-practice gap by demonstrating the longitudinal impact of a district-initiated, school-wide multitiered systems of support approach…

The following article surveys changes to school punishment in the United States over the past century -- particularly, the rise of exclusionary methods and the school-to-prison pipeline -- to argue that prevailing disciplinary techniques are out of step with the developmental ethos of education and the principles of democratic oversight. To remedy…

Students in general education classrooms are increasingly being identified as being in need of individualized behavior supports. Thus, this study assessed the Prevent-Teach-Reinforce (PTR) model to determine its impact on problem and replacement behaviors of typically developing students with behavioral challenges in a high-need elementary school…