Positive behavior support (PBS) offers schools a structured approach to address children's behavior from the individual level to the schoolwide level. Professionals are encouraged to include all relevant stakeholders, especially families, in actively planning, implementing, and evaluating the supports provided (Carr et al., 2002). However,…

The study uses an alternating treatment design to evaluate the functional effect of teacher's affect on students' task performance. Tradition in special education holds that teachers should engage students using positive and enthusiastic affect for task presentations and praise. To test this assumption, we compared two affective conditions. Three…

One of the central challenges for a school is the creation of a public discourse which expresses the shared purpose of the school community, without losing the multiple and different voices within the teaching staff. In this article we report on the generative potential of educational conversation, when it is structured around questions which…

The argument of the paper proposes that learning grows out of motivation which depends upon recognising and valuing the distinctive qualities of each and the cultural traditions they embody. If learning expresses a journey between worlds, the challenge for the school is to create a learning community that brings together local and cosmopolitan in…

Programs desiring to offer true alternatives for troubled children and youth can focus efforts through a developmental lens. Adults who focus their intervention decisions through beliefs based on healthy social-emotional developmental theory and practice provide a strength-based alternative, a sturdy foundation, and an oasis of hope for youth to…

This study investigated the generalization of parenting skills to the home from PCIT delivered in a community mental health setting with four urban, low-income, single mothers at risk for child maltreatment. Using a multiple baseline design and direct observation in the home, the research examined changes in positive attention skills (praise,…

Treatment and management of chronic disease processes on children occurs across multiple settings, placing demands for consultation and expertise on school personnel, including school psychologists. One such chronic condition in children is type I diabetes. Children with type I insulin dependent diabetes mellitus exhibit high rates of…

Approximately half of children and adolescents who are socially unpopular are not aggressive. Some voluntarily isolate themselves from the peer group, whereas others are intentionally excluded and often victimized. Although school social workers regularly provide services to this population, there is little reported research on effective…

The effects of e-mail feedback with written verbatim examples and frequency counts of expansions on pre-service teachers' verbal behaviors were examined in two studies. In Experiment I, e-mail feedback on the use of expansions was evaluated in a multiple baseline design across 3 undergraduate early childhood special education students. Results…

Positive parenting was examined as a protective resource against the adverse effects of negative life events on parentally bereaved children's mental health problems. The sample consisted of 313 recently bereaved children ages 8 to 16 and their current caregiver. Both the compensatory (direct effect independent of negative life events) and the…

A positive psychology framework is consistent with counseling psychology's historic claim of focusing on strengths and optimal human functioning. The major articles in this issue of The Counseling Psychologist introduced many innovative, provocative, pragmatic, and useful ideas, strategies, and models related to this framework. For the most part,…

Nearly every successful grown-up--actresses, brain surgeons, and teachers alike--can tell a heartwarming story about the time a teacher gave them the compliment that lifted them up, giving them permission to become great. But expert Elizabeth Hartley-Brewer suggests that there is good praise, and there is bad praise. According to the author of…

This study collected information regarding the direct and indirect management techniques employed by elementary teachers to control inappropriate student behavior and its relationship to discipline referral rates. The study also examined whether effective management techniques affected student on-task rates. A group of 270 elementary school…

Counselors who are really interested in motivating urban youth must come to recognize the importance of a strength-oriented approach to guidance. They must stop talking about deficits and, instead, identify and use the unique strengths of urban adolescents. Success counseling is one technique that can be used to facilitate this process. (Author)

Behavior analysis for changing behavior in mentally retarded and educationally handicapped children involves the classroom teacher in four tasks. (CL)