Describes the religious education curriculum at Father Flanagan's Boys' Home, which combines preventative teaching, praise, interaction, and skill-based instructional approaches for at-risk youth. Discusses the shared Christian praxis approach to religious education, describes adolescents' developmental needs, and highlights teachers' willingness…

Two cases are presented in which modifications to the social attention condition were needed to identify maintaining contingencies for two young children with mental retardation and destructive behavior. The effects of two different qualities of social attention are examined, along with the effects of contingent verbal, versus contingent physical,…

A functional analysis involving antecedent events was conducted with four students identified as having behavior problems. Off-task behavior was measured while task difficulty and level of adult attention was manipulated during analog sessions. Results revealed higher rates of off-task behavior during difficult tasks and improved behavior when…

Describes what is meant by "positive behavioral support" (PBS) for students with challenging behavior, the value of exploring why a student exhibits challenging behavior, and certain key PBS strategies teachers can implement in their classrooms. Relevant resources for those interested in implementing PBS are provided. (Author/CR)

Recognizes the influence of praise on human behavior, and provides specific suggestions on how to maximize the positive effects of praise when intended as positive reinforcement. Examines contingency, specificity, and selectivity aspects of praise. Cautions teachers to avoid the controlling effects of praise and the possibility that praise may…

Presents suggestions to assist elementary teachers in engaging their students in investigating real environments to develop true self-esteem and learn to cope with occasional frustration or negative feedback. One sidebar discusses how much self-esteem is enough. Another sidebar suggests questions to ask before praising a child. (SM)

This article describes a points-and-levels system to improve behavior of students with learning and behavioral disabilities in an upper-elementary special education setting. The four levels each involved specified responsibilities and privileges and students earned specified numbers of points to qualify for a "successful day" and eventual…

This article discusses the prevalence and stability of disruptive behavior in preschool-age children and the use of parent-child interaction therapy (PCIT) to treat such children and their parents. PCIT focuses on changing ineffective parent-child interaction patterns by first focusing on child-directed interaction and then on parent-directed…

This article discusses the inclusion of systematic preference assessment within transitional planning as a way to accurately interpret the preferences of students who use limited symbolic or nonsymbolic communication means. By using person-centered planning as a framework, it illustrates how to embed preference assessment within transitional…

Using a conditioned suppression task, we investigated extinction and renewal of Pavlovian modulation in human sequential Feature Positive (FP) discrimination learning. In Experiment 1, in context a participants were first trained on two FP discriminations, X[right arrow]A+/A- and Y[right arrow]B+/B-. Extinction treatment was administered in the…

Schools throughout the country are now encouraged to implement school-wide positive behavior support (PBS) procedures as a way to improve their behavioral climate, safety, and social culture. Research is needed to determine (a) the extent to which schools already use school-wide PBS, (b) if training and technical assistance efforts result in…

Behavior modification is an evidence-based treatment for children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Time-out from positive reinforcement is one behavior-modification procedure commonly recommended to manage disruptive or noncompliant behavior. This investigation examined the effects of time-out on children's behavior within the…

Students who are chronically absent are more likely than other students to drop out of school. Many schools have goals to reduce student truancy and to help chronically absent students attend school regularly. Few studies, however, have focused on whether or how family and community involvement help reduce rates of chronic absenteeism. In this…

Previous research has shown that stimulus preference assessments based on caregiver-opinion did not coincide with results of a more systematic method of assessing reinforcing value unless stimuli that were assessed to represent preferences were also preferred on paired stimulus presentation format, and that the relative preference based on the…

Externalizing behaviors are a common component of the clinical presentation of Autism Spectrum Disorders and are typically the initial focus of treatment for children within this population. This article examines the appropriateness of Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) as a first-line, gateway treatment for preschoolers with High Functioning…