This practicum investigated the effectiveness of using music activities to reinforce basic money skills with 10 students, ages 12 to 21, with mental retardation in the trainable range. The program used a combination of music and visual aids as strategies for reinforcing basic money skills and improving student on-task behaviors in the classroom.…

The use of incentives by businesses is a well-accepted pattern of management-employee collaboration. Increasingly, U.S. businesses are using incentives to encourage employees to stay healthy. Research in the field of behavior modification indicates that positive reinforcement, negative consequences and restrictions, and feedback have great…

This handbook brings together a variety of resources for the implementation of strategies and programs to promote self-esteem in children/students of all ages. The book begins with an explanation of the principles of motivation which facilitate learning, and a discussion of responsibility, structure, motivation, and persistence as functions of…

The Academic Environment Inventory (AEI), developed to measure students' experience of stressor events and support events in middle or junior high school, was used to study 107 students in a mostly black, low-income urban public school and a comparison group of 49 students in a mostly white, high-income private school. Project students and…

"Fostering Discipline" is a manual to be used in education for families who provide service to foster children. It assumes that the participants in the class have had prior instruction in their roles as foster parents, the purposes of foster care, the reasons why children are in care and their relationship with the agency. This instructor's…

One way to help the solitary student shape his or her ideas in writing is to arrange for the high school writing teacher to practice Peter Elbow's "believing game." This can be accomplished through a conference in which teachers bring drafts of some piece of writing they would like to work on. The heart of the conference begins as the…

PAPERS OR STUDIES CONCERNED WITH THE APPLICATION OF BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION PRINCIPLES TO CHILDREN AND RETARDATES ARE INCLUDED IN THIS ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY. AUTHORS ARE LISTED ALPHABETICALLY. A SHORT PARAGRAPH DESCRIBES THE GENERAL NATURE OF EACH STUDY CITED, AND BIBLIOGRAPHIC REFERENCES ARE GIVEN. THERE ARE 130 ENTRIES IN THIS BIBLIOGRAPHY. (MS)

The present study evaluates the immediate effects of an experimentally manipulated social comparison on the subsequent behavior of lower socioeconomic status black children four to five and seven to eight years of age. The effects of four conditions of social comparison are measured with respect to the children's self-reinforcement,…

Basic emotional and intellectual factors in motivation can help to stimulate the learner to acquire the five major literacy skills: listening, speaking, thinking, reading, and writing. Contagion, or the spread effect in psychology, is reflected in the readily communicated attitude of the teacher toward students and teaching itself. Similarly,…

The purpose of this study was to collect normative data on the reinforcement repertoires of teachers while interacting with lower and middle class students. Previous research suggests that the closer the values and social goals of students and their teachers, the more likely that positive classroom interaction would occur. It was therefore…

This monograph explores the social context of the school and how this context influences, for better or worse, the academic and social behavior of students. It reviews how most student behavior serves a meaningful purpose for the student and how similar behaviors may serve distinctly different functions for various students. It also explores how…

This paper discusses how educators can apply positive behavioral support (PBS) to students with and without disabilities and conduct functional behavioral assessments (FBAs). It begins by describing the challenges that educators face in educating an increasingly heterogeneous population of students, including students with external and internal…

The discussion of sustained silent reading (SSR), an independent reading technique commonly used to support native language literacy development, recommends the method in the teaching of English as a second language (ESL). It is argued that because SSR materials are self-selected, they are likely to be selected at an appropriate comprehension…

Ninety-six high-achieving fourth graders performed a memory task before which either positive or negative expectancy statements were made by an adult and after which either positive or negative feedback statements were given. For high IQ children, performance was higher for discrepant combinations of expectancy-feedback. (Author/MH)

By evaluating her use and delivery of praise, an elementary teacher discovered that its quality, not quantity, had the most impact on students. Teachers can increase the positive effects of praise by praising sparingly but carefully, directing it to students who respond well to it, and ensuring contingency, specificity, and credibility. (Author/SM)