Elementary schools are faced with a challenge: boosting student learning in an era when students face far more than schoolwork-related difficulties. Too often today, kids enter the classroom contending with issues ranging from bullying and emotional trauma to family instability and economic hardship--which can lead to behavioral problems that…

Motor difficulties are common in children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Although preliminary evidence has suggested that methylphenidate can improve the motor skills in children with ADHD and Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD), the effect of stimulant medication on motor performance in children newly diagnosed with…

Adopted children show more problem behaviors than nonadopted children. Given that internationally adopted individuals show earlier puberty than nonadopted individuals, and early puberty is associated with problem behaviors in nonadopted youth, we analyzed data from adopted domestic adoptees to determine whether problem behaviors could be explained…

We compared differential reinforcement plus escape extinction to noncontingent reinforcement plus escape extinction to treat food selectivity exhibited by a young child with autism. The interventions were equally effective for increasing bite acceptance and decreasing problem behaviors. However, a social validity measure suggested that…

This study compared moral and social reasoning in individuals with and without autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Ten familiar schoolyard transgressions were shown to 18 participants with and 18 participants without ASD. They judged the appropriateness of the behavior and explained their judgments. Analysis of the rationales revealed that…

The longitudinal effects among self and identity processes, and between these processes and internalizing symptoms, are not well understood. As a result, the present study was designed to ascertain the over-time effects among identity commitment, reconsideration of commitments, and self-concept clarity, as well as to map the interplay of these…

Adolescence and emerging adulthood are two core developmental periods in which individuals can develop a meaningful identity across domains. However, there is a lack of studies exploring correlates of different identity configurations. The purpose of this article was to fill this gap in examining correlates of configurations characterized by…

Background: The quality of life (QOL) construct is proposed as a method to assess service outcomes for people utilising disability services. With this in mind, the aim of this study was to conduct a systematic review of available QOL measures for people with intellectual disability (ID) to pinpoint psychometrically sound measures that can be…

Vocal stereotypy is a common problem behavior in individuals with autism spectrum disorders that may interfere considerably with learning and social inclusion. To assist clinicians in treating the behavior and to guide researchers in identifying gaps in the research literature, the authors provide an overview of research on vocal stereotypy in…

Few studies have been found that to assess the factors that explain higher levels of family burden in adults with intellectual disability (ID) and intellectual disability and mental disorders (ID-MD). The aims of this study were to assess family burden in people with ID and ID-MD and to determine which sociodemographic, clinical and functional…

The joint, longitudinal trajectories of symptoms of disruptive behavior problems and of depression were examined in a community sample drawn from neighborhoods with elevated rates of delinquency. Growth mixture modeling was applied to a 6 year transition period from childhood to adolescence, age 10 to 16 years, to identify latent classes of…

Purpose: This study explored the prevalence and stability of behavioral difficulties and self-concepts between the ages of 8 and 17 years in a sample of children with a history of specific language impairment (SLI). We investigated whether earlier behavioral, emotional, and social difficulties (BESD); self-concepts; and language and literacy…

Response redirection and response blocking reduce stereotypy maintained by automatic reinforcement. The current study evaluated the effects of redirection and response blocking on the stereotypic responding of three elementary-age children diagnosed with autism. During the treatment evaluation, redirection and response blocking were evaluated…

Latent class analyses were used to identify subsets of 217 12-year-old youth with early maltreatment histories based on youth and caregiver reports of externalizing behavior problems. The identified classes were validated using symptom counts and diagnoses for disruptive behavior disorders collected from youth and caregiver reports 2 years later.…

Cell phones have been banned in 69% of today's classrooms (CommonSense, 2010). Reasons for the banning of cell phones may seem obvious--kids will misuse them to cheat, use textese in place of Standard English, cyberbully, and sexting (Brady & Conn, 2006; Johnson, 2004; Obringer & Coffey, 2007). These fears have disregarded the fact that today's…