Children with developmental disabilities often exhibit problem behaviors, such as physical aggression, tantrums, and self-injury. These behaviors can detrimentally affect the family's lifestyle. Research has shown that such families should take an active role in developing and implementing a behavior plan. However, families need support to promote effective changes in their child's behavior. This study investigated how a positive behavior support workshop that used the Family HOPE program affected behavior problems and parent/child relationships in families with children with developmental disabilities. Parents of eight children with disabilities and challenging behaviors participated in this research. A Project Director and Principal Investigator taught the six systematic steps to changing behavior. They were assisted by graduate students who provided behavioral education to families, helped families complete a Functional Behavioral Assessment, appropriate interventions, and analyze intervention data. The Parent-Child Relationship Inventory (PCRI) and Scales of Independent Behavior-Revised (SIB-R) were given to the families to study the effects of parent trainings on parents' perceptions of limit setting, parental support, and the frequency and severity of problem behaviors. Results showed a significant difference in the pre- and post-intervention data on limit setting and parental support. There were no significant differences in the frequency and severity of problem behaviors on the SIB-R. Implications for further research are suggested concerning teaching parents Positive Behavior Support principles in a workshop setting.

Social skill instruction is needed in both targeted and universal contexts. This research utilized a universal social skill intervention, Book in a Bag (BIB), to increase the use of a specific social skill by all students within an elementary school, including students identified as at-risk for behavior problems. BIB was designed to integrate social skills into the curriculum by way of children's literature, specifically a read-aloud book using a direct instruction strategy. The results indicate that BIB had a positive effect on students' behavior in the classroom both for students identified and those not identified as being at-risk for behavior problems. Outcomes suggest that students used the skill across a variety of instructional, independent work, and group work settings. Teacher perceptions of the research were reported as acceptable. Teachers noted positive changes in their classroom. Implications of this research for practice include using BIB as a universal intervention to target specific social skill deficits in students, and using social skill instruction to increase positive student behavior.

Student behavior problems in school and classroom settings are of great concern to parents, teachers, and school administrators. These behaviors range from talking out and noncompliance to more serious behaviors such as violence and vandalism. Effectively managing student behavior problems lays the foundation for creating a safe school environment and is a critical concern for all teachers. A school wide positive behavior intervention and support system (PBIS) is an effective and proactive way to prevent misbehavior. All teachers and staff teach and reinforce a specified set of positive behaviors. These positive behaviors are expected of each student. This study analyzed teachers' perceptions of one aspect of a school-wide PBIS, a written praise note system associated with four identified social skills. The participating elementary school served 655 students in 1st through 6th grade. At the request of the school, Kindergarten students and teachers were not included. During the 2012-2013 school year, the number and type of praise notes were analyzed on several levels: (a) all students, (b) students categorized by grade level, and (c) students who received one or more office disciplinary referrals (ODRs). When analyzing the praise notes written by teachers, on average—across the school year—each student received an average of approximately 12 praise notes. During that same time frame, on average, each of the students who received an ODR received 7 praise notes. Based on this data, in comparison to the general student body, students who were identified as exhibiting problematic behaviors tended to receive fewer written praise notes from teachers. Focus groups were conducted with the participating teachers to determine their perceptions of the feasibility and effectiveness of their school's written praise note system, as part of a PBIS system. Overall, teachers perceived the participating school's praise note system as effective in preventing the majority of classroom behavior problems. The majority of teachers expressed their support for both the feasibility and effectiveness of awarding praise notes and reported fitting praise notes in with their daily classroom routines. This research implies that teachers are able to use a written praise notes systems to meet the general behavior needs of most students (Tier 1). However, based on focus group discussions, a few teachers also reported having challenges when attempting to implement the praise notes with fidelity. The majority of teachers identified the need for additional individualized strategies to address the needs of students with more severe behavioral challenges. Implications of this research indicate the need to consider additional options to reinforce desired behaviors of children with more extreme behavioral challenges.

Social and emotional learning is an important element in educating the whole child. When social skills are taught and reinforced in a school-wide model, which incorporates positive behavior support, both students and faculty experience a better learning environment. The Book in a Bag intervention invites parent volunteers to teach social skills in the classroom. Supplementing this school-wide intervention, parents also receive a monthly newsletter informing them of the identified social skill and recommending associated children's picture books, which further reinforce the skill. The purpose of this study was to determine parent perceptions on the effectiveness of the Book in a Bag program, which was implemented in the target school. Questionnaires (N=327, 47.74% participation rate) were completed by parents who responded to questions about their perceptions of the program's influence on their children's behavior, the importance of parent involvement in the program, and the importance of the school-wide social skills program. Parents expressed an overall positive response to the school-wide social skills program. In addition to reporting and describing data, observations of the questionnaire's weaknesses and strengths are discussed. Future research possibilities and recommendations to further strengthen parent involvement in school-wide social skills programs are offered.

Students with disabilities, some with emotional and behavior disorders, are included in almost all elementary music classes. Students with emotional behavior disorders are one of the greatest challenges for teachers. To be effective, teachers must develop strategies and inclusive practices specifically geared towards intervention. With the quantity of students served and only limited class time with students, the music teacher is often unaware of the unique needs of specific special learners. Music teacher preparation has been inadequate in training teachers for inclusion. Elementary music educators rarely have outside support to deal with classroom challenges as they serve students with disabilities and at-risk students. Music teacher training is focused on content, not behavior management. This study examined the perceptions of randomly selected elementary music educators who were members of MENC: The National Association for Music Education regarding their preparedness to effectively manage five areas of severe behavior often exhibited by students with emotional behavior disorders: withdrawal, impulsivity, argumentative behavior, aggression towards peers, and aggression towards the teacher. The researcher devised a 39 item online survey instrument based on supporting literature. The survey was given to randomly selected participants. Two hundred sixty-nine elementary music educators from across the United States completed the survey providing information on incidence frequency, preparedness, training in behavior management, and the amount of behavior support available. Elementary music teachers felt prepared to handle impulsivity (58.2%), and argumentative behavior (55.7%). They were not prepared for withdrawal (50.8%), aggression towards peers (50.9%), and least prepared to handle aggression towards the teacher (58.1%).Over 94% of the music teachers had adult assistance less than 25% of the time and 45.9% never had adult assistance with included classes. More than 74% of the teachers indicated that they have adult assistance with self-contained special education classes less than 25% of the time and 35.7% never having adult assistance with those classes. Forty-six point two percent of the music teachers had no behavior specialist available or were unaware if one was available. Only 3.7% of the respondents felt they had all the support they needed. Thirty-six point one percent of the music teachers had no crisis plan in case of an eruption of severe behavior in their classes.

In the United States educators often feel underprepared to manage student behavior in the classroom, which management is crucial for students with or at risk for Emotional and Behavioral Disorders (EBD) to learn effectively. Research on School-wide Positive Behavior Support (SWPBS) programs has reflected how effective simple principles, such as increasing teacher praise and decreasing teacher reprimands, can be. The current study is a secondary analysis of data originally gathered from 65 teachers and 239 students across three states. Results of these analyses bring principles of effective SWPBS programs and educator needs together by identifying how teacher behaviors correlated with at-risk student behaviors in different ways than the behaviors of students who were not at risk. Using multiple linear regression, we illustrated how students at risk for EBD were more sensitive to teacher praise and reprimands than students who were not at risk, which adds support to SWPBS theory and invites teachers to consider that who they praise and reprimand is just as important as how.

In the United States educators often feel underprepared to manage student behavior in the classroom, which management is crucial for students with or at risk for Emotional and Behavioral Disorders (EBD) to learn effectively. Research on School-wide Positive Behavior Support (SWPBS) programs has reflected how effective simple principles, such as increasing teacher praise and decreasing teacher reprimands, can be. The current study is a secondary analysis of data originally gathered from 65 teachers and 239 students across three states. Results of these analyses bring principles of effective SWPBS programs and educator needs together by identifying how teacher behaviors correlated with at-risk student behaviors in different ways than the behaviors of students who were not at risk. Using multiple linear regression, we illustrated how students at risk for EBD were more sensitive to teacher praise and reprimands than students who were not at risk, which adds support to SWPBS theory and invites teachers to consider that who they praise and reprimand is just as important as how.

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School safety is one of the most important issues facing administrators, teachers, and parents. Several risk factors have been identified as antecedents to aggression including poor social skills, difficulty dealing with anger and frustration, and inadequate problem solving abilities. No Child Left Behind requires all schools receiving Title IV funds to implement research based violence interventions. Second Step, an internationally recognized violence prevention curriculum published by Committee for Children was implemented in an urban elementary school with 66 African American students in grades 3 through 5 for 9 weeks. This study employed a randomized control group design with two treatment conditions; Second Step instruction and Second Step instruction with digital role-playing, an adaptation of digital storytelling, to increase program effectiveness and intensify student motivation. The School Social Behavior Scales-2 (Merrell, 2002) was used to assess differences in aggression and prosocial skills. MANOVA indicated significant differences for grade only. Older students had higher prosocial behavior scores and younger students had lower scores on the program's content assessment. Results indicated that the Second Step curriculum did not affect behavior. Although the benefits of teaching students to respond empathetically to others, solve problems, and control anger have been documented in the literature, the use of Second Step to accomplish these goals has not been supported. / Educational Psychology

The School-wide Evaluation Tool (SET) is a commonly used measure of the implementation fidelity of school-wide positive behavior interventions and supports (SWPBIS) programs. The current study examines the content and concurrent validity of the SET to establish whether an alternative approach to weighting and scoring the SET might provide a more accurate assessment of SWPBIS implementation fidelity. Twenty published experts in the field of SWPBIS completed online surveys to obtain ratings of the relative importance of each item on the SET to sustainable SWPBIS implementation. Using the experts' mean ratings, four novel SET scoring approaches were developed: unweighted, reweighted using mean ratings, unweighted dropping lowest quartile items, and reweighted dropping lowest quartile items. SET 2.1 data from 1,018 schools were used to compare the four novel and two established SET scoring methods and examine their concurrent validity with the Team Implementation Checklist 3.1 (TIC; across a subsample of 492 schools). Correlational data indicated that the two novel SET scoring methods with dropped items were both significantly stronger predictors of TIC scores than the established SET scoring methods. Continuous SET scoring methods have greater concurrent validity with the TIC overall score and greater sensitivity than the dichotomous SET 80/80 Criterion. Based on the equivalent concurrent validity of the unweighted SET with dropped items and the reweighted SET with dropped items compared to the TIC, this study recommends that the unweighted SET with dropped items be used by schools and researchers to obtain a more cohesive and prioritized set of SWPBIS elements than the existing or other SET scoring methods developed in this study. / School Psychology