In this "Postcard from the Podium," Belinda Luke describes her first experience on a faculty Academic Misconduct Committee. From a personal perspective, the experience made her reconsider her own views not only on plagiarism--to which there are varying degrees ranging perhaps from students looking at a previous assignment to using it as…

Disruptive mood dysregulation disorder (DMDD) is one of the new child and adolescent diagnoses introduced in the "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders" (5th ed.; DSM-5). DMDD is characterized by chronic, severe, and persistent irritability (APA, 2013) and was introduced for the purpose of helping to address challenges…

Many early childhood educators encounter children who exhibit sexual behavior and are not sure how to respond. Although they have had training in childhood development, sexual development is rarely given the attention it deserves. At the same time, early childhood education personnel often get training in child abuse and in their responsibilities…

Despite advances in evidence-based core instruction and intervention, many students with disabilities continue to achieve poor academic and behavioral outcomes. Many of these students are not sufficiently responsive to standardized programs and require more intensive, individualized supports. While many interventions and school problem-solving…

Classrooms are not culturally neutral terrains, but rather are constructed around sets of norms, values, and expected behaviors that are culturally bound. Low tolerance levels and expectations are an indication of the incongruence between the education strategies utilized by teachers and the cultural and linguistic differences of students that are…

For many emotionally troubled students, adults in their lives have acted like the mountain trolls featured in the Harry Potter books: scary, unpredictable creatures who can't listen and who respond to conflicts with the club of punishment. Although emotionally fragile students often "act out" or withdraw in ways that create problems, and…

Robin Zapotocky is a first-year teacher in a fifth-grade classroom at Cannaday Elementary in Mesquite ISD, Mesquite TX. She graduated from Baylor University in the gifted and elementary dual certificate program, and first met Carl when she was student teaching in a gifted and talented pullout program for third- and fourth-grade gifted students.…

Anhedonia refers to the inability of experiencing pleasure in positive life events. It has been conceptualized as a stable yet malleable characteristic and is associated with hypoactivity in the mesolimbic and mesocortical dopaminergic systems. Very recently, it has been posited as an etiologic factor associated with drug addiction onset,…

Getting in trouble at school is often a student's first point of entry into the school-to-prison pipeline. What trouble entails is shaped by underlying and complex notions of justice that operate in a given school setting. These notions of justice shape the range of responses social actors use to address students who break school rules. These…

Twenty years ago Michael (1993) refined and extended the concept of the conditioned establishing operation (CEO). With this paper he updated his previous treatment of the topic (Michael, 1982) by providing terminological refinements and conceptually clear descriptions of the reflexive and transitive CEOs. In the 20 years since the publication of…

Individuals with autism can be quite challenging to treat in a routine dental-office setting, especially when extensive dental treatment and disruptive behavioral issues exist. Individuals with autism may also be at higher risk for oral disease. Frequently, general anesthesia is the only method to facilitate completion of the needed dental…

Children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are at risk for emotional dysregulation and behavior problems that can escalate to levels requiring psychiatric hospitalization. Evaluating the etiology of such behaviors can be challenging for health care providers, as individuals with ASD can have difficulty self-reporting concerns.…

The "Parenting Stress Index, Fourth Edition" (PSI-4) is a 120-item measure used to explore parental stress levels considering a parent's relationship with one of his or her children between the ages of 1 month and 12 years. The main purpose of the test is to define these stress levels and from where they originate in order to identify…

Cyberbullying is a pervasive problem among youth that has detrimental consequences on the social and emotional functioning of those involved. Cyberbullying results from the interaction of individual and environmental factors. Thus, strategies intended to address this type of bullying must look beyond individual characteristics and consider peer,…

In the province of Manitoba, Canada, there is a gap between the rhetoric of inclusive education and its practical implementation. In the absence of inclusive educational policies and guidelines, deficit-based approaches such as categorical labels for students who are deemed to have a severe emotional and behavioural disorder, segregated…