In my brief commentary, I offer a look to the past to celebrate lessons learned in social, emotional, and behavioral assessment. Then, I respectfully pose considerations for researchers and practitioners committed to early detection, intervention, and assessment of students with and at risk for emotional and behavioral disorders. Specifically, I…

Students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) consistently lag behind their peers academically and behaviorally, are likely to be excluded from school, drop out more frequently, and face higher incarceration rates and a host of other negative outcomes as adults. Federal policy has played a key role in (a) ensuring that students with…

Functional behavior assessments (FBAs) and behavior intervention plans (BIPs) are critical components in the education of students with, or at risk for, emotional disturbance (ED). The purpose of this article is to compare the legal requirements with the professional requirements for FBAs and BIPs. The comparison is first according to the…

This intervention report presents findings from a systematic review of "functional behavioral assessment-based interventions" conducted using the WWC Procedures and Standards Handbook, version 3.0, and the Children Identified With or At Risk for an Emotional Disturbance review protocol, version 3.0. Functional behavioral assessment (FBA)…

Challenging behaviors can significantly alter the learning environment of any classroom. Traditionally, schools have implemented practices that remove the offending student from the classroom, deliver punitive disciplinary actions, or refer the student to special education evaluation. Unfortunately, such practices have demonstrated little…

Children and youth with or at risk for emotional and behavioral disorders (EBDs) present substantial challenges for schools, teachers, parents, and peers. Social skills interventions have been shown to be effective for this population. Meta-analytic reviews of this literature show that about 65% of students with EBD will improve when given social…

The use of functional behavioral assessment (FBA) is an effective tool to address a wide range of severe behavior problems of students at risk for or with emotional disabilities (ED). However, the transformation of a procedure proven effective under highly-controlled clinical conditions to a practical and effective strategy for use in applied…

Over the past several decades, the Latino population throughout the USA has demonstrated significant growth and exceeded that of other ethnic minority groups. This influx is particularly evident in the student enrollment of US schools as the number of Latino students has increased by approximately 10 million within the past 10 years. With this…

The functional behavioural assessment (FBA) is a process used in identifying the reason (i.e., function) for challenging behaviours when working with students with disabilities and the circumstances and/or environment that reinforce the continued use of the problematic behaviour. However, the procedural definition of the FBA in US federal…

Students with emotional and behavioral disorders (E/BD) present unique challenges to the families and educators supporting them. Even though families and educators report that behavioral issues can be identified by age 3 (Walker, Ramsey, & Gresham, 2004), the commonly used wait-and-see approach to intervening results in children with E/BD not…

We review the concept of response to intervention (RtI) as it is being applied to emotional and behavioral disorders (EDB) in the early part of the 21st century, examining how it differs from and incorporates features of other approaches to addressing those problems, including pre-referral interventions, applied behavior analysis, functional…

Special education continues to document the poor within and post-school outcomes among children and youth with Emotional/Behavioral Disorders (EBD). While the poor outcomes are due to a myriad of causes, three issues routinely emerge as problematic in the field. First, the need for early intervention and prevention has been well documented, and…

Personality disorders are complex and highly challenging to treatment providers; yet, for clients with these problems, there exist very few treatment options that have been supported by research. Given the lack of empirically-supported therapies for personality disorders, it can be difficult to make treatment decisions for this population. The…

Children's psychosocial rehabilitation (CPSR) is a promising but under-evaluated home- and community-based treatment for children with serious emotional disturbance (SED). CPSR addresses the functional impairments of children with SED through an asset-based, skill-building approach that involves multiple systems in the child's life. The present…

The authors field-tested the core quality indicators and standards for evidence-based practices for single-case design studies developed by Horner and colleagues (2005) by applying them to the literature exploring functional assessment-based interventions conducted with secondary-age students with emotional and/or behavioral disorders (EBD).…