D. Smith replies to L. Polsgrove's criticisms of Smith's earlier article (EC 133 830) on seclusionary timeout for children with emotional/behavioral problems. Smith suggests that in several studies timeout was seen by the children as a way of relieving the classroom's stimulus overload. (CL)

A survey of 158 educators found that respondents tended to consider interventions that use physical pain or discomfort or social humiliation to be very aversive and tended to favor restricting the use of these interventions. Respondents viewed many other decelerative interventions as relatively mild aversives that they should be able to use.…

Consistent, unemotional use of timeout, without ancillary punishers, is shown to result in typical extinction curves (rather than the steeper gradient of punishment curves) for both autistic and mentally impaired children with widely different abrasive behaviors. Dangers of punishment and the therapeutic value of reduced environmental stimulation…

Analysis of data on discipline problems and suspensions at a large urban high school found a high frequency of disciplinary referrals and suspensions and poor correspondence between school disciplinary policy and disciplinary actions. Students with recurrent suspensions were found to be a very heterogeneous group. Implications for developing…

In interviews with 74 adolescents, high-income adolescents reported fewer misbehaviors and more behaviors which were playful, whereas misbehaviors of low-income youth stemmed mainly from anger. Low-income adolescents reported a greater number and variety of penalties that seemed both disproportionate to offenses and humiliating in nature.…