Elementary school students with or at risk for emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) are likely to experience social difficulties and challenges with peer relationships (e.g., victimization, rejection, isolation, and negative peer influence). A particularly salient influence on students' classroom-based social experiences is how they are…

School discipline research has demonstrated that the labeling of student behaviors as requiring disciplinary action is a selective process in which school staff take into account other factors than the characteristics of the behaviors. We argue that school staff react in a disciplinary way to students with negative attitudes toward the educational…

Behavior-focused alternative schools serve students who are identified by school personnel as exhibiting behavior difficulties, often coupled with low academic achievement. Students can be referred to behavior-focused alternative schools as an alternative to expulsion. In this study, we examined the demographic characteristics of students who…

Students with persistent behavior problems, including those with or at risk for emotional or behavioral disorders, often struggle to be self-regulated learners. To improve self-regulation skills, numerous strategies have been suggested, including goal setting. Whereas goal setting has focused mostly on academic and life skills, behavioral goal…

Behavior-focused alternative schools serve students who have been unsuccessful in other school settings due to low academic achievement coupled with significant behavior challenges. In this study, we investigated the effectiveness of secondary behavior-focused alternative schools on four different student outcome variables: (a) school attendance,…

We report findings of a convergent validity study examining the internalizing subscale (SRSS-I5) of the newly adapted Student Risk Screening Scale for Internalizing and Externalizing (SRSS-IE12) with the internalizing subscale of the Teacher Report Form (TRF; Achenbach, 1991) conducted in 13 schools across three states with 195 kindergarten…

We examined three questions. First, do reading difficulties increase children's risk of behavioral difficulties? Second, do behavioral difficulties increase children's risk of reading difficulties? Third, do mathematics difficulties increase children's risk of reading or behavioral difficulties? We investigated these questions using (a) a sample…

The study investigated differences between physically separated second-grade children and their classmates with regard to social position, attitude toward school, and self-concept. The results supported the assumption that the social positions of physically separated children are different from those of the nonphysically separated children.…

Perceptions toward school of 15 behavior problem truant girls were examined and compared to those of 15 nontruant girls and 15 truant boys (all junior high). Consistently, the truant girls showed less negative perceptions and less asocial behavior than the boys. The girls were more variable in behavior and attitudes. (Author)

Analysis of regular classroom behaviors of 13 behaviorally disordered males (grades three to five and 13 controls revealed that 10 behaviors (e.g., social interaction/teacher, directions, out-of-seat) accounted for 81 percent of variance in group membership. Child behaviors as well as child and teacher behaviors combined produced significant…

Among findings of the study of characteristics of 249 seriously emotionally disturbed students (aged 7-19 years) were that half were placed for part of the day in regular classes, that behavior problem scores were related to reading achievement; and that Intelligent Quotient (IQ) was not predictive of amount or kind of behavior problem. (Author/DB)

A study assessed the prevalence and structure of antisocial behavior among 440 Head Start 4-year-olds. Findings indicate overall levels of aggression of the children were higher than in children in community child care classrooms, however, the percentage of highly aggressive children did not differ significantly between samples at this age.…

A study involving elementary students with (n=336) and without (n=548) emotional disturbance (ED) found students with ED exceeded controls on the five ED characteristics stated in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which are inability to learn, relationship problems, inappropriate behavior, unhappiness or depression, and physical…

This study investigated differences between high and low school attending of 38 severely emotionally disturbed adolescents. High attenders were from higher socioeconomic backgrounds, demonstrated higher mathematics skills, exhibited a superior behavioral adjustment, and were more likely to travel to school by private rather than public…

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…