Objective: To evaluate measures of cardiac activity and reactivity as prospective biomarkers of treatment response to an empirically supported behavioral intervention for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Method: Cardiac preejection period (PEP), an index of sympathetic-linked cardiac activity, and respiratory sinus arrhythmia…

Data were collected from 121 staff members (20 direct support staff teams) on background characteristics of the individual staff members and their teams (gender, age, years of work experience, position and education), the frequency and form of aggression of clients with an intellectual disability (verbal or physical), staff members' attitudes…

Evidence-based interventions are often unavailable in everyday clinical settings. This may partly reflect practitioners' assumptions that research evidence does not reflect "real-world" conditions. To examine this further, we systematically assessed the clinical effectiveness of parent management training (PMT) for the treatment of child…

This study used a delayed multiple-baseline across-participants design to analyze the effects of coaching on special education teachers' implementation of function-based interventions with students with severe disabilities. This study also examined the extent to which teachers could generalize function-based interventions to different situations.…

Introduction into federal policy of response to intervention (RTI) and positive behavior intervention and supports (PBIS) led to widespread adoption and adaptation of the three tier intervention pyramid. As originally presented, the pyramid highlights three different levels of intervention and suggests the percent of students at each level. While…

The train-the-trainer (TTT) model, which has also been called pyramidal training, triadic training, and helper model training, focuses on initially training a person or people who, in turn, train other people at their home agency. The TTT model has promise of being both efficient and cost-effective. The TTT model may be especially useful in…

The goal of any behavioral program is to facilitate lasting change. A significant criticism of behavioral programs is that they work in the clinical setting but do not generalize once the clinical program is stopped. The authors suggest that behavioral programs often do not generalize because clinicians fail to plan for generalization to occur…

Traditional behavioral plans for children with Asperger syndrome often neglect what they need to learn to manage their anxiety and the underdeveloped skills that contribute to their anxiety. School personnel often identify a desirable target behavior and try to reinforce it through rewards (stickers, praise, etc.), which usually does not work.…

This article describes the procedures and utility of the Benchmarks of Quality as part of a comprehensive evaluation plan to assess the universal level of implementation fidelity of behavior support for a school. However, results can also be examined to determine the level of implementation fidelity across a district or state for ongoing…

In this review, a conceptualization of oppositional defiant (ODD) and conduct disorder (CD) is presented according to which social learning processes in these disorders are affected by neurocognitive dysfunctions. Neurobiological studies in ODD and CD suggest that the ability to make associations between behaviors and negative and positive…

Background: Approximately 1 million people in the United States suffer from aphasia and > 50% of those people may demonstrate recurrent perseverations. No consensus has been forthcoming on whether: (1) a therapy that directly confronts clients with imminent pre-articulatory automatisms (the perseverations); or (2) a more typical…

Secondary prevention programmes can be effective in reducing morbidity and mortality from coronary heart disease (CHD). In particular, UK guidelines, including those from the Department of Health, emphasize physical activity. However, the effects of secondary prevention programmes with an exercise component are moderate and uptake is highly…

Married men and women (N = 1,899 couples) reported readiness to eat a healthier diet, lose weight, and get more exercise (stage of change) and indicated whether they were confident to make these changes (self-efficacy). Husbands' and wives' reports of readiness to change each health behavior were positively associated. Furthermore, women who…

We examined peer-reviewed studies in order to understand the current status of empirically based evidence on the clinical applications of robots in the diagnosis and treatment of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Studies are organized into four broad categories: (a) the response of individuals with ASD to robots or robot-like behavior in comparison…

Meta-analysis has become a popular tool to statistically integrate results across studies in order to formulate more general conclusions on treatment effectiveness. Unfortunately, traditional meta-analytic applications fail to answer the question whether enough cumulative knowledge is available to draw convincing statistical conclusions. Leaving…