For three decades after Leo Kanner's first clinical description, research progress in understanding and treating autism was minimal but since the late 1960s the growth of autism discoveries has been exponential, with a remarkable number of new findings published over the past two decades, in particular. These advances were made possible first by…

Concern about school safety has increased in recent years (Sprague et al., 1999), leading to a greater interest in methods such as Positive Behavior Support (PBS), which has been found to be successful at creating safe environments through use of preventive methods and the development of proactive systems for at-risk student populations (Horner,…

In sharp contrast to the specialized therapeutic environments Redl and Wineman describe in "Controls from Within," today's students with emotional and behavioral disorders usually find themselves in general education classrooms. Sadly, many general educators are not prepared for such challenging students. All too often, their interactions lead to…

In implementing its Behavior Research Initiative, the U.S. Department of Education funded four Behavior Research Centers, each to test the efficacy of a separate intervention to improve the behavior of elementary school students with or at risk for serious behavior problems. The initiative also established the National Behavior Research…

Concern about the prevalence of nonsuicidal self-injury is widespread. Members of an electronic listserv for college counseling center directors nationwide were invited to participate in a Web survey to investigate provider experience with nonsuicidal self-injury; 290 surveys were analyzed. Most respondents perceived recent increases in…

This article presents the case of a 51-year old woman with obsessive-compulsive disorder. "Caroline" reported obsessions of harming people secondary to spreading her "bad energy," which is experienced as dust on her hands and in her mouth. To prevent harm coming to others she mentally "vacuums" the dust, creates…

Background: Dental disease is more common among people with intellectual disabilities than in the general population. Improvements in oral health require individuals to engage in daily oral hygiene and regular visits to a dental practitioner; both may be challenging for the individual with intellectual impairment. Materials and Methods: A review…

A randomized trial to examine the efficacy of anger control training for treating adolescents with Tourette's syndrome and disruptive behavior reveals that those administered with the anger control training showed a decrease in their Disruptive Behavior Rating Scale score by 52 percent as compared with a decrease of 11 percent in the treatment as…

Differential reinforcement of alternative behavior (DRA) is used frequently as a treatment for problem behavior. Previous studies on treatment integrity failures during DRA suggest that the intervention is robust, but research has not yet investigated the effects of different types of integrity failures. We examined the effects of two types of…

The overrepresentation of the Black and Hispanic subgroups in suspension data is a national problem and a troubling issue for schools and school systems across the United States. In Maryland, an analysis of student suspensions by school districts for the 2006-2007 school year revealed disproportionality issues. In 23 of the 24 jurisdictions,…

The paper focuses upon the development of self-regulation as it pertains to pupils experiencing social and emotional behavioural difficulties (SEBD) within the context of a case study evaluating an intervention, designed and implemented by the author, to support such pupils within a Scottish secondary school situated in an area of multiple…

Many school personnel are becoming increasingly frustrated with the impact of student behavior on their schools. More than ever, the public perception is that student behavior is out of control. Although isolated instances of violence (e.g., school shootings) contribute to this perception, people are most concerned with the lack of discipline and…

Much has been written about the adaptation from criminology of the "Broken Windows" theory of order maintenance in successful urban educational models. Yet, the manner in which the theory is written and discussed often misses the nuances and feel of the theory as successfully applied. This misunderstanding has lead to its conflation with the "Zero…

Functional communication training (FCT; Carr & Durand, 1985) is a commonly used differential reinforcement procedure for replacing problem behavior with socially acceptable alternative responses. Most studies in the FCT literature consist of demonstrations of the maintenance of responding when various treatment components (e.g., extinction,…

This paper describes evidence-based kernels, fundamental units of behavioral influence that appear to underlie effective prevention and treatment for children, adults, and families. A kernel is a behavior-influence procedure shown through experimental analysis to affect a specific behavior and that is indivisible in the sense that removing any of…