A review of the use of psychotropic medications for people with developmental disabilities is presented. Results suggest that prescribing drugs based on topographical features of the problem behavior, without considering the function the behavior serves for the individual, contributes to variability in clinical response. Functional analysis of a…

In this Netherlands study, 41 deaf boys (ages 6 to 11) were compared to hearing children using the Child Behavior Checklist. The deaf boys appeared to have more internalizing and externalizing behavioral problems but were no more often disturbed than their hearing counterparts. Younger deaf boys showed more behavioral problems than older deaf…

This replication study found that only 16 of 55 raters agreed on the category of reinforcement maintaining a disabled individual's self-injurious behavior after using the Motivation Assessment Scale. Additionally, only 15 percent of the correlation coefficients obtained were above 80 percent, and none of the reliability scores was above 80…

Discusses the use of aversive treatment on children with behavior disorders. Suggests that aversive treatment should be used primarily in conjunction with behavior analysis and therapy. Argues that the primary ethical concern of aversive treatment should be whether there are safeguards against potential abuses of aversive procedures. (SNR)

School archival records and interviews with school personnel were used to obtain measures of the school-related problems of four groups of eight students: those receiving both foster care and special education for emotional/behavioral disorders (FCED), foster care only, special education only, or neither. The FCED group exhibited the most…

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.…

Results from two studies indicate the nonselective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SRI) clomipramine is more efficacious than the relatively selective norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor desipramine and placebo in children with autism. A study of the selective SRI fluvoxamine found it to be significantly better than placebo for reducing repetitive…

Normal and psychopathological patterns of behavior symptoms in preschool children were described by a classification approach using cluster analysis. The behavior of 406 children, average age 4 years 9 months, from the general population was evaluated at home visits. Seven clusters were identified based on empirically defined dimensions:…

The purpose of the study was to investigate the trajectories of depressive symptomology and self-concept in adolescents between the ages of 13 and 17 and to determine whether primary school teacher ratings of adaptive and maladaptive behavior predict self-reported depressive symptoms and self-concept in adolescence. This study is part of an…

Objective: There is a dearth of cross-cultural research on hyperactivity. This article aims to quantify the prevalence of hyperactivity in schoolboys residing in an Arab/Islamic country, Oman. Method: 1,502 Omani schoolboys from eight randomly selected schools representing the urban population of Oman were screened for various indices of…

In this article, the author recognizes and responds to the three major themes of the four articles focusing on the use of school-wide positive behavior support (SWPBS) with students having the most serious problem behavior: needed research, including students with severe disabilities at all support levels through adaptations, and avoiding further…

This reference is intended to provide teachers with a wide variety of intervention plans for responding to behavior, discipline, and motivation problems. While most interventions are based on behavioral research, others are derived from counseling, Adlerian psychology, social learning theory, and cognitive/behavior modification approaches. An…

A disappointment model was used to examine expressive control in four- and five-year-old children with low, moderate, or high risk for disruptive behavior. Boys' anger predicted their disruptiveness during the disappointment. Girls' minimization of negative emotion predicted attention deficit and conduct disorder symptoms. (WP)

Associations between major or minor offending and developmental factors, family characteristics, environmental characteristics, and problem behaviors and symptoms were examined with 180 youth having severe emotional disturbance. Minor offending was associated with increasing age and parental incarceration. Major offending was associated with…

A urine alarm, typically used to treat nocturnal enuresis, was effectively used to treat diurnal enuresis in a 15-year-old female with depression, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and conduct disorder. The study indicated that the alarm eliminated wetting in both treatment phases and that continence was maintained at three-month and…