Executive function (EF), a set of neurocognitive processes, is central to students' emotional and behavioral well-being. Despite students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) being at risk for negative long-term outcomes, there is a paucity of EF research with students at risk for EBD in early elementary school, an important…

Dr. McGinnis-Smith earned a PhD in special education with emphasis in EBD at the University of Iowa and an administrator certification from Drake University. She is coauthor of the social skills teaching series "Skillstreaming." She also coauthored with Richard Simpson "Skillstreaming Children and Youth with High Functioning Autism…

Social skills are necessary for success in school as they facilitate peer acceptance and student-teacher relationships and promote academic achievement. One social skills intervention that has received significant attention from researchers and has been endorsed by special education teachers is Social Stories. However, the extant research on this…

Cooperation is an observable and measurable relationship skill identified within social and emotional learning paradigms. Although cooperation plays a role in the academic and behavioral development of students, educators may not have the time, expertise, or motivation to target cooperation skills explicitly. Self-monitoring, grounded in…

Social-cognitive and emotional factors as well as behavior problems contribute to the social difficulties experienced by many students with or at high risk for emotional and behavioral disorders (EBDs). The way that teachers and peers treat and respond to these students can either mitigate or exacerbate their challenges in establishing and…

Social-cognitive and emotional factors as well as behavior problems contribute to the social difficulties experienced by many students with or at high risk for emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD). The way that teachers and peers treat and respond to these students can either mitigate or exacerbate their challenges in establishing and…

Students with Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) often display significant intrusive behaviors and need specific behavioral, social-emotional, and academic supports. Given the background of trauma consistent with a RAD diagnosis, it is imperative that school personnel understand the social-emotional behavioral supports needed to help children with…

The goal of this paper was to critically review and evaluate five common social-emotional and behavioral screeners: Behavioral and Emotional Screening System (Kamphaus and Reynolds 2007), Behavior Intervention Monitoring Assessment System (McDougal et al. 2011), Social Skills Improvement System Performance Screening Guide (Elliott and Gresham…

Skills related to social-emotional learning (SEL) are essential for college and career readiness. Failure to use appropriate skills for SEL in school is often linked to several negative academic outcomes, including rejection by school community members, academic deficits, and higher rates of problematic behavior. Social skills interventions are…

School-wide positive behavior support (SWPBS) focuses on promoting social competence through the establishment of behavior expectations that are explicitly taught and reinforced by all teachers across all settings. This study investigated the validity of using adherence to SWPBS behavior expectations as a screening tool for predicting behavior…

Many preschool, Head Start, and kindergarten educators of young children express concern about the number of children who exhibit frequent challenging behaviors and report that managing these behaviors is difficult within these classrooms. This article describes research-based strategies with practical applications that can be used as part of…

This article describes a bibliotherapy program where graduate students work with students with emotional and behavioral disabilities. In a teacher preparation program, 20 graduate students observed 16 literature selections and considered how the characters and themes in these novels could help to facilitate the social-emotional learning of…

The Identifying School Behavior Problems program is a computer based system for developing and implementing individualized education plans for the social-emotional skills area. Designed for use with troubled children, the program systematically leads the teacher through processes of assessment, instruction, and recordkeeping using a menu system of…

The "Handbook of Youth Prevention Science" describes current research and practice in mental health preventive interventions for youth. Traditional prevention research focused on preventing specific disorders, e.g. substance abuse, conduct disorders, or criminality. This produced "silos" of isolated knowledge about the…

The purpose of this study was to determine whether different behavioral subtypes of learning-disabled (LD) children form different beliefs regarding their social successes and failures. The 75 subjects (ages 8 to 13) comprised 5 matched groups of 15 children each differing in the presence or absence of learning disabilities, behavior disorders,…